NorthDownMuse

A Pistol in Bristol

I created a 15-slide deck for my presentation today at Triodos Bank in Bristol. Triodos is a Dutch bank specialising in social impact investing (think renewable energy cooperatives, organic farms, and charities working to reduce prison populations). During yesterday’s practice sessions, I was a little shaky. But today, in

Brexit

I signed up for three Imagine events today but I went to only one. I’m flying to Bristol tomorrow for a job interview. I had to prepare a 10-minute presentation for the interview, so today I buckled down. I created 15 slides Monday and Tuesday and today I’m

City Without Walls

I went to two Imagine events today. The first looked at the issue of “Peace Walls,” the first of which was erected in 1969. They snake their way through the city, dividing Protestant and Catholic enclaves. During the troubles, they prevented violence and rioting in so-called interface areas. The Good

Room for a View

Today I went to my first Imagine festival event on the “State of Democracy in Northern Ireland.” It wasn’t what I expected, but still interesting. We explored the work of a researcher who points out that an election does not a democracy make. “Elections rarely reveal what voters think

Coastal interlude

We went back to Crawfordsburn for a walk and found hundreds of people had the same idea. It was in the 50s and, of course, there was an ice cream van in the park. It was a great day for a stroll (Crawfordsburn House in the distance). It’s always

The Hiker

I went to an amateur production tonight of The Hiker, “a play concerning the return to his family of a much-hated, unforgiven father.” I noticed that Ulster people don’t do Irish accents very well. I would say I had a hard time getting past the deficiencies of the actors

Dancing the night away

Tonight I went to a swing dance at Shorts Recreation Club. The band was fantastic and I danced every chance I got. I found myself laughing as I danced—it was that much fun. As I sat catching my breath and watching the dancers, I spared a thought for all

Doctor dilemmas

If you need to see a GP, you can do so fairly quickly with zero paperwork or cost. If you need to see a specialist, good luck to you. My GP referred me to a gyn for a minor procedure. If a gyn in the Belfast Health Care Trust is

PRI

I had an interview today. Only my second in four months. It was with the Principles for Responsible Investment, where I’ve applied for three jobs so far. It’s a very good fit for me. I’m not sure the interview was a great success. It’s funny how

Information overload

When I attended the University of Delaware, I’d look at the course catalog and have difficulty narrowing down, say, 300 courses to the five I could take each semester. I wanted to learn about everything--anthropology, politics, film, literature, history, sociology, philosophy, even some of the science classes. Narrowing the

Two years-ish

Somewhere around two years ago, I worked my last day at Vanguard. Fifteen years of meetings and projects and goals and writing and more meetings and more drafts and rounds and rounds of edits--it all seems very far away now. In the intervening two years, I’ve: Moved to an

Hail Cesar!

We saw this film today and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It takes place on a movie lot in the 1950s and you see parts of five films being made, one the epic Roman film of the title; another involving synchronised swimming; third with a fantastic dance number a la Gene

Triathlon

Not really, but today had three distinct parts--each very tiring. First came a 5K run at Stormont as part of the weekly ParkRun program. I came 69th out of 142 people in my first ParkRun a few weeks ago and today I came 40th out of 124 people in my

Time management

I find that one of the hardest things about being unemployed is managing my time. Every day, my choices are: Search for a job. Work on the office (paint, find furniture, wallpaper). Read one of two book club books. Find a recipe, get groceries, make a meal. Read up on

Numinous

Today I took the bus downtown to have lunch with two friends and hear the Ulster Orchestra’s lunchtime concert. Here’s the view from the bus stop: I think I said something the other day about enjoying the frequent sight of green hills rising around Belfast, the bowl-bottom city.

Super Tuesday

I fell in love once. He had it all. Smart, charismatic, good looking, idealistic, a do-er. When he talked about the future, I believed every word he said. Anything was possible. I would have followed him to the ends of the earth. In fact, I did go to Iowa for

Leap day

On the way home from church yesterday, I stopped at the hardware store and bought two cans of paint, one for a wall and the other for trim. A week or so ago, I bought wallpaper for the other three walls. I’ve begun the process of cleaning and prepping

An entertaining weekend

Last night I went to a bar called the Empire to hear a band called the Black Market Icons. Unfortunately there were boxing matches on before and after their performance, which lasted only a half hour. The band recommenced after a 12-round fight in which local boy Carl Frampton won

The Lovely Mournes

It was a lovely day for a hike--chilly but clear. Here we are heading up to the second reservoir. Here’s David on Ben Crom dam. Lunchtime. There were 10 of us on the hike. One more. 2-27

Bigger Splash

We saw this film tonight, partly due to my loyalty to Tilda Swinton and partly due to my crush on Matthias Schoenaerts. It was a taut drama involving Tilda’s character's ex-boyfriend (played by Ralph Fiennes) showing up uninvited, upsetting her current boyfriend, played by Schoenaerts. When Matthias’

Midweek Mingle

MeetUp.com is a way people connect with each other to go to films, theatre, concerts, etc. Every Wednesday is the Midweek Mingle, at a different pub each week. I’ve been to maybe two or three. Last night's meeting was at the John Hewitt, a pub named

Fay’s Folly

My neighbour Fay very kindly clipped a newspaper ad placed by the Human Rights Commission in Northern Ireland, which has four positions open. Given that my degree is in human rights and given that I want to be involved in an organisation working on justice issues, this seemed like a

FFx3

Today I went to three lectures: Positive Investment (how do we steer our investments toward positive ends), QUB FF (Queen’s University Belfast Fossil Free campaign), and Fossil Free Faith, a discussion among liberal Christians of the proper response to climate change. One of the speakers was from Oikocredit a

Blogged down

Back when I thought I was doing a good job on the blog, I would write every day about some small observation that generated a (sometimes) interesting insight. Now I write several entries at a time, usually backdating them a week or more. I look at my Google calendar to

Educating Rita

Today David & I saw Educating Rita at the Lyric, rewritten to take place in Belfast in the 1980s. Rita’s accent, so thick it could slice cheese, was terrific. Irish idiom is very rich and the script was rotten with Belfast bon mots. After that matinee, I went to