After having painstakingly formatted all that, and having finished my nerve CAL reports, I went to sleep...

Wake me up! So what if alarm clocks ring? Every morning through the fog of sleep, I silence those pesky bastards by pressing every goddamned button on their bodies. If I’m lucky it’s the “off” button; off too go I to slumberland.

This bloody Fri morn was no exception. Except that I decided to stare at the time, realise that it was still “early” and let me head hit the pillow. Class at nine, so what if I snooze a bit more? Before I knew it, it was 9.12am. Usually I’d drag myself to The Terrace (Earlsfort Terrace to the full-namers), in the hopes of catching the last part of a boring lecture, and be in time for the next. Back to snooziland went I till…

Horror of horrors! A tutorial was scheduled for nine today! I got that sinking feeling I get whenever (un)lucky draw results are announced, so off I went to sleep. Oh, then I catapulted out of bed to get me a good piss before opening an Alpen breakfast. Hearty meal of the day done, my seductive playboy bunnies lured me back to bed.

Here I digress to devote a paragraph to: ah, the soft downy hair of bunny #2. So delightful to the dictatorial touch of my hand. Can you feel the hair of her secret hideaway? Oh, those down they fill her with! Hey! Just let me live my hedonistic imagination. We’re obviously sure UCD didn’t provide me with a classic duvet filled with the down of eiders. (as you might have guessed, the bunnies are just my pillow, mini Dutch wife, duvet and blanket).

Somewhere in the middle of a moving dream, something more important than the missed compulsory attendance slapped my drooly cheeks – my nerve physiology assignment was due today!!! Those bleeding assignments cost you some by way of effort and time, and the window of handing up is narrower than what the Space Shuttle gets for re-entry; namely from 9am-12pm today. Bloody Hell! What was I still doing in be-e-e-e-e-d? ZZzz…

Somewhere, somehow, unseen hands inside my brain hit its snooze buttons time and time again. Thus, a self-snoozing cycle continued till about two-something pee-am. That’s when I jumped out of bed, checked my comp, and – you guessed it – took another trip to dear ol’ Dreamland.

A few minutes (?) later, I dragged myself up to drop a few lines with Lyn-in-da-box before I got my poor tummy some food. Cheap lunch of Scotch broth mixed with Fried Fatty Mince Beef. Not forgetting the toes (toast) that tickled my tongue’s fancy. By the time I was done, the watch ticked away 3pm.

Off I went to the terrace, boarding the #10A, to try my luck in handing up the assignment. When I got to the physiology corridor on the first floor of the terrace, boy was I relieved to see the technicians’ room open – the dumping ground for finished assignments. I performed my merry name writing and student number inking on the checklist before I foxtrotted to see why a “Class On” sign beckoned me across the corridor.

Oh, f*** f*** f***!!! I’d forgotten the CAL for muscle physiology was on today! Crud!!! One darned distressing CAL after another. Thankfully, no attendance/roll-call was taken for this crappy class. CAL, by the way, is the acronym for Computer Aided/Assisted Learning, which in turn is the verbose way of saying “wasted time”. Ouch. Could my day get any worse?

Yes. That was a cheap way of telling you there’re more tedious tenses coming your way. I walked out of the CAL class after poking my nose in for a few minutes, only to be accosted by Ms. Naughton. Not a lecturer, dear readers, she’s just a fellow student. Well, then, pucker your lips for a wolf-whistle.

Why I thought her "arresting" me was crap?

[me walking out of class rapidly, from behind me]

Ms. N: [half-whispered] Nicholas…

Nicholas: *****!

Ms. N: how’s the group project coming along?

Nicholas: blah blah blah

Ms. N: yak yak yak yak yak

[minutes later she cuts across my path to dive into the, sadly not the laddies’, but the ladies’]

[imagine]

Me: the head bone is connected to the hip-bone

Dr. Giles, anat prof: Pronation, Supination… !!$!@$?

[whatever]

3.45pm – I marched out of the terrace all the way to the 46A stand. A few minutes of “atten-shun!” later, a whole fleet of #11s descended on the 46A bus stand. Not a freaking 46A in sight, so I boarded the one of those elegant elevens which took me to Westmoreland Road. Hopped off there,

…bunny bounced to the USIT office on Aston Quay. Half-an-hour in queue, it was my turn to check out the flights. Bloody Hell! There was only one left for the trip starting on the 23rd of Dec, ending15th Jan. The other dates in between were all of a higher price, or so said the girl at the counter. #$@! all. With all the pressure of a late flight booking and a family that wanted me back for Christmas that they don’t celebrate, I paid a fucking deposit of €100.00. After all, USIT said there were only three seats left for that date, and the price could only get higher. Whatever.

Disoriented after losing so much cash to petty thieves like that gigantic “student” travel agency, I once more, triumphantly boarded a bus, this time the long-lost 46A, to get to another travel agent’s.

The clock showed 5.35pm when I crossed the road from the stop to the travel agent’s – they close at half five. I decided to try my luck anyways. So, there I was ringing the bell till they answered the intercom and buzzed me in. I went in on the pretext of being polite to tell them that I was cancelling my “confirmed” unpaid for Jan 1st-Jan 15th/ Jan 4th – Jan 17th flights with them as I had taken my business to USIT.

A tirade from the boss/manager later about how I was silly enough (true) to pay a deposit &etc etc, I reminded him that business was business. And that I had come in but a few days ago to be told that there were no flights AT ALL during my planned period (see, I can plat ‘em, girls cunt – can’t, I mean). He went on again about how “this person blah blah blah couldn’t get cheap tickets from us then decided to pay double to someone else – we had but you people never ask” – you get the gist.

Seeing as to how the time was flying and my stomach growling, I told him in a manner of “now see this” and “I’m a lost little boy” that I would buy the tix from him if he priced it cheaper. €100 loss would mean nothing if he could give me tix cheaper by much more than the €1377 I am supposed to pay USIT. This launched him into another tirade of, well you know the spiel of business people.

A couple more minutes of “arguing” later, I was gonna walk out of the shop if he wasn’t ever going to soften his stance and at least check for cheaper tix. That was 20 mins past closing time. I was quite sure that if USIT could get me a seat, these fellers most definitely had to have cheaper seats. They are a small-fronted shop, but beneath that barebones exterior, I’m certain it’s a thriving low-priced-market business being done. Which makes them richer than the average Oriental immigrant. So they definitely didn’t have to layan me if they didn’t want to.

Somewhere along the lines of the “argument”, I must have stuck a chord within the gaffer running the joint, for not only did he sit down to personally check out different flight plans (something he hadn’t done for a long time as evidenced by his rusty referrals to his female deskgirl), he promised to call MAS and check out the pricing of a certain class of tickets. He even went over some industry “secrets” with me – things which I know so well. Business is, after all, business.

Oh, ya, one more thing, he proved USIT to be a lying cheating snivelling load of crap. It seems that there are lots more seats available around Christmas, flying out of Dublin. Furthermore, they gave me one of the higher-priced seats through de Gaulle airport! All this I saw on the screen of his shop’s terminal after I had conveniently invited myself into the office area to get a better explanation about things. Well, if he does indeed get me extremely cheap tix this time round, he’ll most probably recoup that lack of profit next time when I do get tix for my summer hols or summat. Businesslah datuk.

Having finished closing shop (damn! I didn’t take note of the security code he glaringly punched on the keypad), he offered to give me a ride back to college. Very nice of that gaffer, especially after he mistook me for a driving person. Once more, repeat after me, “business is business”. Well then, skin colour counts, too. Sigh.

I was hoping to get a ride all the way to the doorstep of my house but to my utter disgust, UCD had put barriers on the internal road that feeds my house. Got that driving-while-on-the-handphone travel agency boss to drop me at the traffic barriers with a promise to give me a shout about the tix on Mon before I made my way back home.

Upon approaching my house, I felt for my keys in my back pocket. #!@%!!! They weren’t there at all. Bloody bunch must have dropped in that fella’s Merc. Dang comfy seats got my head not to pay heed to my hips! #%@# @Q$#% #^&*I#W Or perhaps it had slid out on the bus? Bleeding broncos!

Since I was near the Residence Office I made a small stop to report my loss. Didn’t exactly say that I had lost my keys (€30 to pay), I got them to let me into my house. Mary, as the RA (residential assistant) was called, said it wasn’t protocol to let me into my own room… to which I had no keys to! A coupla’ of moment later, I got her fumbling at the lock of my door.

Yeah, I know it’s hard to open my lock, said I. So, she told me to go ahead – probably better I open my lock with the master key anyway. I tried… and tried… but couldn’t get the effing shaft to enter the hole proper. It just languished in the un-oiled vestibules. I made a small joke about how someone most probably found my keys (although I knew I had lost them on the bus/in the car) and locked themselves in with the key in the hole as there was no way this key was not getting in if there was no obstruction. Long-winded puffs later, I gave up giving excuses mentally and put my hand to the handle.

Lo! The door opened to freaking reveal my bedroom secrets to Mary (for that was the RA’s name). “Oh someone must have found my key and let themselves in,” said I, realising after such a blown-out day that I must have, indeed, idiotically left without locking my room OR without taking the keys with me.

Off trotted a cheery Mary, happy to have helped (unlike the other rotten RAs).

As for me, I had dinner before typing this out. It’s 8.23pm as I put the final words to this entry, all the time with the worry of work pounding at my brain, begging to be done.

8.55pm – Grand! I think I will take a nap now.

-FINIS-

"do i cut right here?"

me: yes

"here?"

me: that's about right

(josen, for that's his name, proceeds to make an incision on the midline) "am i deep enough?"

me: let me see... yes you are [josen's necrophilic already?!]

only later did i realise that he thought i was the demonstrator! what a bloody lark med sch is sometimes. mostly though, it's a fucking bore.

Oh, yes, where was I? Ah, about the package I received, this will help illustrate the nature of my postal parcel:

This tree on campus is a-burning...

...with love in the form of cotton candy clouds.

...sure 'tisnt a morn in Spring.

a couple mooning on penang hill, c. 1960
source: local newspaper archive

"H&W" c. 1850
source: re-framed unrestored daguerreotype
from nickito's archives, 2005
note: early photography actually did return
ultra-sharp and detailed images
as any search on the net will show