The Singing Stranger

Right, it’s been a damn long time since I wrote something of real substance on this - I’ve been putting off a real update on this for a couple of weeks but I guess the time has presented itself and there’s just a bit to catch up on.

It’s been a pretty good couple of weeks.

Where to start? Let’s start four weeks ago with USI National Congress in Bettystown (the first national conference of any body that I can remember happening in Meath for quite a while). It was a busy week - much busier than the last two Congresses, although this time is probably because I was shouldering most of UCD’s organisational burden doing it, but all in all I really enjoyed it; UCDSU had a successful week, all of our motions (the ones that ended up being discussed anyway; some were deferred to a National Council) were passed and nothing that we had a mandate to vote on went against us - although we came close where our mandate to block-vote against over-the-counter availability of the Morning After Pill ended up leading the floor to a tie at 71-71, meaning the motion fell. Great social scene, a few memorable moments, and I also got the chance to address Congress for ten or fifteen minutes presenting the new website I’m building for USI (for free) at which nobody was able to offer any constructive criticism, so happy days in that regard!

We also elected some of next year’s Officer Board - Shane Kelly (Waterford IT) as President, the amazingly fantastic Bartley Rock (Trinity) as Education Officer, and Anthony Muldoon (IADT, Dun Laoghaire) as Welfare Officer. For the first time in three years too, the Deputy Presidency won’t be vacant - Dave Curran, twice Deputy in UCD (Ciara’s direct successor, actually) got in with a steady mandate. Most said there was only one person who could run for the job - I reckon there’s two, but anyway… - and not be RONned based on other colleges opposition to the position still being there, and Dave duly stepped up with a healthy victory. The other part-time jobs are slowly being filled for next year too and UCD are doing their bit in trying to ensure a strong future for USI after the crap it’s had going for it in the last couple of years.

I also had a couple of internship interviews with Company X (who I’ll reveal in time but I’d rather keep it quiet for the moment) which have gone very well, and here’s hoping that it all comes together, because the company in question are excellent employers whose employees have pretty great lifestyles, and I’ve already started envisaging my summer working around it - it seems great.

I’m actually really looking forward to this Summer - call me juvenile but I can’t wait for the Olympics (whatever about all the rest… anyone who hasn’t seen the Curry Chips animated gif of Gormley should really have a look), whether that’s because I’m a child who still believes in the magic of the 100m or the concept of even-handed international competition, and also to Euro 2008. I remember a time when I used to think that having finished a Commerce & German degree in May 2008, I’d be treating myself by going to see Ireland in the European Championships in Austria and Switzerland, using my German degree along the way. I think I’ll equally split the blame with Steve Staunton on that one.

Summers though - long evenings, long sweaty nights out, drinking outdoors, and hopefully having a good job to fund a nice lifestyle the way through. Here’s hoping.

Another thing that was a pretty great thing to hear had to do with our Aisling Scheme, part of the Union’s Access Week. Basically the scheme involves Union officers and volunteers giving tours of the University to primary and secondary pupils from disadvantaged areas, doing different excusions and giving them different tasks to complete - all in all, a nice day out to try and inspire them to consider breaking with whatever traditions they’re bound by and aspire to third level education.

On a whim myself and Ronan, the Union’s Education Officer, decided to throw in a nomination for the AIB Better Ireland awards. Lo and behold, we got a phone call from someone at the UCD branch of AIB letting us know, before anything went public, that we were going to be nationally shortlisted for an award, and a €10,000 prize to be put towards the development of the Aisling Scheme. I’ll be back at you trying to nag you all into voting for us later on but for now we’ll just bask in the minor glory of getting some national respect for jobs we hope are well done.

Oh, and we also won something this week! I can’t recall how extensively (if at all) I blogged about it while we were putting it together, but myself and Brennan spent most of July and August putting together the Student Survival Guide (’Freshers Guide’ to most of you) - many long nights and sleepless weekends of blood, sweat and toil putting together a guide of 26,000 words and 264 full-colour pages, with an endless ream of contributors and blurbs from each of UCD’s dozens of clubs or societies.

Once it was done - and we managed to divorce ourselves from it long enough to truly appreciate how well the whole thing was put together - we realised that we’d done ourselves very proud in its quality and design. On the back of that, when nominations for the National Student Media Awards (or ‘Smedias’) were opened in early March we decided we’d fling in the Guide and see how well it would be appraised. We ended up being shortlisted in three categories - Society Publication of the Year, Magazine of the Year, and for the public vote People’s Choice award.

We did some minor publicising of the People’s Choice award, but enough to realistically be in with a shout. Nor did we realistically expect to be awarded Magazine of the Year when our publication, though strong, was only a once-off and didn’t earn the reputation of being consistent throughout the year like so many other college magazines are (a problem that also limited our success with the public vote, as we had no solid reader base). We were hopeful, though, of getting an award in the Society Publication category - and would have been more than thrilled with getting any recognition at all for it.

Well, as luck had it, Society Publication of the Year was the first award at the 3 Smedias Presentation on Tuesday night in Tripod on Harcourt St, and happily we walked away with the award for Society Publication of the Year! Huzzah! Our mates at the University Observer also won two awards, as did the College Tribune, leaving UCD with the most prizes for print publications - despite having no journalism or media courses to speak of.

So all in all, a nice stretch for awards and recognition, and here’s hoping it continues.

It would be amiss of me not to mention GAA Congress last weekend in Sligo too - the usual great craic, and thanks to the miscellaneous Brennans (and Duffys!) for making it the weekend it was. I have to say it was a tad emotional being with the family when seeing Nickey’s successor being elected; it was a window into their lives three years ago when they went to Croke Park with their hopes down and expecting the pain of public rejection, only to be thrown joyfully in the spotlight when he grabbed victory. I’m only glad I could be there for the later bit of it - it could well have been him only acceeding to the top seat on the day.

A reminder, as if I needed it, to enjoy the crazy hubbub and surreal scenarios that ife throws at you, because you’ll undoubtedly miss them all the more afterwards.

So that’s my last month or so in a nutshell; I can’t promise many more updates this week, as we’ve got USI Eastern Area Conference on Wednesday evening - the last night of “the dream Lynam/Reilly ticket” as the current EA Officer describes our chair/secretary partnership, the UCD Sports Awards on Thursday night, the UCD Ball (featuring East 17, the girls from B*Witched, Bodyrox, The Blizzards, The Wolfe Tones, and Christ knows who else!…) on Friday, and two birthday parties on Saturday.

And that’s after I fly to Ljubljana tomorrow as part of a group of six USI reps at a two-day European Students’ Union conference on standardising academic accreditation across Europe, having only been recruited for it last Monday…

Some life, eh? Well, like I said, enjoy the hubbub…

…and I’m sitting up on my bed in the Merville residences in UCD, on my first night here, awaiting an incoming mail with a draft design for a publication.

And there’s no sign of it. And the newspaper it’s going in heads to print in a couple of hours.

I’d be lying if I said my life had worked out how I sometimes thought it would.

Sorry the updates have been so sporadic over the last fortnight but with the new job things have been a little bit all over the shop and I literally haven’t had the time to share any thoughts.

However, I thought this was worth linking to: my mate Pete turns out to be one of the major heroes at the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse.

Peter comes from Ballyshannon in Donegal and is working in Minneapolis on a J1 visa for the summer as a light mechanic in a petrol station near the bridge.

“We first heard a rumble and just thought it was thunder,” Peter said today. “Then we heard fire engines and didn’t think much of that either. I looked down the highway - in the wrong direction as it turned out - and didn’t see anything going on, but then someone shouted: ‘The bridge has collapsed!’”Peter and his co-workers shut up the petrol station, loaded a pick-up truck with ice and filled it with bottled water, Powerade energy drinks and Coke and rushed to the scene to hand it out to rescue workers.

You can read more here.

…but where do they go to college? What a dilemma! Thankfully, inspired by Trainspotting, a personal fave (well, in film form anyway - raeden eh buik en phunae-yk Skow-esh is nae funn), they spent a three minute podcast working it out.

Clicky to heary - the scariest part is how freakishly accurate it is…

Thanks to Izzy for the link.

So this morning a representative from o2 came to UCDSU and they sorted out some phone deals. The five Sabbats and myself will stumping up to get one of these:

Yes, that’s a BlackBerry Pearl. Excuse me for a moment while I do a happy dance.

The iPhone can wait now!

Excuse me for probably seeming a bit groggy but since the last time you caught me things have been just a little bit mad in the Life of Reilly. Recollection will be a challenge, just try and bare with me.

First there was a weekend in Berlin for a fellow Belfieldite’s 21st. As if the sheer concept of spending a weekend in the company of seven other Irish people who are literally just there for a party wasn’t lunacy in itself, throw in the fact that my InterCity trains travelled a combined distance of 1494km to get me there and back, and the hapless transport guidance of a ninth Irish person meaning that five trams were taken between two stations on the same line, and the weekend becomes a 1600km trek the length of a country (or two, depending on whether you live before 1989 or not). Add copious amounts of Becks - €2 a bottle, what a country, and a large helping of sambuca (€10… wow) and weekends get messy. How messy? Well, messier than a box set of International Rules games on DVD. Now that’s messy. There are no plush, Dublin-style nightclubs in Berlin; they’re all rather shabby, as if you’re going to a house party being held in a parish hall, with cheap alcohol and cheaper sofas out the back where the air conditioning actually works, by virtue of ‘out back’ being outside.

Anyway, once my emergency passport managed to weasel its way back to my postbox, I decided there were few better ways to celebrate being legitimately Irish again than to return to Dublin for a few days. A quick consultation on Ryanair.com advised me that Salzburg offered a cheapo flight over, and ultimately I arrived, knackered but content, in Austria, getting a street tram thing to the airport. Salzburg, it should be said, has nothing else of note right now (other than heavy advertising for its bid for the Winter Olympics in 2014) aside from its trams. They don’t have rails, they’re buses. Except they’re powered by overhead cables. The tram drivers are busdrivers required to drive directly underneath a power cable ALL the time. Imagine the fun to be had by drunk-driving Austrian busdrivers…

Long story short, I eventually arrived, even more knackered and even more content, in Dublin Airport, and arrived to the general surprised amusement of assorted hacks down Observer way. What do I see as I arrive? People photocopying their arses outside the SU Office. So much for Culture Shock, meine Freunden, some things never change…

Bis bald,
Gav

Yours truly walks into the offices of the University Observer and chats with the editors and assorted hacks and eventually the subject of the upcoming year is broached: “So, Gav, looking forward to Erasmus?”

Of course, you’d think that learning the language since age 11 would have meant I’d have a reasonable proficiency in the language. You might even think that I’d have gone to Germany, or a German-speaking county, or even just to a German language college for a couple of weeks. Well, guess again.

But back to the office, where yours truly sat gulping. “Er, yeah, looking forward to it. Should be good craic.” Which, I suppose, isn’t far from the truth. I am, genuinely, looking forward to the experience, but I won’t dwell too much on the artsy-fartsy “Oh, isn’t Europe great? Isn’t academia wonderful?” blarb.

So there I am, half-lying, half-imagining about how fearless I am, when the editorial types ask if I’d like to do a column from Germany for o2, generally themed “teenager has never been to Germany before, now there’s there for a year; hilarity and observations ensue”. I contemplate the question for a moment. To be perfectly honest, were I to head to Bavaria without some ties back to Belfield, I’d be prone to waking up in a cold sweat and groggily reading Annabel Field’s social musings to fill the Water Tower-shaped void in my being. In short, then, my answer was (obviously) yes.

So this is where you’ll find me every fortnight: where I’ll be musing, whinging, observing (hey, this is the University Observer after all) and generally reporting from the German-Austro border town of Passau, wondering where it all went wrong (or right!) and where I go from here. Kiddies, watch this space, and see you in a fortnight, from sunny Passau. Well, I hope sunny Passau. I’ll keep you posted!

Tschuss,
Gav