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Aug. 1st, 2009 05:10 pmThis is a meme that is doing the rounds at present. If you want to be tagged, say 'Words' in a comment and I will give you 5 words to talk about. These words are courtesy of NattiDreadi.
Sunderland
Way back in the dim and distant time of my golden youth, folk who lived in the tiny village in which I was born (South Shields for those of you who don't know) did speak of two mightly metropoli, distant citadels of wealth and power and corruption. To the north, over the mighty iron bridge (or through the tunnel if you were wealthy and could afford it) was Newcastle. To the south, many miles to the south but still further north than Durham, was Sunderland. To the simple folk of South Shields, those who danced upon the sand, these two metropoli were distant places where people were foreign and spoke funny. To the average inhabitant of our tiny seaside hamlet, they were the ends of the earth, which you only visited on weekends when you did your shopping. Occasionally if one was lucky and had a reasonable grasp of navigation, one may go as far south as Durham and look at the pretty cathedral.
When I was a young man and, as is often the case, had a need to go to a university, I had a number of options. I could have gone to Manchester, Reading, Birmingham... all had given me offers. But I wanted to go to University in Sunderland. 'But there is no Univeristy in Sunderland!' the wise men said. 'Ah,' said I, 'You are wrong for Sunderland is now a city and the old Poly is now a Uni and, indeed, was made so more than a year before any other old poly due to a special dispensation by the Queen!' So I went to Sunderland, travelling the many many miles, and made some very good friends there (many of them still in contact with me, many probably reading this) and had some very good experiences. Most of them involved being drunk and playing roleplaying games, being drunk and LRPing, being drunk and interviewing indie stars (sometimes years before they became famous) or, on rare occasions, just being drunk. Somehow, in the midst of all this, I somehow learnt enough about the human body to be able to convince the university to give me a 2:1 in Applied Physiology. Many of my practical studies in this subject were of intimate female anatomy and somewhere along the line I misplaced my virginity in my Sunderland... If anyone has found it, please return as soon as possible.
A final point about Sunderland, which is possibly more relevant to the next word, is that I met my wife there. I didn't know that she was my wife at the time. In fact, I only realised who she was much later when going through my photos...
vampire
Was a great excuse not to do any work. Or rather, a great excuse to do lots of far more fun work than real work could ever have been. Playing Vampire in Sunderland taught me a lot about how to be a good roleplayer. Crewing it taught me a lot about how to be good crew. Running it in Manchester taught me a lot of lessons about event organisation which served me well in the future. Often these lessons were how not to do it but more usually it was lessons like 'No, don't assume that you are the only person who can do a particular job. Delegate, you arrogant bastard.' I suppose this is also an important career skill.
I first met Sarah at a Sunderland Vampire event when she turned up with some other Newcastle people. We only both realised this when we looked through some photos I had taken of that event several years later when we 'met for the first time' in Birmingham.
moving
The effects of the skeleto-muscular system on limbs? Or the process of relocating ones home? I am going to assume the latter as, though I am famed for my dance moves (the Melon Dance being a particularly well known dance I showcased at several folk festivals and goth nights) I am not sure people are really interested in how I move...
I have moved home several times in my life and intend to do so at least once more, sometime soon. The first move was from South Shields to Sunderland - a fairly minor affair which was not really a move as I was never more than a 30 minute bus trip away. Sunderland to Manchester was a bigger deal and it was in Manchester that I got my first jobs and had to actually act like an adult (not that I am managing to get the latter right even now). I would have stayed in Manchester forever, given the chance, but fate put a critical choice in my path - go to Glasgow with my job (and risk becoming a line manager and potentially 'head of protein purification') or move to Birmingham with my then girlfriend. You know which one I chose... and I don't regret the choice at all. I would have made a terrible head of protein purification and may have had to have colluded with people like Belisarius on a professional basis.... As it was, I managed to make a lot more cool friends (will all the Trappies in the house say Yo!) and find happiness and new qualifications (including some strange process which seems to be turning me into a professional of some form...).
One day soon, once the process of professionalisation is complete and Sarah's pension has matured like ancient stilton, we will contemplate a move to somewhere further north. We are thinking Peak District ish, or Chester ish, somewhere countryish but commutable to Manchester, Liverpool, Preston and all the places that seem to currently host our social life...
hair
I used to have hair, long flowing locks. But it got caught in a door and pulled out (at least, this is what I told my pupils had happened when they remarked on it). So far I have not noticed any sign of decreased strength or body mass. This I propose as yet more evidence that the Bible is not, in any way, a literal truth.
academics
A strange breed, academics. You have to understand how their minds work to be able to work with them. Its almost as if the whole process of getting degrees, getting post grad degrees and doctorates and then entering the endless rat race that is the 'trying to get tenure' is one which inevitably sends a mind mad. Sorry, 'eccentric' (but only if they are successful academics, until then they are just mad). After many many years of working with academics, in that close environment in which they work, in several different universities (some older and more respectable than others), I entered the world of teaching and encountered the office politics that occur in schools. My conclusion: When it comes to petty backbiting, obsession on trivia, pointless political oneupmanship and gossip, Teachers are barely scraping the surface of what a good department in a University can achieve.
Sunderland
Way back in the dim and distant time of my golden youth, folk who lived in the tiny village in which I was born (South Shields for those of you who don't know) did speak of two mightly metropoli, distant citadels of wealth and power and corruption. To the north, over the mighty iron bridge (or through the tunnel if you were wealthy and could afford it) was Newcastle. To the south, many miles to the south but still further north than Durham, was Sunderland. To the simple folk of South Shields, those who danced upon the sand, these two metropoli were distant places where people were foreign and spoke funny. To the average inhabitant of our tiny seaside hamlet, they were the ends of the earth, which you only visited on weekends when you did your shopping. Occasionally if one was lucky and had a reasonable grasp of navigation, one may go as far south as Durham and look at the pretty cathedral.
When I was a young man and, as is often the case, had a need to go to a university, I had a number of options. I could have gone to Manchester, Reading, Birmingham... all had given me offers. But I wanted to go to University in Sunderland. 'But there is no Univeristy in Sunderland!' the wise men said. 'Ah,' said I, 'You are wrong for Sunderland is now a city and the old Poly is now a Uni and, indeed, was made so more than a year before any other old poly due to a special dispensation by the Queen!' So I went to Sunderland, travelling the many many miles, and made some very good friends there (many of them still in contact with me, many probably reading this) and had some very good experiences. Most of them involved being drunk and playing roleplaying games, being drunk and LRPing, being drunk and interviewing indie stars (sometimes years before they became famous) or, on rare occasions, just being drunk. Somehow, in the midst of all this, I somehow learnt enough about the human body to be able to convince the university to give me a 2:1 in Applied Physiology. Many of my practical studies in this subject were of intimate female anatomy and somewhere along the line I misplaced my virginity in my Sunderland... If anyone has found it, please return as soon as possible.
A final point about Sunderland, which is possibly more relevant to the next word, is that I met my wife there. I didn't know that she was my wife at the time. In fact, I only realised who she was much later when going through my photos...
vampire
Was a great excuse not to do any work. Or rather, a great excuse to do lots of far more fun work than real work could ever have been. Playing Vampire in Sunderland taught me a lot about how to be a good roleplayer. Crewing it taught me a lot about how to be good crew. Running it in Manchester taught me a lot of lessons about event organisation which served me well in the future. Often these lessons were how not to do it but more usually it was lessons like 'No, don't assume that you are the only person who can do a particular job. Delegate, you arrogant bastard.' I suppose this is also an important career skill.
I first met Sarah at a Sunderland Vampire event when she turned up with some other Newcastle people. We only both realised this when we looked through some photos I had taken of that event several years later when we 'met for the first time' in Birmingham.
moving
The effects of the skeleto-muscular system on limbs? Or the process of relocating ones home? I am going to assume the latter as, though I am famed for my dance moves (the Melon Dance being a particularly well known dance I showcased at several folk festivals and goth nights) I am not sure people are really interested in how I move...
I have moved home several times in my life and intend to do so at least once more, sometime soon. The first move was from South Shields to Sunderland - a fairly minor affair which was not really a move as I was never more than a 30 minute bus trip away. Sunderland to Manchester was a bigger deal and it was in Manchester that I got my first jobs and had to actually act like an adult (not that I am managing to get the latter right even now). I would have stayed in Manchester forever, given the chance, but fate put a critical choice in my path - go to Glasgow with my job (and risk becoming a line manager and potentially 'head of protein purification') or move to Birmingham with my then girlfriend. You know which one I chose... and I don't regret the choice at all. I would have made a terrible head of protein purification and may have had to have colluded with people like Belisarius on a professional basis.... As it was, I managed to make a lot more cool friends (will all the Trappies in the house say Yo!) and find happiness and new qualifications (including some strange process which seems to be turning me into a professional of some form...).
One day soon, once the process of professionalisation is complete and Sarah's pension has matured like ancient stilton, we will contemplate a move to somewhere further north. We are thinking Peak District ish, or Chester ish, somewhere countryish but commutable to Manchester, Liverpool, Preston and all the places that seem to currently host our social life...
hair
I used to have hair, long flowing locks. But it got caught in a door and pulled out (at least, this is what I told my pupils had happened when they remarked on it). So far I have not noticed any sign of decreased strength or body mass. This I propose as yet more evidence that the Bible is not, in any way, a literal truth.
academics
A strange breed, academics. You have to understand how their minds work to be able to work with them. Its almost as if the whole process of getting degrees, getting post grad degrees and doctorates and then entering the endless rat race that is the 'trying to get tenure' is one which inevitably sends a mind mad. Sorry, 'eccentric' (but only if they are successful academics, until then they are just mad). After many many years of working with academics, in that close environment in which they work, in several different universities (some older and more respectable than others), I entered the world of teaching and encountered the office politics that occur in schools. My conclusion: When it comes to petty backbiting, obsession on trivia, pointless political oneupmanship and gossip, Teachers are barely scraping the surface of what a good department in a University can achieve.
