Yet another post, written with care, eaten with malice…

Yet another post eaten by wordpress. And I don’t quite have the energy to rehash right now, so to summarise (let’s hope this doesn’t become a habit)

• Public lecture hosted by SUAS
• Theme of ‘Extraordinary Lives‘
• Speakers: Caroline Casey, John Hume, Melanie Verwoerd
• Q&A: How do we get rid of rubbish corrupt politicians?
• One answer given: Stop believing politicians are inherently corrupt
• There are decent politicians out there, but the good guys always lose
• Honest men bullied out by having too many principles and not enough brown envelopes
• Women scapegoated as idiots or bitches, and either way excluded from the ‘Big Boys Club’ of cigar-smoking and deal-making
• Verwoerd comment on the need for women in leadership - and she should know - damning recognition that Ireland is miles behind on this front, and getting nowhere…

Leave those kids alone…

Some day last week, or maybe the week before, two articles appeared in the same (rubbish) morning (rubbish) paper. And the contrast between them irritated the hell out of me.

The first was about ‘our friend’, Bebo. As with every other form of communication, bullying has found its way onto the internet and into Bebo. It seems all too predictable and equally all too perverse. That children will torture each other in whatever form they possibly can. And that somehow when adults find out, they blame the medium of the bullying rather than those responsible (for the bullying, or for the bully?). I remember having a conversation with a fairly large group of student reps last year, and amongst them there were I think 2 bullies and 9 victims of bullying. The point being, everyone had been on one side or the other of that equation. Is that how it is now? Why on god’s earth does it have to be?

Anyway, the specific story was highlighted by the fact that a 16 year old boy killed himself, just after posting a picture of someone hanging themselves on his bebo page. There’s nothing you can say to that. Unless, of course, you’re a shitty tabloid newspaper.
The second story was about a school in England that has decided to provide what are being (ignorantly) termed ‘happiness classes’ by the press. Described as follows by the school:

“Pupils aged 14 to 16 will be given one lesson a week, learning skills such as how to manage relationships, physical and mental health, negative emotions and how to achieve one’s ambitions.”

Here’s what bothers me. A school - one school - decides to do something about how frankly f***ed up kids are getting by the increasingly f***ed up world they live in, and papers decide to take the piss. The same papers that wonder why kids end up feeling isolated enough that they would take their own lives. The same papers that do the bullying on a grand scale decide to question why individual teenagers, unsure of themselves or anyone around them, do it to each other on a daily basis.

Perfect example of corruption. When something that could do so much good seems only to do wrong…

I’ve been a very bad blogger..

I’ll be the first to admit that I have been dreadful, and awful, and bad, at my blogging in the last while. Would you like a list of excuses? I can try it if you like…

(1) Work has been hectic

Yes, it’s true. My crazy, wild job as an office admin working 42.5 hours per week on microsoft excel is causing undue stress. I can’t sleep at night because of my ever-increasing obsession with numbers and formulae (is that even the correct plural? somehow I doubt it). I can’t stop thinking about invoices, and delivery dockets, and most of all (duh duh DUH) FASHION CATALOGUES!!!

(2) My social life has taken over completely

When my friends all moved home from various foreign places, suddenly I had no nights off to blog. There was just too much to do and too many people to see. Dakota one night, Porterhouse the next. My bank account is empty and all so that I could dance the night away a few more times. But it was worth every minute.

(3) I’ve been ill..

This is so far the more plausible excuse. I did collapse last week. Sorta repeatedly. It’s amazing how much people panic when you black out completely on public transport. And I don’t just mean the people around you (who, as ever, were remarkably calm and docile about the whole thing - even the poor bloke who literally had to catch me when I fell over). At least one of my friends is convinced I have a brain tumour (lots of wood-touching all over the place). Admittedly given the degree of cynicism with which I denounced this conviction as total nonsense leads me to believe that he’ll be laughing all the way to the bank (or maybe funeral home) should he turn out to be right. But he’s not. So there goes that excuse.

(4) Wordwiz

More plausible again. Because, you see, it turns out that you can log in, and save your scores, and enter competitions, and even if you don’t enter they tell you where you are on the leaderboard. And if you know someone else who has similar problems switching off their laptop late at night because of an ongoing compulsion to play wordwiz, then it only makes it more difficult…

But honestly it’s not the fault of any of the above (largely untrue, ish) excuses. It’s more that a certain journal (the Journal of Postgraduate Research) if you will!) has taken all my nights, and ruined all of my days. That, and the fact that I really did collapse a few times.

Oooopss…