Screw November

November is an evil month.

So are January and February - and December, although December can usually be relied upon to have presents in the middle of it* - but November is where the evil starts, so I resent it all the more.

The cool, damp mist of November afternoons can be beautiful. Trees shedding the last of their leaves, yellow and brown, and standing stark against hedgerows. The smell of woodsmoke and rain, and how everything turns purple and twilight-blue at the edges on a clear day. The way the moon rides up in the daylight sky.

But the dark. The damp. It gets inside my head and bones and lives there, the soft whispery darkness of depression, the quiet turning towards hibernation, the desire to be shot of all the goddamn people who fill the buildings and the streets, the dreary greyness of days that never really brighten, the ache in my wrists and ankles when it rains - which is often.

Right now? I hate all human beings. I hate my thesis. I want to get away from Dublin somewhere there are hills and mountains and clear my fucking head.

Much as I hate the heat? It turns out I love sunlight. I guess I'm going to have to figure out how to go live somewhere there's more of it than here.

*Although not this year, because of the brokeness.

(no subject)

It turns out that things can always get worse.

Apparently - the relevent article is behind a paywall at the Sunday Business Post (.ie), but the general outlines are clear enough - the present government intend to remove all postgraduate support in the next budget. That means no fees contribution and no maintenance grant.

Aside from the Logic Fail inherent in this - Government! It costs you less to pay postgraduate fees at the EU rate for research students than it does to maintain those same students on the jobseekers' allowance over the course of a year! And have you seen the unemployment rate? - there's a large degree of cruelty involved in yanking the rug out from under the feet of people who were counting on remaining in education (or chose to return to education) until the jobs market picks up an eensy-weensy bit.

Because, people? Let's not forget that Ireland has no system of student loans comparable to the UK, Canada, or even the US. For the people whose education will be cut short by such a measure, there is nowhere to apply. Do you imagine AIB or Bank of Ireland will give an unsecured loan to a student?

There might be work-arounds. I have (based on last year's numbers) a one in nine or ten shot at a scholarship whose applications open in January. Otherwise, I don't know. I might be fucked. I hope I'm not, but I might be.

In which case, I'm going to have a nice, messy nervous breakdown. The rage and despair has to go somewhere - and right now, I'm holding off on putting my fist through a wall only because a)there is still a chance that this will apply only to new postgraduates and b)I'd only have to pay to fix the wall.

And my fist, but what the hell do I need that for, anyway? Maybe I should put it through my own face.