Niall’s virtual diary archives – June 1998

1st June 1998: 5.26am, nearly twelve hours since the last update. Anyway, today's been a great day. This morning got up right early to go into uni to keep pressing my student welfare case I've presented here before. Ended up booking an appointment with the pro-vice-chancellor and being nominated for the SU council. Interesting.

Anyway, got back eventually for 5pm, and around 6pm thought I'd better get some milk and food. However, what would have it but me bumping into a set of mates, and we went for a quick smoke. It quickly transpired that they were going in with a set of other people to the Adelphi nightclub in Hull, a venue which tonight has jamming nights where aspiring bands get up on stage to do things they've done.

Hmm, analog's taking a long time. Just got it to go off and reverse DNS lookup about five thousand IP addresses. Yeah, I know, it takes a while ...

Anyway, we were there fairly early after missing the 8.07pm bus as we took a taxi instead - however, it is a very small place and it felt conspicuously full already. So we sat down, had a few pints, and the jamming started at around 9.30pm.

I won't bother saying who was crap and who wasn't, as I can't remember. However, a stunning cover of Cecilia by Garfunkel and Simon was done by these two chaps who slapped their knees with their hands and that was it. When they started, everyone fell quiet, and this incredible tension built. When he belted out the final chorus, and then fell silent, he opened his eyes which had been shut throughout the song to a rapturous standing ovation from the crowd. It was really an incredible moment, when two blokes, one of whom is simply slapping his knees, manage to capture a by this time packed venue of around one hundred and fifty, many of whom were sitting just below the stage and standing right at the back, and holding them silent to the haunting tune of a simple song about the loss and retrieval of a woman. Really cool that.

Another act who really stood out was this uncharacteristically fit blonde american girl. All the lads were busy gazing at her until she opened her mouth, realised she was American, and then thought she'd be shit and started chatting again. However, this was not to last. With the first strum of her finnish acoustic guitar and her voice cutting the air, voices stopped and looked in amazement. She was really good. In fact, she delivered her own written song called Violet I think with almost perfection. Her chord playing was almost perfect, the lyrics excellent, the beat catchy - I'd imagine she'll go far, and her looks will hardly hinder her either. I have a feeling though she's bound to be lesbian. All her songs were about women, she arrived with a large bunch of other gorgeous women, she's gorgeous and obviously talented. Or she's got this really serious boyfriend. Either way, she's bound to be unavailable! As all the best ones always are ...

Anyway, our mates played second to last and unfortunately I was getting drink for one of them as last orders had been called, so I didn't get to hear much. However, some wanker in the front row went "You're shite. Get off!" to them during one of the quieter bits, and the two lads just sat cooly and stared into his eyes until he got really paranoid. We also helped by staring too ;)

Just before we went home, a kinda weird thing happened. I were coming back from the jacks when this chap passes me this metal cigar shaped thing with african skunk in it he said. One hit later, I thanked him and went back to my pint. Kind are some people.

After getting back it was around 12am. Some of the others, lacking gear, went on the scrounge and managed to pick up a small bit of very nice skunk. We spent our time smoking that whilst playing pontoon and cheat.

So that's my night. Fraid I've got an exam tomorrow so I've got to go to bed (it's 6.19am!), so that theory of women thing will have to wait again. I'll hopefully finally do it tomorrow!

Be happy!

Earlier today ... 5.45pm, back in from a day of politicking in the university. You'll be no doubt astonished to learn that I've been "volunteered" to join the student union council which is the equivalent of the parliament in government.

There'll be more on all this later. I've made some addition to the adult sponsors and anti-spam modifications to confuse the email scanners. It won't affect you if you decide to email using an address listed here (hopefully).

I'll talk more tonight.

2nd June 1998: 12.38am. Blimey, I should be very very tired by now. With only three hours of sleep last night and a day spent drinking in the bar (yes, yes, my exams are over!!! ;) ), and a very full day I should be really at my last straw. And I am in a way, but I'll tell you about that below.

Today was good. I didn't get to bed yesterday until 9.15am (yup, you read right!), and I had my last exam at 1.30pm, so that really wasn't cool. So I got three hours sleep and a couple of Pro Plus have kept me going for the day. The exam BTW was a cinch, no trouble despite never having gone to a lecture on it nor done any of its coursework. Because I didn't do the coursework, I'll be failing this module so it'll be another resit in september. Ah well, just one of many!

Anyway, today was really cool. I submitted my application for the student council by harassing people unfortunate enough to be near me to sign my form ;). Then I did the exam, left at 2.30pm, and guess who of all people I should happen to bump into? Well, none other than the very same bloke who was at the Adelphi last night and who did the Cecilia cover!!!

We got chatting. He's a real chilled geezer, excellent bloke. We went to the bar and I intended to spend some time with the compsci lot before they all went home, but we got on so well we stayed talking till 6pm! He's had a very interesting life, bright bloke too - very talented.

While on the way out, I happened to bump into Sarah, our esteemed president elect. She was waiting for a friend, so we had a chat. Apparently she wants to take me out for a pint. I wouldn't mind taking her out for one either actually. It's odd. She doesn't fit well into my theory of women (yeah yeah, I know, I haven't written it up yet!) as I find myself attracted for reasons I'm not normally attracted by. Before I went out with Ruth, her type was an unknown but on theory good through my encounter with Natalie, the first I met of such a type. This Sarah girl also looks good on theory, but I have no idea how sound it is through having no practical experience. Confused? Wait for the writeup! (sorry!)

Anyway, sarah's writing me a letter about everything so I have something on paper. The motion to prevent non-smoking segmentation seems very dead however and I'm not sure I'll be able to push it through. We'll see though. Laws can be repealed ;)

Anyway, tonight I went down the Lawns bar and for the frigging umpteenth time I saw frigging Kathryn. This is getting too much. She was in the uni bar yesterday I think too. It seems everywhere I frigging look Kathryn's there too. It's like she's following me or something. Either way, paranoia or whatever, she's not being very helpful to my well-being. More on that below, cos that's where it belongs. Meanwhile, I'll shut up for the time being about Kathryn.

Yeah, anyway, I was at the Lawns bit. There I bumped into my Needler smoking mate, he was fairly pissed. Also sat down with a few cainer friends at the pool tables, but I wasn't up much for doing anything tonight as I was getting extremely tired.

So then I got back here. However, my brain began to awaken again (hence my pushing myself way too far again), because of late I've begun to feel a bit melancholy. Why? Well, as I've mentioned here before, I'm finding the realisation that I've wasted so much potential for socialising this year rather disturbing. However, as I thought more about it, it isn't quite that. I'm feeling I'm not doing something which needs doing.

Right, now we need to take a breath. If you read the entries below eg; the 31st May entry, you'll notice I mentioned I will do something about Kathryn. I believe that time has now come. And yeah, I suppose you're asking why? Fair enough, time for the Laura story ...

When I was sixteen, I went through a particularly nasty period of time during which I nearly had a nervous breakdown. It was over a girl called Laura, and essentially I felt this girl was the epitomy of perfection, but if this was so then how was it we weren't together? Now if you won't accept that she isn't perfect, what do you do after this? Well, essentially you go mad slowly ...

I'm going to skip most of the gory details, but the upshot was that it ended rather badly with us not talking at all. But to fully get over the whole thing, it needed to be rounded off properly. After quite some time taken to realise this, I indeed did do this by explaining to Laura everything that had happened on my end during the prior years and why I had made her life so shit for so long. Through doing this I effectively tied up the situation and I was able to get over it (mostly) and move on. Unfortunately, for Laura, she never ever talked to me ever again and her friends do not mention my name around her. I really do regret this happened (and everything else), but I guess she was simply incapable of coming to terms with what happened and so buried it and tried to forget it.

This leads me onto Kathryn. As term draws to a close, I could let it go until next semester, or do what I was going to do which is write her a letter in about a week.

Or I could tackle it now and directly and get it over and done with.

This is a difficult decision. I have little time left as she must be surely leaving soon. I have a great difficulty leaving things as they stand as while they do stand as such I can't get over it. Hmm. I'm being very selfish again. I really should just leave the girl alone seeing as she feels I'm some sort of stalker (see the complaint about harassment bit below somewhere ...). I don't know. I feel ... restless about this whole situation. I don't like it. Maybe it's because we never talked about any of this, and I don't like people thinking wrongly of me. Or maybe it's because we invested so much in each other and it feels like it's all gone to waste, and that just isn't right? Dunno. I know me least of all in some ways.

Anyway, I've decided to write her an email from a non-uni account so they won't be reading it themselves (they should have set up a monitor on my email after the complaint, so any further email from me to her would get read by them) and attempt to put across enough reasons like those above for her to see me. And hopefully she will, and we can exchange views, understand what happened and move on. Hmm. It probably won't be like that, but I think I owe it to myself to jump into the fire just one more time ...

Right, I'll be off to compose an email, and in the meantime, be happy!

3rd June 1998: Phew, it's 5.50am, long but good night. After the small update below, I finally wrote Kathryn that email. It went quite simply:

Hi Kathryn,

I reckon it was short and sweet enough, and got to the point. She hasn't replied although I know she's read it, so either she's thinking about it or more likely, as is probable, she's decided the answer is no. Unfortunate. It looks like I'll just have to get over this without her participation and the animosity will have to remain. The same pretending the other doesn't exist etc. It just pisses me off. I don't see why we can't at least be civil to each other :( I'll still write her a letter after the end of term when I normally write to everyone I write to, and perhaps next time we might be able to say hello to each other.

However, this summer edition (I write letters to a list of people every christmas, easter, summer and halloween) will not be going to one girl, because I'll be able to deliver it in person! Yup, next saturday I'll be in Manchester to visit Joana, the girl I mentioned on the 29th May entry, and as you'll realise if you read that entry she occupies a rather special position out of the women I have met throughout life so far as being in all probability of the most suitable type for me to go out with I have met yet (in theory, according to my theory of women). Hence, I'm very much looking forward to seeing her, and I should be there until next Tuesday, which is great! After that, I should be in Cambridge for strawberry fair, and after that home to Cork. Needless to say, these pages will not be updated between next saturday for about two weeks :( as I don't have access to a computer.

Anyway, as for my day. Well, after sending that email to Kathryn, I disappeared down to the snack bar where I met Rachel and Cheryll. We went into the bar, and were joined later by most of the remaining members of my old block before I moved into the present one. It was a good night - we drank all night and I talked about uni politics and music most of the night.

After, we went back to my old block, and we smoked (normal stuff) and discussed philosophy, psychology, sex (a lot on this!) and genetics (complete with aliens breeding with us), oh and conspiracy theories about Diana's death. That lasted until about 2.30am, where we had run pretty much out of cigarettes, so we walked down to the local 24-hour garage and got more. We then went for a walk, which was nice because it's so quiet and fresh. Got back, talked for a lot longer, most people went to bed and me and steve and rachel stayed up talking for a while longer. It was then me and rachel decided it'd be okay if I came to stay with her so I could visit Joana. Then they both crashed, and me being used to all this going to bed when the sun's come up is now sitting here typing to you!

Now, normally, I would have expanded on our conversation about philosophy etc, and it was bloody interesting and it brought up a number of things I've talked about here on this web site in the past. However, given that I'll visiting Joana, and I was talking earlier about my theory of women, I guess it's about time instead I wrote up ...

Niall's theory of women

Well, it's quite simple really. It's an extension of stereotyping, which everyone does anyway, but it gets taken to a much more intricate level. Essentially, women fall into catagories (ie; rough stereotypes) where by and large they match extensively a derived template of which its constituent sub-templates are of a particular catagory.

How do you decide which catagory a woman falls into? Well, it depends on that catagory. Sometimes it's very quick, as in seconds, or sometimes hours. Sometimes you never even need to talk to her - just observing is enough.

What's the point? Well, depending on how complete your derived template is, you'll automatically be able to tell whether she smokes, her favourite colour, her habits, her mannerisms, her likely intelligence, indeed, increasingly almost everything. You'll know where how to tread on certain issues, thus preventing a lot of potential arguments. You'll often know what she'll like eg; music and presents. In other words, through using this theory, you can make vastly more relationships work instead of faltering over little things like they can. You also prevent a lot of stress too ;)

What's the procedure? Obviously, the first selection you'll make is whether you're attracted or not and how much. Depending on the girl, this may take seconds to hours and definately involves talking to her, unless as mentioned above you already have matched her to a catagory and know full well to not talking to her (eg; she would be too much trouble and not worth it - self-destructive women are a good example of this - not worth the hassle). Seeing as you're more interested in women you are attracted to by nature, you'll usually have better defined templates for them and depending on how they react to various things and such you'll soon have them fitting into a rough idea.

However, as mentioned above, templates are not fixed - they are mutable ie; bits of template (constituent sub-templates) can combine to form derived templates. So for example, Kathryn was quite a departure at the time because she required quite a number of templates from different areas to be combined to get a successful model, which had two upshots in the end. First, it created a lot of problems because certain nasty things were predicted by the model which have since come true (hence my "uneasiness" during my relationship with Kathryn). However, it also meant we were able to go out for so long in the first place, because the model was used to stunning effect to prevent or solve arguments and also rectifying a number of extremely serious problems which came up during the relationship. So, it's definately a bonus. Also, thinking about it, it makes it much easier to get a one night stand too as you can tell them what they want to hear through prediction through the model. But as I haven't done that in years (don't think it's ethically right), and so have no practice, and anyway, I'm certainly not proposing it should be used in this way. However, now you know how some blokes can pull really wide and varied women (most men can only pull a certain type of woman - called slappers ;) ) which normally don't do one night stands.

Most of the constituent sub-templates get supplied by the vast majority of women (like 99.99999%) which already fit partially into an existing derived template. As you get to know that person better, your set of constituent sub-templates for that person grows, and so you are better able to create derived templates for others later. However, occasionally you meet women (like 0.00001%) that simply do not fit well with any existing template. This is rare! The only ones I have ever encountered to do this were Aoife, Natalie and Sarah. Now since, thankfully, bits of the templates derived from Aoife kept me well-supplied until quite recently and the bits of the templates derived from Natalie (and Ruth) in addition have pretty much kept me fully supplied. For example, quite a bit of more "specialised" bits of Kathryn's model can be expressed using sections from Aoife and much less so, Natalie.

There is one more area of the theory that really needs covering - theroretical template extension. Essentially, you use logic and deduction and reason to "extend" a known template according to what you have experienced of someone. You do this normally anyway as you get to know someone better, but it's more of a "I register etc, so therefore etc". With theoretical template extension, you attempt to predict how someone should be like without hard (ie; direct) evidence. This can be useful when you don't have any hard evidence to work from, but it can lead to problems eg; the whole Laura thing happened because I extended the Laura model with lots of favourable items leading me to believe she was perfect. However, with caution, it can be useful. Also, in the case of Natalie, I couldn't say whether she'd be any good as a girlfriend, but theoretically she should be, and as Ruth proved (to whom I threw myself on the theory I wouldn't get rejected from the model), she was. Ditto goes for Sarah. Theroretically she should be good, but currently I have no hard evidence to prove it so from past experience. Maybe I'll find out (I'll see when I go for a pint with her next semester), then again maybe not. But she's theroretically good, so I'll find out if the theroretical model is what I think it is sometime I'm sure.

And that's about it. Actually, I'm really tired now (it's 7.08am), so I'm stopping now. I could go on a lot more (eg; actually defining some catagories), but you'll have to do with this - maybe I'll expand on this sometime later. If you have any questions, email me and ask!

Right, until tomorrow, be happy! Night night!

Earlier today ... Mounted yon biography above, changed the archives into something more generalised. I need to write a letter to my mates in Cambridge to let them know I'll be there in three days (bit close, I know) and I need still to write that email to Kathryn.

BTW, if you're getting a bit tired of Outlook Express, Microsoft are letting you have a full copy of Outlook 98 for free here! It's got a lot of extra functionality and I would reckon fairly worth it, so I have it now on my machine. It unfortunately doesn't allow setting of receive or read receipts like Outlook 97 did though :(

Today will be fairly boring. Nowt to do except prepare for leaving. Ah well, be happy!

5th June 1998: I haven't added the email dialogue as it may piss Kathryn off something awful. My apologies.

Earlier today ... One thing to get out of the way:

This is the last update for at least a week, if maybe two

I will be leaving for Manchester tomorrow to see Joana, and to Cambridge on Tuesday to see mates down there. During this time I won't have access to a computer, so obviously I won't be able to do any updates :(. However, I'll leave you with a real scorcher, that being the details of the conversation between me and Kathryn tonight.

Anyway, last night didn't have much happening - I went to bed early, so hence I didn't do an update since nothing happened that day. However, yesterday I did receive an email from Kathryn saying she'd be okay to meet tonight for a pint, which we did.

First off, I'd like to say a few things which I haven't been able to here. Firstly, I noticed that Kathryn (and indeed her new boyfriend Darren) were reading this diary a few days ago, and while I really don't care too much who's reading this (otherwise I wouldn't be writing it given the large numbers of Hull uni who read it), I wasn't able to say so here as I had to break it to her that I knew tonight. I know exactly who's reading this, so I'd like to say *hi* to Kathryn, Darren, Ryan, Adrian, James and all the others from Hull uni I haven't pinned down yet (including that bloke in Downs D!).

Right, now I've got that admission out of the way, it's time for a few others. Firstly, I pretty much knew really that eventually news of this diary would filter back to Kathryn and she'd end up reading it. I didn't see exactly the path, but I know now, and it's cosher enough really I guess. I wish I had known before nevertheless (didn't have my eye on the ball though).

Secondly, I have been reading Kathryn's email for quite some time before Easter (indeed before we broke up even). I set up her machine so I knew exactly how to look at her email. I partially justify this because (my apologies to Kathryn for saying this, I know she doesn't like her personal shit being spread across the planet) Kathryn is not the type of girl to volunteer her happenings in her life, and I felt that to prevent arguments/silent bits/whatever knowing what she wasn't telling me was helpful. I know there are huge ethical and moral implications in this decision, and indeed I intend to discuss this in my next update, but for now accept that I felt at that time it was sound to do so and I would probably do so again with the proviso that (and this is contentious) I feel that in fact I should not have had to in the first place. Me and Kathryn had a "discussion" on this tonight, and I still hold that if she had been more transparent then I wouldn't have had to go behind her back, but this isn't really a justification, I know this.

Thirdly, I would like to say that even from when I knew Kathryn and Darren and others within Hull uni I did not know were reading this, I did not alter the content or style of wording of my entries here. Just because now it has been brought into the open it does not mean I am going to change this stance. I'm still going to write my feelings and opinions down exactly irrespective. It's what I do throughout normal life anyway, so I see little difference here to be honest.

Right, all that dirty linen washed, let me get on with tonight. I spent the day getting reasonably drunk inside the uni bar, and made it back to the Lawns for around half seven. At half nine after allowing the snack bar to empty I approached Kathryn who typically made it look she couldn't give a shite. That irritates me something rotten. I mean, if she didn't give a shite then why agree to meet me? As in, I know full well she gave a shite, but why the fuck couldn't she be more dignified and helpful about it and say that she gave a shite? What is all this indifference? That's her fundamental fault - she puts on all these pretences and to be honest, it'll be the undoing of her in the end but she won't or can't know and believe it, even if really she does know it to be true.

Anyway, we ran over what happened on each other's side during the period from when I broke it off with her to the present day and I have to admit I kinda knew what happened on her end through prediction through her theroretical model, however I really needed to hear it for myself. And we had to agree that ultimately it came down to (as always between us) miscommunication.

However, one point was that I mentioned below somewhere that I thought she got off with someone on the night of the Lawns' extravaganza. She informs me that this is incorrect, and so I make the correction here - Kathryn did not get off with anyone other than her boyfriend, Darren, on the night of the extravaganza. Hope that's okay Kathryn!

Anyway, I apologised for my conduct after Easter. Essentially, what I did was to act a bit - weird - and among other things, I wrote emails here to her (that link contains both my emails and hers, with appropriate bits censored). I hope I won't offend anyone by publishing these, but it has to be said that they show me in a much worse light than her, so I feel it causes no detriment to her, so I hope she doesn't mind.

As you will notice from the dialogue, I broke my feelings and intentions to her about a week after coming back from the Easter break. I thought from her reply that she was going to choose between me and Darren or something, and so emailed her my thoughts and feelings as I experienced them. She found these to be rather disturbing, indeed threatening given her knowledge of me, and reacted accordingly - by shutting me out, to which I reacted rather badly.

You see, one of my most basic and fundamental tenets of relationship theory is that honesty is king. If a couple are not completely honest with each other, it is a doomed relationship. Hence what I mentioned above about reading her email - she was not telling me things that were causing arguments, and I felt that through knowledge of these things I was better able to deal with them. And I still hold this - however, an ethical question I must still answer is whether it was correct to bypass her or whether to go through the animosity and arguments instead? It's difficult - I chose one way, and now she hates me for it (admittedly, I wouldn't be too happy were the tables reversed). Again, I would feel that there would be no reason for my partner to read my email or letters as I would tell them anyway, but everyone is not me, and hence it is likely I did a great disservice to her, but that I will deal with later.

Anyway, once I realised that there was no hope, I got on with my life, as evidenced in entries below. But I'm still not over her, and I doubt I will be for quite some number of months. I don't know why this is the case, I really don't, but I guess she has managed to grab some bit of me and won't relinquish it.

So how do I feel having had this chat? Better I suppose. There is no doubt that she hates me with a passion. She views my threatening her and invading her privacy as being mortal sins just for a start. Added to this all the other little things like breaking of trust and such and you have a lot of reason to hate. However, as I couldn't make her understand tonight, I have a lot of hatred of her to overcome too. She hurt me (admittedly mostly my fault, but not entirely), she viciously used knowledge of my weaknesses to push my buttons (admittedly nothing like as much as she could have), and she did what I would view as the worst thing of the lot - she did not tell me how she felt honestly. As you will notice from the emails above, I very much told her how I was feeling (bit too much actually), but despite the fact that time and time and time again I had proved to her how this basic tenet of honesty in relationships works so well she still chose to ignore it and do what she always does which is not to show her hand, which quite frankly simply does not work. Now had she, supposedly knowing me so well, been honest with me things would have worked out so much better. But you see, that's just it. I've hit it in a nutshell. That's why me and Kathryn are not suitable for each other - she is simply incapable of being truly honest without having it wrenched from her. Even tonight, she was not going to mention her reading my website, nor that she knew I had been reading her email. She seems to feel that not saying anything prevents you from getting hurt. Well, I ask, in this case has saying nothing prevented you from getting hurt???

Sorry, I'm forgetting I'm writing this for an international audience, not just Kathryn. It's just she gets up my nose. I just cannot see why she acted this way, even though once I was just like her that way. I guess I am a victim of my own advancing years.

So what happens from now? Well, I offerred to have her come live with me for the summer, but it was really a non-question as I knew she'd say no (who'd blame her from her point of view though I suppose). The fact is that she hates me, I bear animosity towards her, and we shall go on never being anything more than former lovers who hate each other. And that saddens me. For she is still the only person who knows me in this university, and I probably her too, and yet we hate each other and shall continue to do so for all eternity. And no matter what reconcilatory moves either makes, we shall continue to hate, for that is the only thing open to us, through our incapabilities.

I think that when Adam and Eve were cast from the Garden of Eden, and it was said that they shall forevermore toil upon the soil as punishment, they got it slightly wrong. Physicality does not really matter, and it never really has. Cogito ergo sum, as I have said before, proves what punishment we really receive for being alive - that of knowing that who was once our friend is now our enemy, that what really hurts is not physical but mental, and that at the end of our lives all this hatred was completely pointless - but yet, we must live that hatred, despite its pointlessness, because we are cursed by that which is called human.

Even if tonight I cannot be, please be happy! And have a good summer, all and one of you, for that is what you are.

12th June 1998: Well, it's 12pm and I'm sitting in Cambridge Public library aty one of their public internet terminals. The lag is terrible :(. So, anyway, what's been happening?

15th June 1998: 5.30pm and I'm typing right now on an extremely fast telnet connection to my web server. Where am I? None other than Arm Ltd. where I came for a job interview. My thanks to old contacts from Colton (ie; Stuart last Thursday at a curry) for getting me this far!

All being well, I should start next week. I don't know the salary or hours yet (or much of what I'd be doing) but it looks fun enough and it's a world class company.

The other option I have is a C documentation job at 250-300 pounds a week. Not bad if tedious work. We'll see if the Arm job works out first I think.

Hmm, what else? Well, socially it's been pretty boring. Just lots of football, smoking and sleeping on rough floors. I may be moving into the YMCA in the next few days, which will be very much a return to older times (exactly two years in fact). On the women front, nowt's happened nor do I expect that to change in the near future. Indeed nor will it (hopefully) when I return to uni next September.

Thinking about women, I've written and posted that letter to Kathryn; I'm still on the Joana one though. When I get some more time to think properly I'll finish that letter to her (it's a difficult one)

Okay, that's all I have time for, so I'll be off. Talk to you again in the next few days. Sorry I can't go into far more detail like I usually do but both time and typing capability are a problem, hopefully if I start here far more frequent and detailed updates will be possible.

Keep fingers crossed for me, and be happy!

17th June 1998: Nearly 4pm, back in Cambridge library again. Well, I'm starting at Arm Ltd. on Monday and I'm back into the YMCA tomorrow. And that's pretty much all that's happened since the 15th.

I did have an interesting chat with Suzy Yates of AIC Analysts about this very site. I gave her the url to my CV as I didn't have it on floppy and needless to say she went and had a look at the site as well.

Now this caused me some concern ;) - I need not say why if you think of the content of this website in relation to a job possibility. However, it turned out she loved the site and indeed, we talked after about some issues this site has addressed - including the theory of women and the theory of post-Sartre existentialism. She's an interesting person - pity I won't get a chance to get to know her better.

Oh - I happened to bump into this on Ben's Isla Fisher site - I think it's funny:

Here ya go Niall - your beloved link! Niall Douglas has had a page up for a while which deals with a whole load of stuff. A fair portion of it is technical, but he's also got a huge, self-indulgent "virtual" diary going on, and if you're the sort who relishes reading VERY intimate details of a total strangers life, then believe me this is the page for you (I, however, cannot STAND that sort of thing - sorry Niall). Of course, he also has an Isla section (from which you are able to get "those" pics). Have a squiz at his (admittedly interesting) ramblings at ...

Self-indulgent??? I don't think so! Hmm, maybe it's time I changed my description of Ben's site to something a little less complimentory ... ;)

Well, that's about it. The letter to Joana is written, but I'll post it next week rather than now. And expect normal updates to resume as of next week - look forward to it! And I'll also chop off the bottom of this ever growing page and move it into the archives - at present it's hard because of having just a telnet connection

Be happy!

22nd June 1998: Thankfully at last I'm using a better html editor than pico - this being namely MS Notepad. Does the job I suppose. I'm also now working in this place formally, so now we can get down to some decent updates.

Anyway, I've upped some new pics of isla here, and I think I'm going to bed once I've ftp-ied up the stuff. I'll do a decent update tomorrow night.

Be happy ...

25th June 1998: Phew, nearly a whole week of work over! And I still haven't done a decent update. Sorry! Let's hope this one works out okay ...

28th June 1998: 7.17pm, been a hectic weekend! Indeed, a hectic week too as I've been getting five-six hours a night sleep each night this past week and it all finally caught up with me on Friday afternoon. I felt pretty whacked actually on Friday but I kept pushing myself too hard and ended up passing out after having three pints in the pub that afternoon. I headed straight home to bed, and believe me I've never slept so good!

I got out of bed at about 10pm on Friday night, just in time to watch the Crying Game on telly. Not a bad movie. After that I bumped into J and M and after a chat, me, M and D went up to mind for all of a six hour smoke no less ;). BTW, sorry about the use of letters to represent them - the Cambridge YMCA is too small for names to be anonymous like in Hull and also, many of these guys are well known to the authorities and any mention here of their activities may cause them to return to serving at her majesty's pleasure given that some have even murdered people and never got caught ...

I got to bed on Saturday morning at 10am after a whole night of smoking. Good but not good at the same time. However, I wasn't to know what more I had in store for me, for at 1pm I was got up by a mate calling round, having a few smokes and before I knew it I was off on a ten hour bender during which I smoked an awful lot and drank an awful lot too ... indeed, by the end, only me and one other bloke were still standing (we had been rolling five to seven skin spliff's you see all night and inhaling directly like a bong). And he caines a quarter a day, so he'll well used to the hard life unlike me ... ;)

Anyway, after going out on the town and going to a party that night, I finally returned back home at 2am. Now, you have to understand that by this stage I was absolutely fucked beyond belief and I was kinda wandering like a zombie. But do you think I had the sense to go to bed? Well, I was going to, except I bumped into D and M and before I knew it, I was up to 5am again smoking. Believe you me I was not in a good state when I finally went to bed when the sun had (yet) again come up!

This morning I watched Babylon 5 and had a few smokes with M and he lent me his stereo. Cool. Means I now have music. I also got a letter from Kathryn, a really nice one. I think although she never apologised for doing all she did on her end of the fracas, she does feel sorry for it and so wrote me a really nice letter. At least, that's what I hope. She's working in a bookstore pretty hard but I hope that either I'll be able to visit her or her me over the next two months. We'll see how she goes, but I would really like to have things resolved better by the time term starts again.

I've had a few ideas about a rant on unemployment, drug use and boredom. I'm too stoned right now to write it and I'm still recovering from last night too, but I hope I'll have something ready in a few days. What I will say though is that I'm beginning to really enjoy this summer. It's getting like those last two months at uni - smoking and socialising till I drop. The same sleeping when the sun rises, the same conversations and thoughts, the same constant tiredness from pushing too hard. Just how I like it! In about three weeks the working foreign students should arrive, and you never know, I may meet some lovely cute foreign girl and have one of the best summers yet. I did say months ago that I had a feeling in my bones about this summer - either it was going to be really crap or really brilliant. So far so good for the latter possibility, so if my feeling continues to form I should be going out with someone by September. Cool. I mean, after the whole Kathryn and Joana thing I think I deserve one decent relationship thing to improve my morale and hope for the future - especially given I have not had a decent relationship for two years now.

Well, let's hope so. Talk to you again soon. Meanwhile, I'm off for a spliff or two and maybe a movie. Be happy!