“A shapeless piece of steel: that’s all I claim to be.
This hammer pounds to give me form, its flame it melts my dreams.
I glow with fire and fury as I’m twisted like a vine.
My final shape, my final form, I’m sure I’m bound to find.”

Tonight I picked up my guitar and starting playing through some stuff…somehow in my picking I began to play this song.

At the end of last year, I finally understood what Bebo was singing about. The anguish and confusion as you are broken and stretched; moulded into what you were meant to be was something I never really experienced. I still can’t listen to much Bebo, but this is one song I can truely identify with now and though I don’t think I’ve even listened to it in this past year I have played it on occasion, to remind myself that I’m not alone, and better things are to come.

This week has been filled with games programming and video editing (and not enough FET). These past three night’s I’ve been in bed at 4:30am, 5am and 3:30am - hopefully a little earlier tonight! Two of those nights I was in the lab working, and still didn’t manage to get very much done as it takes so long to find tutorials on the net and our course has not provided them. The ranting about the ridiculous make up of final year has been done so many times to so many people that I refuse to repeat it all again here.

On tuesday night the boys from Monkstown came over and we decided we’d make an impromptu video. Afterwards I went into the labs and edited it together (only to have to do it all again the next day - don’t ask!). If you’d like to the see the result, visit my design diary. All of this was completely improvised - hence the pauses and people talking over eachother - I think the boys did a great job under the circumstances!

title taken from “The Hammer Holds” by Bebo Norman

taken from my design diary (which is updated weekly even if rockshore is not!).

This weekend (thursday to sunday) I was away at Irish Conference in Kilkenny instead of being in class. I’d love to say I regret not being at class because I’m sure I missed something important (not least getting to chat to one of the guys about my project - I could really do with some confirmation that I’m not making a huge mistake going down this road!) but I can honestly say I believe I was meant to be at that weekend. The teaching of the weekend was centred on Romans 12 v1-2.

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship.”

If we offer our lives fully to God, we do nothing for our own self satisfaction, and just as a child glues rubbish together to make a present for his father, we must treat everything we do as a project to please our Heavenly Father.

The implications of this are huge. It is a radical and unthinkable concept for the way we live today. Everything is about self-gain and self-gratification. We do things we don’t enjoy just to get them out of the way and move onto something more enjoyable. I am a selfish man, and a discriminative one at that. I’ve let my other modules suffer because I enjoy this one and I need to stop neglecting things and do everything to the best of my ability not just because I want a good degree, but because giving anything less than all of myself is unsatisfactory and unreasonable.

Expect a more concerted effort from now on.

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So yeah, Irish Conference was great, and I came back excited and committed. And it didn’t stop there - God really blew me away on Monday night at Coffee Stop. But with the high comes the inevitable low, and thursday night I found particularly difficult. I’m back on top of things now after a good couple of days - got to see the folks this weekend along with my Granny and Granda and now I’ve got to get focused for a busy week ahead.

We’re setting up a 24/3 prayer room in uni this week, starting tomorrow (monday) at 2pm. The week we ran the same thing in march (i think) was one of the biggest times of growth and learning I’ve had this year and I’m really looking forward to seeing what God will do this week. But amidst all of that I have to find time for uni work, which I let slip last week. I have a lot of ground to cover and very little time, so I have to stay focused and commited to see it through.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Canada over the past month. I think I remember this time of year in particular from 2005 - last halloween Dave and I were helping Kirsi out down at the Haunted Walk HQ (just one of many memories that stay in my mind) and I was really feeling like part of the team in work. I realise the amazing opportunity I had last year for personal growth and I didn’t make the most of it. I spent too much time sitting in the basement on skype and not enough upstairs getting to know my big brother. I just wanted to say: Dave and Kirsi, thank you so much for opening up your home and your lives to me over those few months - you’ve no idea how grateful I am for how you looked after and supported me.

I’ll be able to say that in person come next July - Dad booked me onto the plane for a three week holiday in Canada. I’m really looking forward to getting back and seeing my brother and his beautiful and talented wife again, as well as all the guys at iSTORM. I got my placement result this week and got a big fat 75 so thanks go to whoever gave me a glowing review (crow and phil i think?!).

The holiday means I miss out on Streetreach - one of the reasons I didn’t say yes right away. Streetreach was another big time of growth for me this year and I’m a little disapointed that I’ll miss out on it next July, but I’m pretty excited about Canada. Before then though I’ve a lot of living to do, so I’m off to get stuck into some work!

Taken from my design diary

So there I was, monday morning, sitting helping Clive crack…activate his photoshop when there came a knock at the door. Clive went to answer it and quickly came running back exclaiming “Web Standards! Yeah!” Only afterwards did I realise how geeky we were getting so excited about the parcel which of course contained my brand new copy of Dan Cederholm’s Web Standard Solutions. 

I sat through my Games Programming lecture depserately trying to pay attention all the while knowing that in my bag lay a bright yellow gem. I haven’t quite read it cover to cover yet but almost. Already I have been able to create a basic css layout for use with my imd homepage and FET blog. The crazy standards evangelists were right - this book is a must-have.

Now I have to admit, I am a table lover. It will take a long time and a lot of css work to convince me as a designer that css is the way to go. Sure, the nerd part of my brain is telling me to burn my tables, css can do everything I could ever want and more, but the designer side of me (who holds the majority vote) is still convinced there are just some things css won’t allow me to recreate. I will forever love tables, but I’m giving Web Standards a right good go.

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I seem to have recovered well from the flu symptoms I had last week, with mostly just a bit of a cough left over now. Perhaps the change in air over my weekend spent in Port Laoise helped. Perhaps I had so much else to worry about that my body forgot it was sick. It could happen.

I’m feeling a little overwhelmed today at the amount of work I have to get through. Last night I took some time out to visit my folks and enjoy a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner before heading to Coffee Stop about 10pm. My plan was to help get things set up and then head home because I was just so tired. I stayed until about 12:30 and then headed home to doa little work before bed. Unfortunately I enjoyed the work as I didn’t get to bed till 2:30. The result is the incredibly basic css driven layout mentioned above. As the weeks go by and my knowledge increases those pages will change into something much more attractive I’m sure, but for now I’m just pleased that I’ve got that far.

For those of you that read this and are techie nerdy geeky gadgety people like myself, I would love to hear of any new and upcoming technologies that you’ve been hearing about that I could possibly study for my FET module. Most of the ideas I was thinking about seem to be unsuitable so I’ll be spending tomorrow researching new ones.

I need to get my head in gear. There’s so much I should have done by now, not just work-wise. Evangelism-wise I have yet to organise any outreach events and it’s weighing on me. I have a responsibility this year to not just focus on myself but on others and I need to get some ideas in motion. If you’re a jtown CU-er and are interested in helping out with this kind of thing get in contact with me. I’ll be looking to form myself a bit of a sub-committee over the next few weeks.

Title taken from friday night’s crazy game of Scrabble

So I’m sitting here tonight feeling sorry for myself because I should be at CU but I’m not. Evil sick people have passed on their evil germs and now I’m evilly sick too

My only comfort tonight will be the new episode of Lost that’s waiting in my download folder. I’m missing Gilbert Lennox bring us an introduction to Acts before we study it in small groups and I’m missing a party at the Paradigm which Trevor has graciously offered for our use. But I know if I went while fun would be had I’d be even more miserable tomorrow. Which I don’t want.

For those that are interested, my current work is now online at my university portfolio. It’s pretty bare right now but I’m learning css and don’t want to design something using tables and then have to change it. Plus our design diary for week 1 had to be a .txt file and next week will be an ugly unstyled html file with massive headers and default link colours. Week 3 will bring the css action. But hopefully the diary itself will become a little more interesting over the next few weeks.

I’ve been playing FIFA07 in my spare moments (I felt I had to big-up it after arguing with PES fanboy Nathan today that his glorified arcade game doesn’t even come close!) and have to say I’m pretty impressed. I’m finding it difficult to put in a decent cross…last year a lot of my goals came from getting it down the wing and lumping an inch perfect ball onto Rooney’s head but this year one in maybe 10 crosses makes it to my attacker. The chip through ball is also very easy to overhit and the cpu AI is still a little bit stupid at times, but overall the game is much more realistic, skill moves are coming off for me much more and shooting has improved immensly. Free kicks still need a lot of work…I’ve scored quite a few with Ronaldo but no one else manages to come close. It’s good to work with real money in manager mode (Ronaldinho is no longer the same price as James Beattie) but the transfer system could still do with a lot of improvement. I don’t think we’ll ever have a perfect FIFA while EA still wants to charge £30 every year.

Clive introduced me to Pandora yesterday. It’s similar to Yahoo music which I used in Canada last year to avoid listening to Crow’s christmas music, but seems to be a lot smarter and more accurate in making suggestions. Simply type in the name of an artist or song you like and it’ll find similar music. Perfect for those looking to expand their collection but don’t want to listen to rubbish on the radio while finding something they like.

I’m sitting here this morning with my quilt wrapped round me drinking a hot lemon and honey, accepting the fact that I was not immune to catching the cold that those around me have had recently. So far just sore throat and cough, am praying it won’t get any worse - I really cannot afford to get sick this year.

Last week was intense, stressful, tiring but fantastic. I was delighted to be a part of it (although I didn’t necessarily feel that way on thursday morning when, after being up at 7 for a prayer meeting, I had to delay breakfast for almost four hours while we set up the stand for freshers fayre). Thursday was by all accounts the most stressful and tiring day of the week, although I was in a tense mood all of wednesday for no reason. That was relieved slightly by a poker game in the girls house (though getting soaked twice didn’t exactly help - sheesh children ). And yes, of course I came second.

After being in uni all day Clive and I had to rush to Belfast for our class in the art college, and then afterwards rush back in time to set up for CU. During the rushing around I got a text to let me know I had to come up with something to say while standing at the front introducing myself and my role. So not comfortable being up there but I guess that’s all part of my growth for this year.

So yeah, that art college class. Innovation and Concept it’s called. I’m hugely excited about it, and yet so unmotivated to get stuck in when it comes down to it. How annoyingly lazy am I?! It’s basically a proposal for my major project deliverable at the end of the year. But the cool thing is that it takes the form of a design diary. Basically I write about what I see on the net, in advertisements, in life that inspires me and take ideas from those things to produce a proposal. I’ve absolutely no idea what I want to do for my major project - I guess that’s why I’m finding it difficult to start. But the design diary should be cool. I’m hoping to integrate it in a way with rockshore, having two simultaneous blogs and yet referencing the design diary here. I’d expect those who already read rockshore to be interested in what I’m writing over there, as it should contain more than just academic nonsense. It also means I have to learn how to build a css site from scratch, which is something I’ve been meaning to learn for quite some time - now I actually will because I have no choice to be lazy.

If you’re wondering what the title is all about, one of my guppies died the other day, and blue guppy is looking pretty ill, I don’t think he has long left. This came the day after me saying “Good all the fish are looking healthy, the water problem must be solved. Maybe time to add some more fish?” Never…speaking…again.

Wow John Mayer flashback…ouch.

I got a message last night informing me that rockshore was stuck in a time warp. Unfortunately at the time I was quite busy so now that I’ve got a free moment I thought I’d come along and see how to fix it. I’m not too learned in the ways of the warp though so I’m not sure how to go about it. Ah well here goes.

Last night was the first night of fresher’s week at jtown, and the cu had organised an acoustic night. Big thanks to Sarah for organising the band, who were quite fantastic if I may say so. Everything went very well, lots of people showed up, lots of traybakes were consumed and everyone seemed to have a good time. Tonight we are running a table quiz which should also be good craic (although I can’t compete due to creating some of the rounds!) and tomorrow we have a bbq/fun night planned.

I don’t think anyone has appreciated being back at uni as much as me. And it’s only really been one day so far (I had registration last week, so 2 days if you’re being picky)! Being surrounded by people, having stuff to focus on is going to do me the world of good after a long summer. Pre Term last weekend was superb, got some great teaching, made some new friends and generally had a great time being part of things again.

My first class yesterday was a lecture in “Interactive Games Programming” - the only module choice we have had in the 3 years of imd had this one pitted against “Advanced Interactive Programming” which, rather than being for something useful to imd’ers like php or java, was further experience in Visual Basic. The choice was easy for me and 90% of my class. The Games Programming module looks a good one, using 3D Studio Max along with Macromedia Director to expand on basic game engines created by past final years. I don’t think the choices of games are that wonderful but we do have the freedom to do whatever we want to them (which may mean a complete overhaul if I get annoyed with it enough). Other than that we haven’t had any classes yet, but after reading the specification for my other 2 modules it looks like i’m in for a lot of work this year, and to be honest not a whole lot of design work in first semester.

Nathan came back to stay over last night and we had plans to make a video today to be played in cu on thursday night. Instead we sat up till 4.30 talking, and while I got up at the reasonable hour of 12 noon the others are still fast asleep. We may manage nothing more today than a trip to McDonalds.

title taken from discussions of our new band’s name

Yesterday turned out to be a pretty full day, after having lunch with Natania, Ormo and his friend Lawrence at the Ginger Nut (read tree) restaurant, I was paid a surprise visit by my good friend Samwise. As soon as Samwise had left I got a message from John-Boy Mullan that he was on his way round, and after sitting chatting to John for a while Alison showed up unannounced at the door. No sign of furious dave though!

So John and I had dinner and then headed out to the cinema to meet Sam, Hender, Pete and Pete’s friend Colin. The boys were keen to see “Severance” which I must say looked appalling to me from the trailers on tv. But I was pleasantly surprised! Much funnier than I anticipated for a british comedy, and the horror and suspense was much more believable than I would have expected for a ‘comedy-horror’. Still, all in all it was a pretty sick movie!

After the movie we headed out to the boy’s house in Monkstown and chilled there for a while. There was also a fearsome round of “this is a spoon” - ask me about it if you haven’t played before!

So it’s just a couple weeks till I start back at uni. My timetable looks pretty chocablock without adding in all the extra CU stuff (fresher’s week in particular will be pretty busy) but right now I just can’t wait to get started. I was chatting to Dave and John last night about committee (these two are my predecessors for the evangelism role so have been getting plenty of advice from them) and am anxious to get started and really try some wacky creative things this year…what that may be I’m not sure yet but I have a few ideas I could set in motion. Adam has done a great job with the new website - if you’re a uujer you should get yourself on the message board to welcome the fresher’s in! I’m off to do that now.

My mood has changed somewhat since my earlier post. Following my morning coffee whilst perusing my Practical Photography magazine I decided to go and take a look at my fishtank, as over the past few days one of my catfish has been looking increasingly ill. To my shock however, I did not find my catfish lying in the bottom corner of the tank as he has been prone to do this week, instead I found my beautiful Dwarf Gourami lying motionless at the bottom. Shaft is dead. 

Now I won’t claim that Shaft was my favourite fish, as I have a male guppy with the most incredible array of colours which I always point out as my favourite (I call him Bastian Schweinsteiger, though that’s more of a nickname than an actual name), but he was my largest and most impressive. He is also one of just 3 survivors from the first batch of fish I added to my tank way back in March. Since then he has grown to a good size and lived up to his name as the boss of the tank (one of the reasons why I regarded him as the culprit when 3 of my neon tetras mysteriously disappeared during two weekends away).

So I’ve been to the pet store to get some water treatment and medication for my catfish, hopefully that’ll clear up whatever may be lurking in the water causing the illness. Shaft showed no signs of illness so you can understand my surprise. Normally when others have died I have been expecting it for at least a day or two in advance.

Once I’m sure the treatment has worked I’ll go back to the pet store and buy a couple of Opaline Gourami’s which I was going to buy as companionship for Shaft. I may even in a while buy another Dwarf Gourami, but I won’t be in a rush to try and replace the Aquarium King.

The above picture is not mine. Shaft was rounder, fatter and slightly more red than this one. This picture is copyright jjphoto.tk

What kind of person likes waking up at 8:30 on a Monday morning?! Me!

After four days straight of working in Asda standing on my feet all day long, waking up this morning was an absolute delight, knowing that I need not jump into my dirty old uniform and head to dundonald to stand around for 6 hours annoying people with requests of “would you like to buy a newspaper today?” and responses of “no, it’s not free sir”.

While my bank balance will look much healthier come next week when the pay packet for those four days comes through, I begin to wonder how am I ever going to work a 5 day week?! Thankfully my chosen profession (or general area I’d like to maybe possibly work in) involves a lot of sitting. Ahh sitting, now that’s something I can envision myself doing sometime in the future.

The plans for this week are already taking shape, tomorrow I am having lunch with Natania and Ormo (and possibly some others I am yet to know about). It will be my first expedition into the world of Japanese cuisine. I am scared. Nothing raw please! Wednesday evening is our first Committee meeting of the new year, where we will discuss final arrangements for the Pre-Term weekend, freshers week and hopefully do a bit of catching up and chilling out. Thursday is back to work (not sure which of the delightful Asda stores I’ll be in yet) and friday begins the aforementioned weekend away.

So really my only fully free day is today. Well, getting up at 8:30am has some wondrous benefits such as I’ve already been to the post office (actually I was there before it opened…silly people not opening till 9…I mean the there was already a queue of old people outside waiting for them to open!) and up to Reads to buy a Practical Photography magazine. Looks a good read, lots of practical tips (surprise) on how to take good photos as well as tests on accessories and equipment. perhaps I shall give it a little perusal while I have my morning coffee. I’ve also phoned the Student Loans people, who referred me to the Education and Library Board, who put me on hold for too long listening to Mozart so I got angry and hung up. Turns out they “didn’t receive” my information that they already sent back to me well over a month ago. Now I have to wait goodness knows how long till I receive my loan.

I’ve been rewatching the first season of Lost in the build up to the third season starting on Oct 4th, and have cemented my conclusion that it is much better than the 2nd season in terms of atmosphere and the i’m-not-sure-what-it-is that made Lost so great. Don’t get me wrong, I fully enjoyed the 2nd season, particularly what Henry Gale brought to the show, but I do fear the downward spiral will continue. It happens with all shows though, the first season is always the best, and then the actors begin to get too comfortable with their characters that there’s no longer that edge to their delivery. I couldn’t say that of Lost just yet, but I do feel the writing has definately gone in a direction that doesn’t really fit the way it opened up in the first season. While I feel Henry Gale saved the 2nd season in a way, I do think the hatch was what dragged it down in the first place. Here’s to more “The Other 48 Day’s” and less “SOS’s”.

title taken from Lost - The Whole Truth

I was just sitting down to breakfast in a pub in Dublin yesterday morning when the news came through that Steve Irwin had died. I was quite shocked, considering the man regularly put his life on the line grappling with crocodiles and handling wild snakes and never seemed to come to any great harm (although I do remember watching him once when he got stung by a scorpion). But on hearing the extent of what a Stingray is capable of it seems quite plausable that this might happen.

I’m sad that someone who has done so much for wildlife campaigns and brought so much enjoyment to audiences (even if most of the humour was directed at humiliating him) is now no longer with us to continue his good work. Without wanting to make light of the death of a husband and father, here is a little something I made last year that might bring a little smile to your face in memory of why we all loved to watch our lost hero in the first place.