laertes's Blog

The only time I use Trinity's science library (the Hamilton) is during the summer, when there's a book I don't have that I want to read for a while. I don't like taking a book out, lugging it around with me all day, taking it home and not being sure if I'll get back in on that day next week, so I just read the book there. During the year, it's different because I'm in college nearly everday and normally return the book a few hours later. The reason I don't just spend a few hours in the library is that I have lectures and social stuff to do at the other end of the college, so it's handier just to bring the book with me and do some reading on/off, where I can leave the book down knowing it'll be safe.

Indeed, the book I currently read is a good one (Calculus by Spivak; it's a slightly misleading title, because it has a heavy flavour of analysis) and I deliberated on buying it, but decided against it at the time. My policy is to buy books on mathematics and physics if they're driven by love of the subject rather than just being a textbook to get people through a course (these books are rife with Linear Algebra, which is taken by a lot of people besides maths and physics students). I'll probably buy it at some point, because the author has a rather quirky, humourous style of explaining things, kind of like Richard Feynman, but with mathematics instead of physics.

The main reason I stopped using the library as a study place was that I found it as a place really annoying; it's used moderately during the year, but it literally packs up with people during April as vast swathes realise that they're screwed because they didn't bother studying or turning up to lectures during the year. What this leads to is people using the library all day with bags, hardback folders, highlighter pens, textbooks and notes filling their desk up to capacity (there's really no need for that; all I need is a book, or just a pen and paper if I'm practising a few problems). Then, considering they have to eat at some point, they go off for hours, leaving all their stuff over their desk, meaning other people can't use it (unless they clear it off, but most people are too shy to do that). It's not just a few at a time, it's half the library, and it's really annoying. I was never affected by it, but the whole thing struck me as quite selfish, because people would turn up, leave their stuff there, and disappear for hours.

My biggest gripe was how noisy the library was. While people having coughs and colds in the winter I could understand, having my thoughts periodically disturbed was a nuisance. What really got on my nerves was people grunting. I don't know why they do it, but whatever the reason, it's really annoying; it's a rough, abrasive noise from their throats as if they're trying to scratch some kind of itch in there. The library is particularly bad for this, because I don't hear it all that much outside, but when I am in there, it's as if there's a massive grunting contest taking place and I haven't got the memo. It gets to the extent that I want to go over to them and say, "Hey, no offence, but would you mind shutting up? I'm trying to read here," but that wouldn't achieve anything, not least because they'll be too offended to stop doing it, but also because there are way too many of them to stop them all. I quite genuinely don't know what's cause this pandemic of grunting, because when I need to clear my throat, I just go and get some water.

When the exams are over, the libraries are all deserted, which means peace and quiet for me; or so I would think. Even with a handful of people around me, the grunting still happens regularly. Is there some kind of international grunting conspiracy here? It's not just the few remaining students, it's the librarians too, as if they all want to remind us of their presence by making noises with their throats, very loudly. I always found it ironic that the people tasked with keeping things quiet in a supposedly quiet place are the biggest culprits in it not being quiet. I do have to look on the bright side, however - at least the coughing has stopped.

It's not all doom and gloom with me and libraries - I still occasionally use the Berkeley, a psychology, law and history library in the arts end of the college. Although I'm a man of science, I still go down to the arts block regularly where I know many people in addition to the ones from the science end. It's a different kind of library, very old, and more importantly, very quiet too - people complain it's cold, which would explain why it's not very busy, but I've never thought it to be cold. It's never been cold enough to stop me going to sleep for a while up there. Most arts students use the other two arts libraries, so I'm always guaranteed a more pleasant atmosphere in which to study maths and physics.

There is one other library I use, but it's not really a library. The George Francis Fitzgerald library is a small room full of physics journals and books on advanced topics, but it's also got scientific equipment on display (including the tar pitch experiment done to determine the viscosity of air - it's completely stopped dripping now). It even has offices of some of the Department of Physics' lecturers inside the library(!) and a staircase at the back that leads to the lecture hall on the ground above. It's an old, charismatic place to study and I much prefer it from the grunting zone a few buildings down.

But seriously; when I first arrived at college, I never expected it to be quieter outside the main libraries than inside them. As a result, I just avoid the big libraries and use the smaller, more intimate ones; of course, I don't do all my reading in libraries - anywhere that has a chair will do, and of course, no irritating noises!

Well, my summer is a little less tedious now; football has returned in full and the season is underway. Although being a football fan is very tedious if your team is losing (the knee-jerk reactionist brigade do my head in), it could be worse - I could be an Arsenal fan. It doesn't stop with watching the team I support (Manchester United), it extends to keeping an eye on rival teams and sharing banter with their fans. Since there is no football tournament on during the summer on odd-numbered years, the three months without competitive football means you get used to not having it so that when it does return, it is, if you'll pardon my analogy, like a new signing.

That's not to say that football went away during the summer, it didn't; speculation and rumours are always rife, some more entertaining than others. There were some games during the summer, albeit they were all friendlies, played at less than full intensity. The transfer window is still open, so there is still a chance that a few signings will be made, especially the longer drawn-out stories of the summer. The daddy of all long sagas ended this summer with Cesc Fabregas joining Barcelona after about three years of will-he-won't-he, but several that started this summer are still underway, notably, Samir Nasri, Luka Modric and Wesley Sneijder. The latter of these has been bit of a cold war, with both Manchester United and Inter Milan declaring nothing to do with the deal, but still dropping little hints of what might happen. It'll drag on until the end of the window.

It may seem trivial to be pre-occupied with transfers, but really, it's fun; as long as it's all taken with a pinch of salt, of course. When nothing else is going on during the summer (community life is utterly dead where I live - I wouldn't have believed it would happen if I were told about it seven years ago), you create distractions to occupy yourself. I've followed football for years, but I pay more attention to it now that my daytime options have vanished to limited numbers (believe me, I'd get a job, and I'm still trying, but they're just not going where I live). What you're lacking in life, in this case my friends who have all gone off to Summer and who I won't see again until college begins, you find ways to compensate that void. It never fills the gap, but it at least gets you partially there, and that's better than nothing.

Other things I have been doing to pass my summer include writing a play (I'm nearly finished), studying mathematics and physics (my course is theoretical physics), practising debating (it's fun and very worthwhile), reading and going out for walks - I never see anyone I know anymore, but it's still a chance to wake up the body. I'm still doing things, they're just all on my own. If I have four months where I know my social life is going to go into hibernation, then I may as well make the most of it - it'll stand to me in September and onwards.

When I was around in college doing some reading, I bumped into a couple of friends from down the country, who tell me that they're going to be around more often. That's when I know I'm getting close to the new college year. When I was back in secondary and primary school, the new football season meant I was going back to school soon, which made me feel pessimistic. By 2007 (I was 15, going into 4th year), I didn't mind because I was being treated more like an adult by then. By 2009, I was gagging to get back (albeit by then, the summers had become very dull affairs)! When I started college last year, I saw the football season start, and for the first time ever, I thought to myself, "It's ages until I'm back into education!" It may be three extra weeks to wait, but it's still a tedious wait.

There's a certain passion and engagement that associates with sport, the witnessing of an epic event, the pride in your team and the joy of winning that can't be imitated in life (except by taking part in it, of course). Although I cannot be there where the event is happening, and although it sometimes go wrong, in the case of losing, it's still something that enriches your life, and you'll always look forward to the next game, because you know it can turn out to be a good one. At the end of the season, there are trophies to be won, and fans with whom to experience the games that take place on the way to these prizes, regardless of whether the team wins them or not. It's not a full substitute (no pun intended) for a lack of activity when things are quiet, but it is a very welcome distraction.

When I first found out that my perception of the passing of time was the exception rather than the rule, I immediately set out to find out why this was; as a child, the years passed very slowly for me and my experiences were very detailed, transforming gradually by phase, and this is a pattern that continued as I became older. I always assumed that everybody else had a slow gradual experience of time; after all, time is absolute and we experience the same quantity of it together, surely we all feel it pass slowly by?

It was three years ago when I was sixteen that people I knew from social life and school said that their experience of time was nothing like mine; they said that time passed very quickly for them, and that being twelve year old kids felt like yesterday to them. For me, that very thought it scary; I would hate the idea of travelling very quickly closer to death with nothing to show for it. It's a good thing, then, that perception of time is subjective, because the experience of the individual determines how they perceive it.

I did a project on the topic a few months later and the things I found were that the more you think about life and the more you pay attention to its details and nuances, the more you become aware that there's a very intricate linearity of events that takes place in life and that what the casual observer sees is only a fraction of what really goes on; consider this example - if I go to a friend's going-away party (let's say he's emmigrating), the primary thing everybody experiences is the night out. Underpinning this, however, is the friend's decision to leave, because there are reasons someone would want to go and live abroad, as well as a broad mixture of feelings and opinions on the experience of life in one's own country. If we apply this more generally to life, we see the more intricately you reflect on your own life, the more you realise that a lot of things are truly happening and that there is absolutely no way time can fly by, except if one loses touch with this intricate scape.

The reason time stays slow-moving for me is precisely this. If I were to verbally deliver my autobiography right now at the age of nineteen, we'd be here for an awful long time. No individual knows any more than a fraction of my life, not because I am secretive, but because very few people are willing to dig that deep. Ireland may have a closeness and community in its societal roots, but the unpleasant reality is that Westernisation has influxed its invasive brand of apathy with Ireland's distinctly local insularisation and the result is that nobody gets off their arses and does anything during the summer. There used to be a time when I could go down to my local park during the summer and it would be full. These days, it's practically a library it's so quiet, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that we don't have sunny summers any more, something which just makes people that bit less enthusiastic to get out their houses and do something with their spare time.

It's no wonder then that I am finding a third summer in a row torturously long (albeit they have improved; 2009 was the worst, but 2010 was a bit better and 2011 is to date better still). My impulse is to be active and do things, but never without the chance to think, reflect and experience. When very little that happens from day to day, it's easy to imagine how tedious it becomes being in irregular contact with friends. There are six long weeks left until Freshers' Week begins at Trinity College, but the wait will be worth it.

It's not much fun having to have this summer pass by so slowly, but it gives me the chance to learn, work and develop. The time dilation (meant in a distinctly non-Einsteinean sense) is very well worth it considering how much it enriches the experience of my life; I can put up with this slow, dull summer, especially because I'll be in a much better position to fulfil the things I want to do in the summer of 2012.