For Junior Cert. music, about a quarter of your overall grade goes for performance. For that, four pieces have to be performed. Because I play two “instruments” (singing is counted as an instrument), I split my four pieces into two singing pieces and two pieces on drums. I chose American Idiot and Hitchin’ A Ride on drums, and Losing My Religion and Sunset Boulevard for singing. I couldn’t think of a good song to sing for my second singing piece, so I settled on the utterly mediocre Sunset Boulevard. Ah well.

I remember the day of our practicals quite well. The music room had been turned upside down, the desks all shoved outside, a microphone set up in the middle of the room next to the piano that our music teacher would be accompanying us on, my drums in a corner.

I excused myself from class 40 minutes before my scheduled time so I could get ready. When I went up to the alcove outside the music room, I found four or five friends there, and shared that nice moment you have when you’re all pleasantly nervous, all waiting for the same thing. We were all performing at different times, so one by one we filtered into the music room. An external examiner was in there, grading us on our performance.

At one stage, our music teacher came out of the room to see that we were all ready. With a kind, open face where a passion for her work was self-evident, she really made Music my favorite class, and genuinely cared about this performance.

“Hey, what song do you want to do first?” She asked me, eyeing my sheet-music spread haphazardly over a nearby table.
“Can we do Losing My Religion first?” I asked, “I’m surer of it than the other”.

Of course, that was no problem — because that’s how she operated, nothing ever posed a problem.

Eventually, it was my turn to go in, and I approached the examiner’s desk with my music and a cover sheet, detailing what I’d be singing. I exchanged a nervous greeting, trying to get a hold of my nervous energy. I’d heard a great description of nervous energy, how you had to get it under control or it’d spin you off your axis. And, after all — nervous energy was still energy.

“What are we going to start with?” the examiner asked brightly.
“Losing My Religion” I responded.
“Oh! Great tune, great tune” she said. That response boded well.

“Ready?” my music teacher asked. I noded, and she began.

I’d always loved the opening chords of Losing My Religion. So iconic, so hummable. I found myself liking my music teacher’s heavy piano version more than the cheerily melodic mandolin version of the original. I tapped my thigh in time to the music then launched into the words.

Ohhhhhh life, it’s bigger
It’s bigger than you
And you are not me

I’d heard so many different versions of the song, Justin Murphy, Anthony Rapp as well as, of course, Michael Stipe’s, that I felt as if I knew this song much better than any other of my favorite songs. I’d read in a book somewhere that down south, where R.E.M. are from, “Losing My Religion” meant falling in love. In another interview, it claimed that the phrase meant getting angry, while yet another one reported that the phrase meant losing one’s composure. I liked that description best, not least because it seemed to encompass the first two.

I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try

I found myself in the middle of the song, biting into the words, feeling my hands involuntarily gesticulating to the phrases. My friends Chris and Niall had always teased me about how my hands and fingers never stood still while I sang, splaying out or twisting as I sang. I’d never paid much attention to it, but as I found myself disconnecting from the song itself, almost singing on auto-pilot (a phenomenon I was well used to from being onstage), I saw that there were right. I stole a glance at the examiner, and saw she was smiling slightly.

Relieved and encouraged, I powered into the final verse.

But that was just a dream
Try, cry, why try
That was just a dream
Just a dream
Just a dream, dream

And just like that, it was over. I glanced, grinning, at my music teacher, who gave me an encouraging smile. I’d forgotten just how much I loved getting up and singing my favorite songs.

After that, it was time to change tack, slow down and get in the right frame-of-mind for Sunset Boulevard. Once that was done, it was time to fit into my familiar groove and play drums for two of my favorite Green Day songs. Nothing compares to my elation after singing Losing My Religion, though.

Some homeopaths also use techniques that are regarded by other practitioners as controversial … Such practices have been strongly criticised by classical homeopaths as unfounded, speculative, and verging upon magic and superstition.

The irony of homeopaths criticizing other people for their pseudoscientific “superstition” is just too much to pass up.

Next time someone asks you to define the phrase “pot calling the kettle black”, you can direct them here.

Wikipedia — Homeopathy.

We want to add some talent to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune investigative team. Every serious candidate should have a proven track record of conceiving, reporting and writing stellar investigative pieces that provoke change. However, our ideal candidate has also cursed out an editor, had spokespeople hang up on them in anger and threatened to resign at least once because some fool wanted to screw around with their perfect lede.

We do a mix of quick hit investigative work when events call for it and mini-projects that might run for a few days. But every year we like to put together a project way too ambitious for a paper our size because we dream that one day Walt Bogdanich will have to say: “I can’t believe the Sarasota Whatever-Tribune cost me my 20th Pulitzer.” As many of you already know, those kinds of projects can be hellish, soul-sucking, doubt-inducing affairs. But if you’re the type of sicko who likes holing up in a tiny, closed office with reporters of questionable hygiene to build databases from scratch by hand-entering thousands of pages of documents to take on powerful people and institutions that wish you were dead, all for the glorious reward of having readers pick up the paper and glance at your potential prize-winning epic as they flip their way to the Jumble… well, if that sounds like journalism Heaven, then you’re our kind of sicko.

For those unaware of Florida’s reputation, it’s arguably the best news state in the country and not just because of the great public records laws. We have all kinds of corruption, violence and scumbaggery. The 9/11 terrorists trained here. Bush read My Pet Goat here. Our elections are colossal clusterfucks. Our new governor once ran a health care company that got hit with a record fine because of rampant Medicare fraud. We have hurricanes, wildfires, tar balls, bedbugs, diseased citrus trees and an entire town overrun by giant roaches (only one of those things is made up). And we have Disney World and beaches, so bring the whole family.

Send questions, or a resume/cover letter/links to clips to my email address below. If you already have your dream job, please pass this along to someone whose skills you covet. Thanks.

Matthew Doig

Sarasota Herald-Tribune
1741 Main St.
Sarasota FL, 34236
(941) 361-4903
matthew.doig@heraldtribune.com

I was just watching a YouTube video where the phrase “life is a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get” was said a few times. It reminded me of a conversation I had with someone in America where my American friend said the same phrase. That phrase has always bugged me, because almost all of the boxes of chocolates I’ve ever come across have included the little card to tell you what chocolate is what flavour, so you can avoid (or make a beeline for, depending on the case) certain chocolates.

So I asked the American about the phrase, about how, in my experience, there is little ambiguity in chocolate boxes. It turns out that those little cards are pretty uncommon in American boxes of chocolate. I thought it was really interesting, and I added it to the list of tiny differences between our countries. That list proved to be a lot more interesting than the more obvious things. I mean, sure, they say “fall” and “semester”, and they put the emphasis in a completely different place in the word “vitamin” (viteh-min for them, vita-min for us), but the list of smaller differences were more interesting.

Are there any other phrases that don’t make sense to you? “The exception that proves the rule” has confused me too.

Photo: Google Images

“So avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys – to woo women – and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. It also won’t do in your essays.”
— John Keating, Dead Poet’s Society.

It seems my love of words is shared by others, albeit my love is for neither essays nor wooing. :)

Part of loving writing is loving words, I think. I love finding new words and mentally pledging to use them more often.

While Patrick was home, I discovered what are called Garden Path sentences. The name stems from the phrase “to be led down the garden path”, which means “to be misled”. They’re called these because the reader is initially confused when he reads the sentence.

For example: “The old man the boat”

As a reader, we think that the old man will be the subject of the sentence. However, since it’s followed by “the boat”, we’re forced to backtrack and realize that ‘man’ is actually a verb and not as a noun.

Another example is “The tomcat curled up on the cushion seemed friendly”.

When you read about it being curled up, you think “and went to sleep” is going to follow. Again, we must backtrack and see that “curled up on the cushion” is actually just describing the cat and isn’t an action.

One last example: “The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families.”

Can you understand it?

One of the most famous examples is probably “French push bottles up German rear”, a headline from World War I, where we mistakenly assume that bottles is being used a noun.

Interestingly, neither this song nor any of the other contenders are from this decade. Or the last, for that matter, which makes one think whether the survey is representative. It’s a shame on the youth of today that most of us haven’t heard of great bands like The Eagles or the The Allman Brothers Band. Then again, maybe I’m just cynical and even the youth of today know that you don’t mess with these songs when it comes to the best in driving music. The rest of the list:

- “Born to be Wild” by Steppenwolf.
- “Take it Easy” by The Eagles.
- “I Get Around” by The Beach Boys.
- “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC.
- “Free Falling” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
- “Riders on the Storm” by The Doors.
- “I Wanna Rock and Roll All Night” by Kiss.
- “Wanted: Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi.
- “Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Photo owned by el.pelon (cc)

_______

Béibhinn Irish Cummins and Tommy Collison caught up with DCU’s President Brian Mac Craith in what he told us was his first ever interview after com- ing into office during the first week of CTYI: Session 2.

Over the precious 15 minutes afforded to us, we grilled the President on such issues such as his opinions on CTYI (his son’s a TA!), his thoughts on DCU and what the future holds.

We began by asking the obvious question – “what do you think of CTYI?”.

“It’s fantastic!” he laughs, telling us how it gives the kids a chance to develop a broad range of skills and also serves as introduction to college life (something some students had already picked up on). “Cliff Bernstein” he tells us, in what is almost a conspiratorial whisper, referring to the famed manager of Metallica, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and an AWESOME beard, “is a big fan of the program”.

When asked to describe an average day as President of DCU, he tells us how he starts his day at 8 (later than us — no fair!) and spends his day in meetings, “making connections and alliances”.
We then brought him on to the subject of DCU – “it’s the best” he
jokes, smiling. “We’re punching above our weight” he tells us, now serious. “Nobody works closer with the industry and enterprise sectors”. He goes on to explain how DCU is a modern and dynamic university and shall continue to be.

Oddly, the President refused to voice his opinion on college fees – an area his predecessor was quite outspoken about. He offered this comment: “we’re saying to the government: ‘the cuts have to stop’.”
“What challenges does DCU face?” we asked. He stopped to think about this one, before continuing “well, they’re [challenges faced] are not unique to us [DCU]. There’s the resource problem as well as the fact that the jobs we’ll have in 2015 don’t exist at the moment”, he went onto say, echoing California-based technology investor Paul Graham’s thoughts, that “…there are other jobs you can’t learn about, because no one is doing them yet. Most of the work I’ve done in the last ten years didn’t exist when I was in high school.”

To finish on a light note, we asked the President about his inauguration, specifically the music which received much acclaim. “I thoroughly enjoyed it” he told us brightly. Our time was then up. We took a few photographs and shook hands once again as he left us with this promise:

“We will continue to support CTYI”

I think we speak on behalf of all students that CTYIziens* everywhere will be hold-ing Professor McCraith to that promise.

_______

* CTYIziens — Affectionate title CTYI attendees give themselves, modeled on the word ‘citizen’.

I’m trying to balance writing this quickly to make sure I don’t forget anything important with making sure I’ve thought this post through to make sure that everything is correct.

I suppose we’ll start with a brief explanation of CTYI – it’s a 3 week residential (commuting is an option) course. You stay in the Larkfield Apartments, made up of two bedrooms, a kitchenette (no cooking appliances supplied save for a toaster and a kettle) and a bathroom. You take meals in the DCU canteen beside the Henry Grattan building and do activities in either the nearby buildings or the park adjacent to the sports building.

7.30 – Morning Call, must be awake at this time.
8.15 – Breakfast.
9.00 – Classes begin.
10:30 – 15 minute break. Brought to Spar nearby before returning to class.
12.00 – Lunch in the canteen.
13.00 – Classes resume.
15.00 – Classes finish. Go to quad and sign up for activity.
17.00 – Activities finish. Have RA (Residential Assistant) meeting and dinner. Free time otherwise.
18.30 – Study period.
20.30 – Study finishes, social time begins.
22:00 – Social time finishes. Must be in rooms.
22:30 – Lights out.

As you can see, it’s pretty regimental without much free time. Now, one could observe that the course is responsible for 200-odd teens and that strict discipline is required to keep everything running smoothly (which it did, well done) and you’d be correct, in my opinion. That’s why I fully co-operated with it all the time. Away from everyone though, I found myself despising my lack of independence and choice. There were times when I just wanted to drop everything and sit and read or chat with friends, something CTYI just couldn’t afford. I knew this and understood this controlling atmosphere, but that doesn’t stop me disliking it. It’s not that CTYI is a prison camp or Big Brother, it’s just that coming from the level of independence I enjoy in life into CTYI is a big difference and a big shock.

Of course, CTYI had its amazing moments: the course I did -Journalism- was phenomenal. Andrew Payne, who works as a communications consultant, taught the class and brought the 16 of us through all major aspects of journalism. From memory, we covered:

• Differences between tabloids and broadsheets.
• How headlines change an article.
• How the internet is affecting traditional journalism.
• Interviewing techniques and famous examples of same.
• Different types of features and how they differed from main articles.
• How the editing process works.
• Investigative reporting.
• The ethics of journalism.
• Tabloid methods of reporting (phone-tapping, the Fake Sheik etc.)
• Waiting to report out of respect versus being the first with a story.
• The line between the public’s right to be informed and a private individual’s right to privacy. We debated its existence to an extent.

We also watched All The President’s Men, Frost/Nixon, Sicko, Out-foxed, State of Play and Shattered Glass. All deal with journalists at work and I thoroughly enjoyed all of them.

The social aspect of the course was phenomenal too – I mean, not only do you have a group of youths of similar maturity and intelligence in DCU together, but don’t forget 15 other people are also interested in journalism so hanging out with them was also a blast. That is where CTYI really excels — why people love it so much and miss it and call coming there ‘going home’. I think the maturity is truly shown in how the students interact with the RAs (Residential Assistants – college students who act as big-brother/sister figures and make sure you’re enjoying yourself) – students found themselves talking just as easily to the RAs as the students.

I think the problems I had with CTYI (even calling them problems is unfair, though – these were definitely ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ issues). I’m fiercely independent who enjoys being able to make his own decisions and navigate his own life – CTYI just wasn’t my thing, is all.

Why not?

I was late to the party. The lovers of CTYI all share similar circumstances – they all started around age 13-14 and have been doing it for three/four/five years. For CTYI to rock your world, you need that. You can’t just do it for one year and expect to be as emotionally attached to the place as the ‘five year freaks’ :)

Is CTYI fantastic? Hell yes. Colm O’Reilly and the staff have created a unique phenomenal atmosphere which is fantastic. I found myself getting closer to the people I was already close to and getting close to entirely new people.

CTYI is a great course that I’d have no reservations sending my kids though – just send early to get maximum benefit.

Turns out, the functionality required for the app I wanted (Last.FM background scrobbling) isn’t supported under Apple API, so I’d have to jailbreak (again) if I wanted that functionality. Having had a jailbroken iPhone as well as a non-jailbroken phone, I can honestly say that the amount of hassle caused by it is not proportional to gain, and I bricked my iPhone (saved it though, only just!) on more than one occasion.

The iPhone was already a revolutionary device – but its potential was horrendously limited by the inability to run apps in the background. Skype, MSN and radio applications like 2 FM all worked, but what if you got a call or a text you needed to respond to? Everything stopped, unfortunately.

That is iOS 4′s greatest feature. I can Skype in the background while texting, I can stay signed into MSN as I double check figures in an email and I can use WunderRadio no different to the iPod.

WunderRadio (Link — will open in iTunes on a computer or, awesomely, the App Store if you’re on your iPhone at the moment) is an internet radio application. At €5.49, it’s on the higher end of the scale for iPhone apps but wholly worth it. I’m currently listening to KUWL (cool?), a jazz-only radio station operated by the University of Wyoming.

An example of the type of stuff played:

Link: