A very short story: A Breath Before

Everything is bright in this palace of light where only souls reside.

We reluctantly express our goodbye before we embark on this next breath of life.
A breath which, much like a dream can last both an instant and an eternity at the same time.
And therein is what troubles me; if we spend a lifetime apart will we still remember what we had?

We recall the life we spent together, but was there not a life before that again?
If in life we forget what came before birth, in death does it still elude us or does it come rushing back?

I will find you in this life.
I will remember.
I can't forget you.

My turn has come.
I begin to breathe in.
And I try not to forget..

A very short story: My Last Breath

It's a short distance, but it may as well be an ocean.

My arms are the first thing to give up. Breaching the surface becomes impossible, as if someone is holding onto my arms, weighing me down.
I slowly turn onto my back again and kick desperately, hoping to float. A soft wave immediately flows over my half submerged face and I inhale more water.

My eyes are open and I'm suddenly aware of just how dark it is. The water doesn't feel cold anymore. I glance up through the water for one last look at the moon but the overcast sky denies me.
I wonder how she'll react when she hears the news. 
I feel sad as I know she doesn't care as much as I would like.
I give two last desperate kicks and manage to breach the surface; a pathetically futile gesture as I only manage a brief cough before going under yet again.

I cough and splurt and inhale water and feel my insides burn, and my head throbs but not as badly as I had expected.
I notice that I'm sinking as I drift off into unconsciousness. For the last split-second of my life I see her face.

Finally I shudder violently as my living body grinds to a dead stop.

Everything is dark now as my feet finally touch the seabed.

I wonder if she cried.

The grave I don't visit.

It's a cold place where in life she never was. A small plot of land in a field not particularly close to where she lived.

To me it has nothing to do with her, other than a reminder of those days when she was in hospital, and the days when she had just died. Her bones have rested there for nearly 10 years now, but there's more of her inside of me than inside her bones. Thinking about a lost loved one isn't something you do so much as something you live with. 

Why would I go to a place just to remind myself of the worst time of my life? I know it happened, every day her absence is there somewhere in your mind. It'd be impossible to say if I think about her every day, I don't know how often I think about her. What even constitutes thinking about someone? Is it just thinking their name? Is it remembering some event you shared? Is it recalling how you felt in their presence?

Death isn't hard on the person who dies. Dying may be if it's drawn out, but death isn't. 

For them it's over. 

Death is hardest on the people left behind. So does that make mourning a selfish act? I don't think so. You're sad that they're not with you for important events, or non-important events, but you're also sad that they no longer get to experience life, which for the most part can be pretty good.

Some day in the not very distant future I too will be dead. The only thing that remains of anybody is the impression they leave on other people. This is passed onto their children, and that again helps shape their children and so on. Every good and bad person you meet in your life leaves an impression on you that helps you to define yourself, and you leave an impression on them whether either of you realise it or not. 

In that way, nobody ever really dies. Everybody is survived in some aspect by leaving a mark on others. The only change is when you die your impression is no longer active. It has taken it's effect, like a forced bend in a growing tree. The tree will live it's entire life with that bend in it, even when you remove your (for want of a better term) "bending force". 

She's survived through everybody who ever met her. 

Especially those who loved her, and who she loved.

She's survived through me, and the biggest testament to her life that I can make is putting to the forefront the parts of me that she shaped.

I'm sitting at work writing to my friend who listens

I'm nearing 200 posts and I've been considering ending this blog.

More and more these days I find that I have less and less to say on this. 

The words don't come as easily, but the thoughts are still in there somewhere.

I feel as if I'm bursting with a creativity that I need to express, but when I try to I express it so poorly that I don't think I do myself justice.

I feel I can be great at anything but I'm good at nothing. Instinctively I want to do and to be everything, but I really want to be nothing that I can think of.

Having cleared my heart I've been trying to sort out my mind the last while. TV has me wanting a life that I can't have. Games have left me wanting a meaningfulness, a purpose, that I can't have. Books have left me confused as to what experiences are actually mine. All of these have left me dreaming of a love that might not exist for me. 

Our society pins love down as the most important thing you can have, but what if it's not? Most of us spend so much time chasing it for this promise of giving a meaning to ourselves, what if we chased something else instead? 

What would people think of you? 

Would you be happier? 

I don't want to talk about trivial events anymore; I don't want to try make them into anything more than what they were. 

I don't care about remembering every last detail of my life.

I've been tempted to end this blog and maybe start a new one which reflects more the direction I want to take my life in. End my "confused early 20s" blog and try to become a mid twenties man embracing life and giving myself goals. I still can't refer to myself as a man without finding it strange. 

I think I need to sort my life out before I can call myself a man.

I think I'll wait until I no longer actually am a confused (not so early) 20s male trying to figure out a world that doesn't make sense before I end this blog. I doubt I'll ever figure out an outlook that makes sense of the world for me to be honest. I think there comes a time when people just stop trying and live with everything the way it is.

This playlist is very nice:

http://8tracks.com/idril/electric-folklore

Respect the thin line eh?

I love this song. I've always liked it, but over the last agess I've had a real big crush on one particular girl and it made me feel like I could really relate to a lot of this song. 

Before I start I should probably say I was in Galway over the weekend and got terribly drunk, I think I may have told one of my friends that I like this girl but I don't remember, I was too drunk to remember much. I then had horrible hangover blues in work one of the days and was hating myself for not having the balls to say what I wanted. 

We're good friends but I knew she doesn't like me the way I like her, but I figured fuck it I have to tell her. So I did. For so long I'd felt there was no point saying anything because it only would mean nothing would probably ever happen then, so I thought I'd be better off just hoping she starts to like me some time. 

This was a terrible plan. 

When I was with the ex (who I really don't think reads this, but if you do eh, skip the next few lines), I used to think about how I have a lot more fun with this other girl, and that whenever we broke up I'd have to tell the crush before I start another relationship because if she likes me that'd be amazing, and if not, well at least then hopefully I'll stop comparing other girls to her; they all fall so short. So I finally plucked my vocal chords so I could sing to this butterfly, and sent my words via text because anything else would be too frightening. It was the most difficult text I've ever sent. Knowing that she wouldn't want anything, but still hoping for that 1% chance she did, and trying to make it obvious that it's totally okay for her to say feck off you're just me mate.. She sent a lovely text back 3 hours later (I had managed to fall asleep early because sleep was all I could do to take my mind off the waiting) saying very nice things and the standard things you'd expect in such a text. I woke up about 10 mins after getting her reply and saw the text. 

What really surprised me though was the fact that I felt pretty great afterwards. I thought I might feel crushed, I wasn't really sure, but I felt unbelievably relieved just to not have this secret anymore. I never knew if she knew I liked her or not, sometimes I thought maybe she could tell, and it made me feel awkward not knowing if she knew. Apparently she had absolutely no idea. That she knows and in future I can be more myself since I won't have to worry about the whole thing is such a relief. Maybe some day she'll come to like me in that way, or maybe not, but at least for now I know she doesn't and I can give other girls a proper chance without thinking I could be missing out on something better. It also felt nice to be able to tell her she's beautiful; I don't know why.

I found some amazing music too last night, and some more great stuff today. This Polish Ambassador guy is great.

Check this amazingness out.

I'm falling asleep here so I'll leave it at that for tonight! 

Goodnight my lovely friends.

Awaiting the postman

I have decided I'm not posting another blog post until this fantastic blog is resumed.

88dates.blogspot.ie

A short thought

I've been thinking a lot lately about the similarities between us and ants.

With the internet giving us a hive mind and our general disposition to enjoy serving a greater good and numerous other things we really are a lot like gigantic ants.

Message me some more ways that you think that we're like ants please.

This song is really great.

I'd like so much to hold your hand.

So I was out this weekend.
It was a very unusual night but I really had quite a bit of fun.
For the most-part it was myself, d-money and a girl who will remain nameless. So nameless girl was going to hookup with someone she'd been talking to on tinder and myself and d-money tagged along for moral support or whatever. She was so cute about it. I'd never really seen a girl act quite that way before, she was so happy that they scored. It made me happy. Happiness is such a contagious thing. I think I get too much enjoyment from living vicariously.

This left me terribly hungover this morning.
Dad came in to me at like half 11 and asked me to help him take the boat out of the water at 12 which I basically said a cold No to. I never tell him no so I felt like a bit of a dick, but he really never actually needs me. He just likes to do things together (usually things he enjoys like boat stuff, but I never suggest things so I can't complain I suppose). I always just end up standing there with a rope in my hand for about 4 seconds and then it's an hour of standing around. He could easily find someone to fill my 4 seconds. I kind of hate doing anything to do with the boat with dad. I appreciate the fact that he has all this knowledge he has accumulated over his life and he wants to teach me whatever he can while he can, but it really gets very annoying. I'm surprised he doesn't ever correct me on how I drink water, or walk, or breath, or tell me I'm blinking in-efficiently and I'll wear out my eyelids much faster if I keep on doing it; and really I should spend an hour a week oiling my eyelids. Sometimes I'd do something and he'd re-do it identically. More often he'd re-do it slightly differently. Where's the fun in doing something if you're just going to be made feel like an idiot the whole time? Fuck that. Sometimes I feel like he just likes to feel intelligent instead of teaching. There's definitely a bit of both. I only know that because sometimes I notice he goes out of his depth in things I know about, like misusing computer words. He has no shame in being wrong though, I wish I had inherited that from him! And to be fair he admits when he has realized he's wrong. I remember one time when we were driving somewhere in town and a bus cut us off which was quite dangerous. Dad rolled down his window and started shouting at the driver, but then the bus driver told dad that his lights weren't on so he couldn't see him. Despite being really pissed off dad immediately apologized. At the time I thought it made dad a bit of a fool for having gotten annoyed at something that was his own fault, but as time went on I've become more impressed when I think about it. It takes a big man to admit you're wrong while you're still angry. And it wasn't very dark either, so the bus drivers excuse was debatable really.
Anyway we went for a cycle together this evening so hopefully that counts as our doing something and he won't hold the boat thing against me.

By the way in case you're wondering, no I didn't score anybody last night. I did get this lovely message from someone though "Fuck off, you're not shit. If you're shit then what does that make everyone else?".
Thanks, this made me feel better about myself :).

Someone who I liked for ages doesn't like me back, it's pretty plain to see and I've known for ages. I need a new love interest. Something that could actually happen...

It's time for bed. I'm going to drift off to sleep listening to this and thinking about what would happen if I just tried to kiss her. What's the worst that could happen? Surely it'd be outweighed by the best that could happen...

I'd like so much to hold your hand.

Somebody somewhere loves you, despite yourself.

https://soundcloud.com/elefanttraks/sietta-carry-sulo-remix
Such a chill one.

So I've just finished my first week in work. A 4 day week. It's exhausting stuff. I get up so early which I'm actually not finding too much of an issue, but it's just I have nothing to do there so it's such boring days. Why can't they just give me some work? Teach me something? And I get there at 8am (so I beat traffic.. If I leave 10 minutes later it takes 40 minutes longer apparently....) but I don't need to be there until 9..... So it's an extra long day of pretending to be busy while just reading news.. I've been seeing mates after work each day though which is really nice.

I had this dream recently...
It was like a dream I had when I was quite young...
I had to wake up from life. I was being warned that real life wasn't the real thing. That someone somewhere wants me to wake up to my actual real life, and that would require me killing myself when I woke up. I haven't yet killed myself so I can't say for sure but I'm harbouring doubts about that being a good idea. I feel like the idea was that if I don't wake up I'll stay trapped in this life forever and never wake up to my ACTUAL real life, and that there are people encouraging me to wake up I just can't hear them.
A life with more feeling. Do you ever sort of feel a moment and you get kinda overcome with an emotion you can't place. It's a nice feeling. I remember when I was younger wondering if that's how I used to always feel, has life numbed me? Have I gained the world..
I think it may have been.

This may sound like a whole bunch of crazy, but I'm very tired so I'm probably explaining it terribly.

It's been on my mind a fair bit lately the fact that I STILL haven't scored since the ex and I broke up which was fucking yonks ago too. It's kinda depressing. It's not from not wanting to really, I've just gone back in to my shitty single ways. She basically had someone lined up as we were ending and was with them right after and still is; not that I mind at all, I'm genuinely happy for her and was at the time, but how is it that she was so much better than me? How am I so shit? I used to think that I was probably the more fun one, the one making the jokes and not afraid to look like an idiot in front of strangers if it'd make her smile, which it never did really, she'd be embarrassed by me but I'd enjoy myself at least. Maybe I'm just an asshole who thinks he's great?

I think I should go out and do a load of cocaine. I hear it gives you lots of confidence. I could use that. Fuck my modesty. I believe it too (my modesty... I think I'm modest.... I am right?). I wish I was one of those fools who say they're good at things they're not good at, who don't care about looking like an idiot. Who can bullshit shamelessly.

I'm tired.

Wallflower

So I've FINALLY been offered a job in a pretty good company. Should be a pretty deece job. The only thing is the commute is a bit tough but I'll deal with it and move out nearer too it hopefully in time.
I haven't actually signed any contract or anything yet so I will hold off any excitement until I've actually started.

Now that I've been offered a job I don't have to worry so much about looking for one, it has finally given me the time to realise that I still haven't so much as kissed a girl since I broke up with the ex. Like I had obviously known before but it hadn't bothered me in the slightest until now. I've barely been out or talking to potential fembots at all. If I am out I never seem to fancy random girls. I think it's the same problem I've always had growing up. I used to kind of assume the worst in people I don't know. I used to be a bit afraid as a child of talking to new kids because I would think they might be horrible and be mean to me. I'm not saying I'm worried strangers will be mean to me now, I just don't expect a lot from them.

I started writing this friggin' ages ago and then got bored and stopped.
I now want to write a different post......

How to Guide: Painting My Skis

So as promised, here is a conventional blog post on something useful that someone may stumble across sometime.

Step 1:
Decide on your design.
I personally wanted a kind of doodle design, so I went for the approach of drawing with markers. If you want a more exact and neat/plain design I suggest you follow this blog on the subject: http://thezarseeffect.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/painting-a-pair-of-skis-research/
Even if you're going to do it my way I suggest reading the above anyway as that's what I used as research and it can't hurt to have more information. If you're going to do it the above way I imagine preparing your design will be the most time consuming part.

Step 2:
Prepare your skis.
This means taking everything off your lovely 2 planks. You're going to need to write down some numbers as it may be a while before you put these back together.
I'm no pro when it comes to skiing so I took down what distances my toe and heel bindings had been set for. For my bindings at least the toe and heel parts pop off the underneath part (we'll call it the "binding mount" for lack of a better name) very easily. There was a small lever you pull up and then they just slide off.
The next part is taking off the binding mount, this bit you need to be slightly more careful with as you don't want to ruin the holes that this mount screw into. So I used a torque wrench when taking off these screws to see what pressure would be required for putting them back on and took down this figure too.
Be careful as you remove the mount as there were some loose pieces that fit against the mount on mine so you don't want to lose these. I taped them to my mounts and taped the mounts together for safe keeping.
Put your mounts and bindings somewhere safe and out of the way until you're finished.

They should look something like this once the bindings are removed.

Step 3:
Sanding.
Your skis nearly definitely have their current design/colours in the actual plastic so you're not going to be able to remove this. What you need to do is cover it over. To do this we first sand down the the tops of your skis so that we have a nice rough surface that our paint will stick to.
It's hard to say exactly how much you need to sand them down, but do enough so that it has noticeably lost it's shine and they now look like an old worn pair of skis.

Notice the bottom of the skis is dull looking, that's what you want after sanding.

Step 4:
Painting.
So now you're nearly about to start feeling like you're making your skis better instead of ruining them. I actually taped around all my edges and taped over the holes in the center of the skis, but with hindsight that was probably a waste of time. The paint should come off the edge when you get it sharpened anyway. A little tiny square of tape over the holes was probably worth doing though, I didn't want paint getting into the grooves and giving me trouble putting back on the mounts. Also tape over the metal at the top to save scraping it off there after can't hurt.
I used a white matt spray paint, and did 4 or 5 very light coats until I could no longer see the design underneath.

Now they look plain and nice and you may be feeling similar to how the other blog says, they look nice and clean and you feel like you may ruin them by drawing on them. What's wrong with plain white skis?
Well nothing, but they're boring and you can make them cool so lets try. Worst comes to worst and you can just re-spray them.

Step 5:
Drawing.
This step took by far the longest for me.
First I drew pretty much everything I wanted on an A4 pad, and then after getting it exactly right I started drawing on my skis.
Here's the very start.

Simple starts

And then after many more hours drawing and finishing I was left with this.

I'd recommend you take frequent breaks as you'll probably be inhaling a fair bit of marker scents if you draw with your head as stupidly close to the surface as I do, it can make you feel a bit unwell. Also, make sure you have good music on while you do this or you'll go mad/give up.

Step 6:
Glossing
You're not finished yet though buddy. You still have what I have since discovered is the most important part to do. You need to gloss these puppies. Get yourself 2 cans of clear spray gloss from a hardware store. I only got 1 can and left glossing them too late so my work got a bit scratched while I was skiing as I only did maybe 3 or 4 light layers.
So to gloss them you're going to want to start with a VERY VERY LIGHT FIRST LAYER. I didn't do this and the gloss blurred some of my lines which really annoyed me. I thought I was spraying from moderately far back, maybe 8 inches, but seriously do a full foot and move at a pretty fast speed for your first layer. It said on the can to wait an hour to do a next layer but it should be touch dry in less than that and ready for another layer. Your second layer you can put on a little more gloss as the first layer should stop it from blurring, but still be careful as if your first layer was too thin you're going to blur the drawings. Just progressively do heavier layers. NOTE: This stuff really stinks the air (it smells nice actually). Be careful and adhere the warnings on the can. Spray it somewhere ventilated, don't inhale it and don't stick around. Leave them somewhere dry and not windy or else dirt may get blown onto them while drying.

You can see the right ski got very blurred from the gloss

You can probably tell from looking at this picture that there isn't enough gloss on the skis, but I wanted them dry for going skiing the next morning.

Hopefully you should be really finished at this stage, all you have to do is put back on your bindings, but if you're like me you'll have to do the next few steps.

Step 7:
Wrecking your skis.
This step is simple. Ski on them without sufficient gloss and they get scratched all over. I took some pictures but can't find them anywhere :/.

Step 8:
Repeat above
This step is also simple albeit a pain in the ass. Spray white paint over where got scratched off, making sure to tape lots of space around it so you don't spray stuff that is still fine. Remove the tape good and early so it doesn't harden with a big edge, I think you're basically guaranteed to get some sort of paint-edge though unless you smoothly sand off a large area but ain't nobody got time for that. Then re-draw whatever is missing. Then coat the whole thing in enough layers of gloss this time.

Hope this helps someone somewhere at some stage as otherwise I went to the effort of writing all this and taking pictures for nothing!

You look beautiful today.

Heya.

So......... How are you?

This has gotten a bit awkward has it?

Maybe we should take some drinks.....

I'm going to have to build myself up for my next post. It's going to be a really conventional boring blog-post about how I painted my skis.  I'll probably even use appropriate tags/labels for the post instead of my usual nonsense because that's how serious the post is going to be.

Anyway, I'm just checking in to let you all know I'm still alive.
I'm still unemployed and I'm recently quite poor, but you can't complain about that when you're living at home and have almost no expenses.

I started working on a little game today, if I ever finish it I'll post it here. I start so much crap and then decide bah nobody is ever going to use that.. I should really just think these things through before I start.

Here's a lovely song I heard recently, and the video is quite nice too.

And here is a really funky artist I'm slightly surprised I had never heard about before. The main guy in it apparently was the head director of Nintendo's website or something like that. Pretty impressive.

It's nuts how quickly I'm becoming quite a while unemployed...
It has its ups and downs but I'm feeling pretty good right now so I'm not going to talk about it.
Out of mind, out of mind as they don't say. They should say it though.

My love life is non-existent in case anybody is wondering. Actually, I'm not going to talk about this now either.

It's easier to blog when I'm feeling mopey, it helps to get stuff off the chest. So when I'm feeling fine I don't want to talk about stuff because it'll probably make me feel mopey. Mopey.... Mopey mopey mopey mopey. Stupid word...
Anyway...

That's why I probably seem like a big down-buzz prick on this thing.
Does anybody even still read this?

Painting my skis

"Now we are starting to get somewhere. At this point a little voice inside you will be screaming at you to just stop while you are ahead. This voice will says things like: “those skis look great right now, don’t risk it by trying to do more,” “you are bound to screw it up, just cash out right now before you ruin a perfectly good pair of skis.” You need to ignore this voice. Find that voice inside you that pushes you to greatness. The one that says “you can do anything,” “if you really wanted to you could make a pair of skis from scratch, much less paint them,” “you are meant to do amazing things.” It is this voice that you need to learn to listen to."

I'm planning on painting my skis to make them look like cool-dude-skis, so that lead me to reading this post someone made about painting skis. 

I just wanted to share that snippet with you guys. 
I think it's a great mentality and it's how I feel whenever I'm doing anything mildly creative.
You won't fuck it up, and if you do, you'll work something out to make it not matter that you fucked it up and it'll still end up better than it is right now because you are beast.

You are beast.

Beathoven

So given the lovely praise from my mate about the last song being brilliantly creepy or something, I decided to go hopefully even creepier.
It actually took me ages to record this because I kept hating how it sounds, I can't do a little girls voice. So eventually I settled with this. I just wanna add that I don't actually know where the microphone is on my laptop!

Tomorrow is my last day in this place.
Really looking forward to getting home. I'm slightly going crazy being on my own.
If I ever have to travel alone somewhere again I'll be sure to download loads of movies I want to watch before I go. It's not nice being reliant on a crappy wifi that you can't even get in your room, and always cuts out before you finish downloading a movie...... Not nice at all.

I'm comin' home

So I had a close encounter with a job but alas it was not to be.
This woman rang me about an au-pair job that sounded pretty cushy, possible to ski everyday as not needed til half4, but minding kids every evening, and 1 of the weekend days would be fully on, one fully off.
Then she texted me saying an aupair they had before had said she could come back so I'm kicked to el kerb. Which is completely understandable if it is true. Or maybe she just hated my Irish accent (I have one?) over the phone as she is English. Them brits....

So anyway, I think I'll come home on Saturday so... I'm really just not having any fun here. I've kinda accepted the fact I'm going to go home so I doubt I'd even take one even if one came up between now and this time tomorrow when I book my flights.... I'm sort of looking forward to going home actually, it's really boring on my own. Although French people here are super nice.

I've no idea what this song sounds like as I don't have earphones down here in the lobby but I hope it's the song I'm thinking of. Probably not.
The lobby actually reeks of dog shit. A dog took a shit like 8 feet from me about 10 minutes ago. The owners cleaned it up but the smell remains.

I've been making another song you'll all be happy to know. But.... It's kinda hard to record the words. It's kind of a messed up song a bit and the walls are like, paper thin so I feel really self conscious while saying them. I don't want someone calling the police or something. You'll hear it in the next post hopefully.
All in good time.

Spendin' all my cashhh

So I checked my bank balance today, it was almost exactly what I expected. So I decided to buy ski boots/poles/bag to go with my lovely skis. Unfortunately I couldn't get a ski-bag that would fit my boots though, and I want one that could so I can put them together for flying on planes. Trek of having to carry them on.

So here is a picture of my lovely new ski boots.

I didn't want to spend over 200euro on them, but when I went into the shop (skimium) the guy was like 219 is our cheapest boot (in french, I was bossing it up to that point but had to ask him for English after the next bit). I then asked was there anything cheaper and he told me I could buy any of the boots they rent out, he just has to check them on the computer for how many times they were used, could get a pair for as low as 50 euro if they were used maybe 40 times. But he also said they'd never fit my feet as well as a pair that only I had used, which is something I had heard before. So I figured what the heck I'd at least try on the new pair. And as soon as my feet slid into the bad boys I knew I had to buy them. They fit so much nicer than any boots I had ever tried on before. Even the buckles were nice, they closed tightly without having to use loads and loads of energy. I got them half a size too small because he warned me they'd get roomier after about 4 weeks use. They still fit perfectly, just extra snug for the moment. I'm dying to go skiing tomorrow now. Was talking to the guy a little bit and he said he used to do freestyle skiing, big-air/half-pipes sorta stuff til he broke his collar bone the 3rd time and he decided to chuck that. He now does telemark skiing. That shits crazy. He said it was exactly like learning to ski all over again, but it's a really free feeling when you're telemark skiing. If you've never seen it you should give it a google, it looks nuts.

I also bought ski poles, which I've combined with a picture of my skis. My skis are ugly but I didn't exactly choose them. I also rented them in a different shop to where I bought this stuff.

And here is the hole in my ski.

Hopefully it'll last at least 10 days skiing. If it lasts that long I'll have just about broken even.
Looking back now I thinks she did rip me off getting me to pay the cost price for them. They've clearly been rented out a fair bit...

I had really horrible nightmares last night. The worst was the really realistic one where I thought I had woken up, then when you actually do wake up you're still kinda freaked. I've basically had 3 nightmares in that room over the last 24 hours, from naps and sleeps. That's pretty bad going. I think it's the room has quite a few noises, there's a really weird smell of kinda like solder or something all over the building, and the 3rd little roof-suite thingy is just creepy as fuck. Why the fuck is that there.

I'm hating the fact there's no wifi in my room too. It's taking ages to download this stupid movie I want to watch, and everytime I have to leave for whatever reason it won't resume where it left off. Twice I've been maybe 10 minutes off finished and had to leave to get something and start all over again. It's at 50 minutes til it's finished now.... Sick.

Anyway, keep cool guys.
Keep it cool.

Knackorrrrred

I'm wrecked.
It was such an unbelievable trek to change apartments today.
I had to get up early to make the apartment squeaky clean so I get my deposit back, just made it to checkout in time, then I had to go lug around my heavy-ass bag, my skis, my backpack-bag which was full of crap, and my camera-bag(which is tiny and light but still inconvenient. I also had my bed linens in my hand too when I was going to checkout; it was cumbersome as fuck.
So anyway, eventually after checking out I managed to find the place where they had kindly printed my voucher for this weeks accommodation. They call them vouchers for some reason, they're just a piece of paper that says what accommodation I've paid for. I guess it is a voucher but it seems a bit weird calling it one... Anyway, I found that place and then had to go back basically all the way I had come from to get to the new accommodation agency.
It's suchhh a chore dragging a bag across snow. It's a solid 10 minute gruelling trek between these 2 places.
So then I get there and fortunately my apartment was already ready despite it only being like 11am, so that was a relief, but the downside was I had to now try find the place that rents bed linens because they didn't rent them there. I decided I'd come back for that since I wasn't up for lugging around all my crap while looking for this place, which turned out to be a great idea because it took ages to find. It did take me friggin' AGES to get to the new apartment though, it's quite out of the way. I had to walk all the way back past the place that printed my voucher again, and keep going, lift my bag up 20 steps, walk across some snow, go up another few steps, get a lift thing, go up 10 more steps, go across a bridge thing, get to this REALLY FUCKING STUPID walkway, which had a 1inch step or so every 3 feet, so carried my, I reiterate, HEAVY ASS bag up those 20 more tiny long steps, then walk across more snow, and FINALLY I get to the place. I find the lifts and stand there like a dope as a maintenance guy walks past me and opens the door for me. I didn't realise the lifts were BEHIND doors. It's so strange. They have these doors in front of the lift doors that only can be pulled open when the lift arrives. Why the fuck? I don't even know. I guess it has to be for aesthetics, which is hilarious because this place looks ugly as, well, balls. I walked into my room and felt like I was walking into a brothel. Here's the room.

Note to self, never buy thin red curtains.

I turned around after opening the windows and observed this crazy piece of room.
So apparently you can climb onto the top bunk, and then climb from there onto this hidden bed above? How utterly bizarre. I had to climb halfway up to the top bunk just to double check there were no bodies or anything up on the roof-suite (that's probably what they call these). Y'know yourself..... Peace of mind is important when you're living alone.

These are the keys they gave me. I think there's probably just about a key to every door in France here.

This bathroom is described as having a "hip bath". The most outlandish parts of me had hoped it was some uber-cool super-hip bath, but in reality this piece of shit is exactly what I was expecting. What the fuck is the point. I guess we just don't have that concept back home, and for good reason.

Anyway, I dumped my bags off and went back to look for my linens. Walked around for about half an hour before finding what i thought was the place. It closed at 12 which was just as I arrived and was to re-open at 2. So I basically wandered around for about 2 hours trying to find wifi so I could apply to jobs and couldn't get anything anywhere. Seriously. What the fuck France.

So at 2 I wander back to this place, stumble my French til she tells me in English that I'm at the wrong place and the other place is closed til 3 she thinks. So I wander around some more and get directions from some other Frenchie to the "lingerie", that's what that shit is called, which indeed is closed til 3, so I walk all the way home, and come back an hour later and finally get my stupid bed-linens.

Christ. You'd think they'd just leave that shit in your room for you. It's kinda nuts it's not free too, but whattaya gonna do.

In other news I had a really fun day yesterday. I was skiing with my friend and 2 of his mates which was nice to finally actually talk to people, and skiing with people is so much less tiring. You have to stop at every junction to clarify with everybody else where we're going. It was so much easier than just bombing it down as fast as I'm comfortable with (cos that's how I roll baby) and going back up.

Oh I forgot to mention. There's no wifi in this fucking room so I've to sit in the cold but thankfully indoor market area at the 6th floor but also it's ground floor on one side of the building to get it. And the wifi here is soooo shit..... I want to download a movie but I can't find any movie download links, and I also can't use stupid putty to access my server to move files to the public folder so I can download movies I already have.
It's SO FUCKING ANNOYING.

I think I'll have to just try sleep.... Or make another phat song.

A song in an evening.

A productive day some wouldn't say.

It's literally totally shit but it was fun to make and it fills you in a little on good old Bob.
Actually, I mean, expect to hear this shit on MTV soon.

It's funny that right after I made this my friend Conor rang me to say he was nearby so we chatted for a while. Apparently he's going to be living nearer me for a while, possibly for good all going well for him.

I didn't realise Morcheeba had a new album out. I'm such a shit fan.

SO MUCH BLOG WHERE TO BEGIN!!

Ok, so I've basically 3 posts to make here.
1. 2 things that I had been meaning to write about for about a year now but kept fobbing it off. It'll be short.
2. pics and shit about my day today.
3. cool shiz that is well dope.

1- Random overdue stuff.
So first up, what are these mysterious things I've been meaning to write about...

The first one is a little embarrassing I guess.

One time when I was very little I was at home from school because I was sick. For some reason I was watching some really weird documentary because back in those days I had a choice of 6 tv channels because I'm pretty sure it was even before TV3 and TG4 (or whatever it was called back then) doesn't count because ew who understands Irish. So anyway there was little me watching this documentary that I thought was about music, but looking back it actually must have been about stripping but that was just so over my head as I was honestly about 6 or 7. I'm not sure how it was daytime tv, maybe it was mostly innocent, but there was one part that just stuck with me. The women being interviewed had REALLY long tongues, and I was a little boy and mildly infatuated with snakes so I thought this was the coolest thing since tomagotchis. So these "ladies" were talking about how they did stretches for their tongue everyday to get them to be so long and flexible. I literally had no idea why they wanted such long tongues (I still don't really know why, it's kinda gross seeing a really long tongue, but presumably it's somehow related to blowies) but I still thought the concept of having a really long tongue was like a superpower nearly.

Honestly, who wants that shit? She looks like an attractive girl but my god I wouldn't be rushing after her. Imagine kissing her. She'd be able to tickle your tonsils with that monstrosity. Actually that sounds hilarious. Imagine having your tonsils tickled..... Hmmmmm... May have to review my thoughts on this..... Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... Nah, still a no-go. I'd probably be suffocated.
Anyway, my point here is just how it's funny how children (or at least child-me) look on things in such a different way. Such different things are considered cool for totally different reasons as you grow up.

The second random thing I've mentioned is something that I wanna just throw out there and see if any other lads (or even fembots I suppose) are guilty of this...
Did you ever pause movies growing up when there were boobs on display? I have such vivid memories of watching The 5th Element on VCR (midweek movie recording with the classic galaxy ads, such a nostalgia watch now) with my cousin and pausing at the bit where Mila Jovovich changes her top in the background. It was an out of focus background boob, but it was boob none-the-less. We'd be all to ready to press play in case one of my parents came in, but it was worth the hassle. It was boob and it was ours to see. Our boob. This is what a boob was. This was what men live for and as far as we could tell it was awesome!
Kids these days have it so friggin' easy. If they want to see some boob all they have to do is open incognito window - type boob into the google search bar - go to images - BAM. Hundreds of boobs. I don't know how they cope. If the first time I saw boob it was in a google search and I was flooded with hundred of the fleshy blobs I think my little brain would have just crashed. I hope I don't sound like a pervy child here because I really wasn't. This was about the extent of my boob viewing til I was about 14.
It's funny how boys from the age of about 11-17 call each other gay the whole time, or at least in Ireland when I was growing up that was the case. I used to be actually worried that maybe I was gay just because people called each other gay so often. I never once would have thought, well, I like these boobs and peen/man is not for me sooooooo...... I was far too insecure as most teenagers are. I've actually talked about this before.

2- Today - (the internet went last night so this is now yesterday)!
Ok so here's some pictures from my day today.

I was walking around aimlessly killing time earlier (I thought I was waiting for my friend to come visit me but he got too busy at work) when I saw this ice sculptor dude.

He was carving a pretty sweet 2014 into a block of ice with a chainsaw and busting the occasional dance move to the loud french pop music. it was very cool.

There was a bit of a crowd around him and I took my share of photos and was in the process of buzzing off when I heard a noise and had to turn around.

Yeahhh that's right buddy, that's a blowtorch in his left hand. Naturally I turned around and was all what the shit's he gonna do with this. So he started doing some more dancing and lighting that ice on fiyaaaa. Well. Not actually on fire, but he was melting the shit out of it, and it ended up looking really cool and see-through. Then I eventually decided to retreat to my room.

The finished product with some people from the crowd.

I was in my room nice and I saw the snow-groomer thingy going and it looked quite amazing so I took a picture. I should say this is the nursery slopes which is visible from my balcony, I'll talk about it later. So being happy with myself I took the pictures off my camera and was chilling out listening to Skye when I heard all this banging. At first I was thinking shiiiiiiiiit are the walls that thin? The neighbours must be seriously pissed off. Then I realised it was fireworks outside so I went to my balcony and couldn't see them which was disappointing. I went back inside and after about 5 minutes of humming and hawing and expecting them to stop any second I put on my shoes, grabbed the camera and headed downstairs. And of course it was so typical, the instant I got outside I just saw a firework go off and people started whistling. It was over. I did realise there was some sorta event going on though by the bottom of the slopes so I mosied over and saw what became of the second block of ice.

 Pretty cool no?

There was music playing and this wee lass doing balerina shit in that plastic ball. It wasn't terribly exciting to be honest. Although they were giving out free hot chocolate and vin-chauds.

The hot-choco was pretty muck, but the vin-chaud was delish. I plonked it in the snow and took a picture. It's very exciting. The problem was that after I did this it was no longer a vin-chaud. The snow cooled the crap out of it.

And here's a piccy of the bell-tower which is visible from the front of the apartment block.

So back to the nursery slope. It's definitely the best slope to have visible from your balcony. Kids are friggin' hilarious. I was standing out there for maybe 5 minutes and in that time I saw one kid fall over at the start of the drag lift and get dragged along the ground the whole way up to the top of the lift. And I saw one kid go over this little ramp thingy, and she snow-ploughed too hard so her skis slipped outwards and she ended up being stuck doing the splits over the jump. It was gas altogether.

3- Stuff I enjoy.
So finally the "cool shiz that is well dope.".

First off. This is Skye Edwards from Morcheeba.
She's my favourite famous person. Watch this video and you'll see why.
She's soooo sweet. The bit about not telling a wish, awwww. And the music is so good.

Here's this pretty good blog I've been reading lately. It's this nursing student from 'merica, she's funny I think, and the fact her blog's name is a dragonballz pun is pretty cool in a totally uncool way.
If you're too lazy to click the link, there's these 2 videos in it. They're super cool so I'm going to link one of them here anyway because I know most of you won't bother even though maybe you should.

4- Today again.
This is a bonus 4th section (woooo) because I had written most of the above yesterday before the internet went.
So I rented skiis today, got up early and skiied my unfit ass off until after a pathetic 2 and a half hours I had to take an early lunch because I was completely knackered. I say an early lunch but all I ate was an apple. It's so exhausting skiing by yourself, you basically just don't stop ever. I NEEED breaks. So come half 11 I'm back in my apartment and I lie down and wake up an hour later, still exhausted. So I snooze another hour and then hit them slopes again. The second session was way more fun as I was feeling a bit more confident again, and I was listening to music in my cool earphone-hat instead of wearing a helment (which is far too warm). So blah blah I was skiing, why are you telling me this you may be asking yourself. You knew I was going to be going skiing, so who gives a crap? Well I'll tell you, my wallet gives a crap. I went to return the skiis when yer wan in the shop points out to me that I've totally broken one of them...... UH OH..... I didn't even notice it, but under the binding the edge of the ski had pushed out somehow leaving a hole in the bottom of the ski... They basically told me the ski is irreparable and it'd be going in the bin. I don't think my travel insurance covered it and I hadn't taken out insurance with them so basically I had to pay for it all. I was kinda like fuuuuuuuckfuckfuckfuck since I had no idea whatsoever how much they'd charge. I figured I'd been skiing fine on the ski though so I may as well ask if I could keep it if I was going to be paying for it, to which they replied yeah sure it was only going to go in the bin. So I'm 218 euro down which was a little less than I expected thankfully. She said they charged me the price they buy them for which is like 35% less than I would be able to buy it for, which at the time sounded like a sweet deal but I've since considered that it was probably last years skis. So they've had a solid 5 months probably of renting it out most weeks I imagine so it's been worn down a lot. Did they overcharge me? I dunno... I was too exhausted to care to be honest. At least now I have a pair of skis which work, even if one of them may snap in half as they warned me. Also at least I have bindings too so if I ever want to buy new skiis I won't need to buy bindings! I still need to buy ski-boots though. I hadn't even planned on buying skiis but it can't hurt to have a bad pair anyway. I can ski over rocks now and not worry about my skiis! Although I'll still have to worry about the fleshpod in which I reside.

I think I've linked this song loads of times but it really is an awesome song to ski to.

Ok I'm knackered. I'm going to watch a movie. PEACE.

Day 2 in the land of Frenchies

This picture happened to be on my camera from the day before I left Dublin. That'll be my lil bonsai tree  on the window-sill and it will most certainly be dead when I return to Ireland if it is not already dead. It is truely withered as fuck.

I've always thought bonsai trees were cool, so I bought this one and it was all going fine, and very little effort until I moved back home. I for some reason decided to leave the little fella in the little couch area beside our kitchen, probably for more sunlight or something. But since I spend precious little time in this area I ended up completely forgetting to water the chap for about 3 weeks. So it's poor little leaf-eens were falling off like mad yokes, abandoning ship. 

Also visible in this picture are:

• My lovely slippers; I love them. 
• My bedroom window; it doesn't keep the cold out very well, or noise out. 
• My "condom" hat; it's black.
• My upside-down mouse; it's upside down because it's unplugged and I just plonked it there. LOL!
• My curtains; they're typical.
• My wardrobe door; it's a very old wardrobe with a long long mysterious history. It was once owned by one of my dad's aunts or maybe my grandfather or something; it is quite small which is good because it means it fits in my room.
• And last, and by far the least, my old i-pod mini; It still has music on it and works when it's plugged in, but dies immediately once disconnected. It's fun to look at the music I used to listen to though.

Ok so here is a view of the apartment that is my home until Saturday, and the next picture is the view as you walk out of the apartment building.

It's quite nice really for the price I paid. Although it is a little cold at night since the blankets are as thin as............. I'm REALLY stumped for a simile... As thin as paper. Whatever, shit one, I don't care (I do. You know fully well how disappointed I am at myself for that one). I've wacked the working radiator onto full wack for tonight so hopefully I won't be in the fetal position under my ski-jacket again tonight.

So what is going on. Well it seems this resort is quite a French one. Or maybe just the fact that I'm all alone means I just realise more than usual that I'm a foreigner. I've barely heard anybody speak English since I got here. I just wandered around all day basically today. I didn't apply for any jobs but I found at least 2 jobs online that I can apply for tomorrow. I've to travel to drop in the cv to one of them, the other is a phone call. It'd be for a worse job but has more hours. I'll fill you guys in with how that goes.

So I think I'm going to flick on "Dances with wolves" as I have it on my laptop and it's one of my Dad's favourite movies so I figure I should probably re-watch it as I can't remember it at all. Probably last saw it when I was about 12.

Here's a pretty song that's quite popular right now.

And here's another song that I really really like.

I am here in Les Menuires

Comin' at ya live. Well. Not live, but alive.

So I'm completely fucking knackered after a day of travelling and waiting and dosing off and not enough eating. I went for a few goodbye drinks with the lads last night, got home at around half 2am and had to be up at 5am. It was weird because it was pointed out that it was probably the last time we would get a taxi home like that together, possibly even the last time we were all together in one place. It made me feel a bit of regret that it wasn't some crazy night, or that I didn't go out strongggg on stephen's day but I was too run-down then to enjoy it to be fair.....

I think I was snoring on the bus, and I had no friends on it so I had nobody to ask if I was. I also woke up expecting to get sick at one stage but thankfully I didn't. It was a horrible sensation.

Ok I'm falling asleep here.

I'll hit this up 2mw and post up some piccies.