Mark O’Meara: the blog

Finish Line by extraspecial

Just going by the numbers I have over twenty percent of my course to go but it feels a lot more like sitting through the end credits of a movie.

What I really want is to get into the serious business of getting a job. What I really need to be doing is finishing off these eight assignments. Sadly these are entirely seperate tasks.

Still I shouldn’t complain as it will very soon be over. After that the main advantage I will get from the university will be staying away from it.

Lesson for the day - it’s hard and easy to keep perspective when you are so very close to the end and the beginning of something else.

Maus by tiefseefisch

I was at the library with Finn and I happened to notice a book called Maus: A Survivor’s Tale which I had first heard about years ago when it was re-published on CD-ROM. I knew that in both print and multimedia it was highly regarded so I grabbed both volumes since they happened to be there.

They are cartoons drawin in stark black and white and detail both the author’s often difficult relationship with his father and his father’s story of surviving the Holocaust.

Just yesterday I finshed the first of them and I have to say it’s really hit home with me. None of the experiences were news to me but being told in such a person way made all the difference to me. I can’t say they are a fun read but I have found it worthwhile and will certainly keep it up my proverbial sleeve for the right kind of history class.

Lesson for the day - it seems reading comics (or graphic novels if you like) doesn’t always rot your brain.

Una DeLorean a Fiuggi by falena

Like Benjamin Braddock before me I am worried about my future. Rationally I know I’ll be fine for work. Chances are pretty good I’ll get a full-time job and failing that I hear there is plenty of emergency teaching in this area.

However emotionally I am a bit on the anxious side of things which is annoying. Of course this feeling will pass but I would like it to manage this sooner rather than later if that all ok with it.

After being out of fulltime work for three years I would quite like to get back into it.

Lesson for the day - my rational brain and nervous emotions could do a better job of communicating with each other.

open mic - philip vermeire by anna vanaerschot

This podcast is something of a departure from previous efforts even if it happens to sounds just like some of those which came before it. I have decided that I’ll do interviews from time to time but the bulk of my podcasts will just be me talking and singing a couple of songs.

In that sense it will be quite similar to what you’d hear if you saw me perform at an open mic night. In another similarity I made an utterly stupid mistake in the first seconds when I announced that it is my 51st podcast. Make that 52nd. I could have recorded it again but I just couldn’t be bothered.

Anyhow if you happen to give this a listen it would be nice to hear from you.

10 minutes and 3.7 MB.
Listen

Lesson for the day - sometimes a change is instead of a holiday.

Wise Old Kelpie Sheep Dog by brendon2553

I read this wonderful piece in Slate, actually I listened to it but you know what I mean. I thought some of you might like it too.

Lesson for the day - there is more to being a dog than barking at two in the morning.

Another clown shoe by cjanebuy

I would like to tell you that I didn’t have three pretty frustrating classes today and that they didn’t substantially consist of a combination of phaff, arrogance, foolishness and simple errors.

But I would prefer not to outright lie.

In this case the photo (and the caption) say more than I ever could.

Lesson for the day - I actually laughed when I realised what photo I would use for this post.

record by svari

Yesterday over lunch I got to talking about High Fidelity which is one of my favourite books and films. The events are nothing like my life but as a portrait of a man like me it feels about right to me.

Often I find men portrayed in films and televison to be thick and useless or heroic and, well, heroic. In neither of these stereotypes do I see who I am or who I would like to be.

However I think that High Fidelity is a compassionate view of a person pretty flawed in entirely everyday ways.

As you probably have guess I just watched it again and enjoyed it all over again. I especially like Dick and Barry, I just can’t imagine how they could have been cast better than this.

Lesson for the day - it makes a massive difference to see reasonable portrayals of people like you in a movie.

Silence by Gennadiy

I am sorry to say that there will be no podcast this week. Being Friday and all you probably guessed that.

I am planning to do more but I am at a bit of a crossroads about what I want to use it for. Suggestions and feedback welcome. I probably just mainly need to ponder it and see what I want to do.

Lesson for the day - producing content is not all beer and skittles however I hear bowling.

sitting in the sun by treesquirrel

I should have probably spent the last hour in the library typing up my second assignment but has it happens I spent in sitting in the sun kvetching about some of the lecturers with some of my fellow students.

It’s all too easy to just emerge from such things even more wound up and bitter but today that wasn’t the case. Instead I felt quite social and like just another person confronted with pretty minor problems.

Lesson for the day - there is more than one way to spend your time wisely.

Death Cab For Cutie by Tina You Fat Lard

I listen to the Death Cab for Cutie album Plans this morning on my way here to Uni and it is all really good from what I can tell in a single listen. However the track I bought if for, I Will Follow You Into The Dark, is just fantastic and I could listen to it all day long.

If heaven and hell decide
that they both are satisfied
illuminate the nos
on their vacancy signs
If there’s no one beside you
when your soul embarks
then I’ll follow you into the dark

Lesson for the day - a song that you can’t let go of is something else entirely (while of course still being a song).