Well last weekend I attended my first proper music festival i.e. not a one day festival where you get to go home at the end of the day. I attended a local music festival called Stendhal Festival which is set in Limavady (Northern Ireland). I had come close to attending before especially last year but ended up not being fussed on the idea of camping especially last year when I was in the middle of writing up my PhD thesis. It's been running for a number of years now and has a very good reputation as being a great local music festival that caters to those of all ages. It has musical acts, comedy acts and plenty of things for kids to do including workshops and other fun activities.
I went with my brother and our mutual friend, me and my brother left on Friday morning and had to battle the Belfast traffic to pick up our friend then we had a long drive to Limavady, It wasn't the most reassuring drive as we drove through periods of very heavy rain. Thankfully we arrived in the sunshine and were able to get our tent set up. We were eager to get into the main site and start enjoying the festival and we were able to start with the wonderful Malojian. I really love his music but hadn't had the pleasure of seeing him live. It was a lovely way to start my first Stendhal, By the way I definitely recommend watching a documentary about how he went to Chicago to record an album with the famous Steve Albini.
The rest of the Friday was good, I saw the Ulster Orchestra play with a number of different female artists, saw Hunkpapa (unfortunately their set was cut short) and saw Jealous Of The Birds among other acts. Me and my brother had very nice pizza for dinner. Unfortunately the Friday night was rather cold especially if you were wearing welly boots which have no insulation! It did stay dry but a number of the stages were under cover anyway. It was rather late by the time we were heading back to the tent but I slept surprisingly well. I had bought a "self-inflating" mattress for £10 which worked quite well, I was also prepared and had brought a plastic lunch box to keep my hearing aid and my glasses in whilst I was sleeping. I probably slept better than my brother and our friend given that I couldn't hear most of the noise from the campsite!
Joshua Burnside was last on the bill on Friday night:
We got up on Saturday morning to glorious sunshine and I even put sun cream on the back of my neck just in case (probably should've put it on my face as well given I ended up somehow getting sunburnt despite the rest of the day not actually being that sunny!). I had a sausage bap for breakfast and then we started the day with the wonderful Glass Wings. The rest of the day I was all over the site at all the different stages not just for music but for a live comedy podcast as well as comedians as well. Highlights of the second day were Runabay, Rebekah Fitch, Hand Models and also Cormac Neeson of the The Answer with his side project. He and his band played on a small stage in the woods and it was such a great set. Embrace were the headliners on Saturday night, I like their old stuff but when the rain was pouring down and they are faffing about with an out of tune guitar and asking us to wish their tour manager or whatever happy birthday it didn't do much for me. We ended up going over to catch a bit of Brand New Friend who are definitely making waves now before going up to the other end of the site to catch the always fantastic Wood Burning Savages.
The weather had turned on Saturday evening and we ended up making the decision to pack up our tent and everything else and leave it back in the car. It meant that since we weren't that fussed on the band that were closing the festival we could leave slightly early and sleep in beds with a roof over our heads rather than a tent in the pouring rain (and then have to pack up a wet tent as well). Overall I really enjoyed my first festival experience. Obviously I was tired after it but it had helped that the weather had been so nice and we had been able to sit on the grass to enjoy quite a few of the acts. Not sure if I would enjoy it as much if it rains for two days straight. I would definitely consider going back next year and now I have done it once I know a lot better what to expect and what I need to bring and what I definitely don't need to bring.
There has been some debate recently on the TCS Facebook groups and it has got a little bit heated at times. The topic of debate is whether or not to let employers know that you have a condition, how it affects you etc. There are some people who have the opinion that they want the job on merit, that their condition has no impact on their ability to do the job and there is no reason to notify employers. Obviously it's hard not to wonder that the different attitudes may be down to people living in different countries, it's hard to know. It is something that I've had to think a fair bit about since I have been job hunting for quite a while now and have now attended five job interviews in the past few months.
Personally I have the belief that it is better to be upfront about things especially when I look noticeably different and people who don't know me find it difficult to understand me. That said it does depend on the person, some people make more of an effort to understand me than others. There are disability acts which are meant to prevent discrimination against disabled people and employers are expected to make reasonable adjustments for people who are disabled. I used to hate the term disabled with it making me think of people who were confined to wheelchairs or blind etc. that said I've come to realise that it is just a term used to describe people who are at a disadvantage. There is no shame in allowing for things to level the playing field.
I do not mention that I have TCS on my CV and I only mention it on job applications if it specifically asks about disabilities. I only make the employer aware of it if I am invited for interview. In some cases they ask you to fill out a monitor form which often has a question about any disabilities. Even in those cases I make sure to include a paragraph in my email accepting the invitation to interview about my TCS. I do not feel it is fair for me or for the interviewers for me to turn up and surprise them as it were. It is better for them to be prepared to accommodate me and not be distracted by the way I look/talk and not know why.
This is what I wrote for my recent job interview, it is slightly edited: As I have noted in the completed Application for Employment Addendum I have Treacher Collins Syndrome as a result of which I am hearing impaired and have some difficulties with articulation when communicating orally. I would therefore request that this be taken into account during the interview in terms of time allowed. I have been advised by a employment adviser at Action on Hearing Loss that it might be helpful if I could be provided with a written copy of the interview questions on the day. I would be happy to respond to questions in writing, but only should there be any difficulty in the interviewers understanding of my speech.
Unfortunately this doesn't always work out. One interview I had a while back was very awkward as the HR person clearly misunderstood my email and I ended up having to write down all my answers to the questions despite saying I would be happy to answer them orally. When I went back to them by email after the interview to clarify this I was then invited to go all the way back to receive oral feedback, which I declined and thankfully got written feedback instead.
For my most recent interview I was given short notice with the interview only being a few days later. I sent the email accepting the invitation along with the paragraph above both in the employment form and in the email. Unfortunately the interview invitations was being handled by a placement student, who did not pass on the information. I went into the interview and it was clear that they were slightly taken aback and the person leading the panel had to interrupt me to let me know she was struggling to understand me and asked if that was why I had brought the notepad with me. The rest of the interview was a combination of me writing some of my answers down and answering others orally. The members of the interview panel were very friendly and overall I thought the interview went quite well. After the interview I asked my employment adviser to ring them to clarify that I had sent the information about my condition. It turns out that after the interview the person leading the panel actually went and checked if they had received any information and found out that the placement student had been off the day before the interview and hadn't passed the information on. It is unfortunate but they handled it well.
The best interview I have probably had which led to the paragraph I now send as shown above was actually for a job in a university. They gave me the questions they were going to ask me on a sheet of paper. I was allowed to answer the questions orally. I was then asked to write down the answers to the questions in a separate room. These were taken back into the interview panel for them to look at before I was brought back into the room to answer some more questions and to clarify some things.
Obviously everybody is different but I am happy with this method of dealing with interviews I have found that said I will be now asking them to confirm they have received my email before the interview. Unfortunately I know it is true that appearance is often everything that said by making them aware of it beforehand and making sure I can properly get across my skills/experience and more importantly personality then I think I might have a better chance of getting a job than turning up and expecting them to be able to understand me/not allowing me enough time etc.
In terms of my job hunt I'm now playing the waiting game. Waiting to hear back about an apitude test I completed last week, waiting to hear back about my most recent interview, waiting to hear back about other job applications I have sent in and I also have another interview in September. Wish me luck!
Well I have officially graduated with my PhD (for some reason it's doctor of philosophy rather than doctor of science). I graduated from Queens University Belfast on a glorious sunny Friday morning. It was actually a bit too warm especially as a guy wearing a suit and then having to wear the over the top graduation gown on top of that (£67 to rent and no graduation cap!). It was great to finally be able to graduate and do so with my immediate family there as well as graduating alongside some of my friends who were also graduating with PhDs. The ceremony wasn't much to write home about especially compared to my undergraduate graduation which had David Attenborough as the special guest. This time we had the CEO of Marks and Spencers which was fine and thankfully the ceremony didn't drag on to long. After the ceremony we got some pictures taken in front of the main building before me and one of my friends left our gowns back. Me and my family then went home, got changed into much more comfortable clothing before going out to lunch to celebrate.
Things are still pretty much the same for me, I'm still looking for a job, unfortunately it just seems like it is going to take a while, there are periods when there will be several new jobs and other times when there isn't anything relevant. I'm more relaxed about it than I was before and I am trying to enjoy all this free time that I currently have (though job hunting is time consuming). I have been quite productive as well doing bits and pieces for my parents with the biggest thing being painting the large fence that we have in our back garden. It borders the back and part of the sides and is quite tall. It took a while to get it all done but looks a lot better now. One great thing is the weather we have had recently, it's been the best summer we've had in years. I'm able to wear shorts every day! Hopefully it will continue for a while yet.
*I know some of my readers come from all over the world and may not know about Northern Ireland. All I will say is that Northern Ireland is separate from the Republic of Ireland despite being part of the same land mass. It is part of the United Kingdom along with England, Scotland and Wales. There are those in Northern Ireland like myself who support the national team and there are others who support the Republic of Ireland football team. There is plenty of information (and contentious debate) online if you want to know more about Northern Ireland etc.
Well the 2018 World Cup has gotten underway unfortunately it is missing one team and one group of fans that would've made it better and going by some of the matches so far deserve to be there more than some of the teams that made it. That team is Northern Ireland, the team that I support, the country George Best was born in and played for, a team of underdogs with arguably some of the if not the best fans in the world. I've supported them from a young age attending matches with my brother and my parents. Often it was a case of Northern Ireland losing by three goals or more and the fans singing that we would win 4-3!
George Best
After quite a long dark period Lawrie Sanchez was appointed manager of Northern Ireland and started to turn things around. He oversaw a brilliant victory over England in a World Cup Qualifier and then came close to overseeing Northern Ireland qualify for Euro 2008 That campaign included a brilliant win over Sweden but more spectacularly a 3-2 win against Spain. That match was fantastic for a number of reasons, it came a few days after a dismal defeat to Iceland at home (a match we attended or rather endured), it was the debut of Jonny Evans and not only did we come back twice against a team of Spain's quality but David Healy scored a hat-trick! Unfortunately having lost four matches by the end of the campaign we did not qualify and Lawrie Sanchez ended up taking over as Fulham manager.
Unfortunately the Irish Football Association made the decision to appoint Nigel Worthington as manager and kept him on even through poor results, performances and campaigns. He only oversaw nine wins out of 41 matches. He finally stepped down after the poor Euro 2012 qualifying campaign. The IFA then appointed Michael O'Neil who had done a great job with Shamrock Rovers. Unfortunately despite there being what I thought was a definite positive shift in the way the team were playing the results did not change and the mood wasn't great after the very poor 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign.
Thankfully the IFA decided to keep Michael O'Neil on as manager but at the time there wasn't a lot of hope for the Euro 2016 qualifying campaign. People may say that we had an easy group but when it was first announced it was hard not to be pessimistic because in the past Northern Ireland struggled against teams at their own level or weaker teams. The first match was against Hungary away from home and at 75 minutes we were 1-0 down and it was hard not to think "here we go again". But then things changed, not only did we equalise but we managed to get a late winner! After the first win Northern Ireland continued playing well and with only one defeat, Northern Ireland managed to not only qualify but finish top of their group!
The captain Steve Davis leading by example!
Around this time two years ago Euro 2016 was taking place and Northern Ireland were drawn in a group featuring Germany, Poland and Ukraine. It was a tough ask and the first match was definitely a learning experience but thankfully one where we only lost 1-0 to a team of Poland's quality. The second match was against Ukraine, a match that was actually interrupted by a hail storm despite taking place in June! Gareth McAuley rose to head home a brilliant free kick just after half-time. Northern Ireland then made it 2-0 with two of the substitutes working well to get a late goal. The last group match was against Germany and they were absolutely ruthless, so fast and powerful, pinpoint accurate passing back and forth and they deservedly went 1-0 up. That said Northern Ireland defended well and Michael McGovern pulled off what was most likely the goalkeeping performance of the tournament to restrict Germany to only one goal. Northern Ireland went through to the knockout stage and were drawn against fellow home nation Wales. Despite playing well and being the better team Northern Ireland were not able to score. Unfortunately Wales had a player of Gareth Bale's quality playing for them and he managed to whip in a nasty cross well into the match and Gareth McAuley was unable to do anything but direct it into his own net in his attempt to stop a Welsh player getting onto the cross. Northern Ireland were looking for an equaliser but there was a very frustrating moment when they were on the attack only for two Welsh players to collide with one another. For some reason the referee stopped play despite there not being a head injury. Wales then showed their lack of class by time wasting as much as possible with Michael O'Neil saying afterwards that the Welsh coaches had told their players to sit on the pitch for as long as possible. It finished 1-0.
It was hard not to think that the team had maybe peaked with Euro 2016 and the 2018 World Cup Qualifying campaign involved being drawn in a group with Germany and the Czech Republic with only the top team in each group automatically qualifying. Northern Ireland ended up winning six out of ten matches including a late winner away to Azerbaijan which meant they came second in the group and made it to the play-offs. We were drawn against Switzerland and Northern Ireland fans were optimistic which was maybe a mistake given the great qualifying campaign that the Swiss had. The first match was at home to Northern Ireland, a loss of 1-0 due to a penalty that everyone agreed after shouldn't been given including the referee himself not to mention the overall refereeing performance which is one of the worst if not the worst that I've ever seen. This included a tackle that should've seen the Swiss down to ten men early on. Without the pressure of being at home and with nothing to lose Northern Ireland played the second match away in Switzerland much better. Unfortunately it ended 0-0 with a late chance cleared off the line by the Swiss. Given that the Swiss only qualified for the World Cup by scoring a goal from a penalty that shouldn't have been given it was hard not to feel hard done by that Northern Ireland didn't have the chance to go to extra time.
It is fair to say that it hasn't always been easy being a Northern Ireland fan. There have been some dark periods where the football and results have both been poor. The small size of the country, the lack of resources not to mention the issue of the Republic of Ireland taking advantage of the rule of players being able to switch allegiance. Players like James McClean who played for Northern Ireland at under 21 level, who apparently knew in his heart that he wanted to play for the Republic of Ireland but instead played for Northern Ireland before switching as soon as the Republic were interested. There was no compensation for the amount of time, effort and money that had been spent on him by Northern Ireland. There is also the frequent baseless accusation from Republic fans and other people who have never set foot in the NI national stadium about sectarianism despite the huge steps made to change things for the better after problems in the distant past. There is also the frequent calls again from people who don't have a clue (or from Republic fans but only when we are doing well!) for there to be a United Ireland team just because there is a single Irish rugby team. The only change that I think that they could make would be for Northern Ireland to have our own national anthem, at the moment we sing God Save the Queen which is what England also sing. Scotland and Wales have their own national anthems.
I am proud to be a Northern Ireland fan. I am proud of our current manager for turning the team around after performances and morale were so low after the previous manager. I am also proud of the players who although they may not play for top level teams have shown that they can take on anyone in the world. As long as they show desire and effort the fans will always be behind them. It's just a shame we are not at the World Cup given we could definitely compete (beat South Korea 2-1 in their warm up match for the World Cup and drew with Panama away from home), and given how praised the fans were at Euro 2016. There is always Euro 2020!
Well I'm not long back from a week away in the sun with my parents. We went back to Puerto Pollensa in Majorca where we had been in 2016, though we couldn't get the apartment we stayed in the last time so we ended up staying down at the other end of the town. We ended up getting a package deal which was good in that we didn't have to worry about getting from the airport to the apartment as travel was all organised but on the not so great side it meant a very early start of 4am on the way out and 6.45am on the way back. It was hard not to be a bit worried when we arrived as we were standing waiting for the coach and it wasn't exactly hot and sunny, the weather had been better at home! Thankfully whilst it wasn't pure sunshine all week it did warm up and there were some glorious days.
It was lovely to get away and just relax and not have to think about things, and whilst I did check my emails when I was away it was nice to not have to think about my job hunt too much. It wasn't all sitting about the pool/the beach though. We went out for a day, getting the bus to Palma and then getting an old fashioned train to Soller, we then got a tram to Port de Soller and had a walk around there before getting eh tram back to Soller and then later going back to Puerto Pollensa. On the Saturday it was clouded over so we decided to do a local walk, it takes you up and away from the town through this lovely valley and then you have to navigate steep rocky paths down to get to a secluded cove. We hadn't brought stuff for swimming but it was a bit too rocky anyway. It was lovely to sit though and it was funny because not only did a woman get bitten by a fish on her finger but a number of goats also appeared looking for food!
I definitely recommend Puerto Pollensa as a holiday destination, obviously we were there early in the summer this year but even the last time there was a lovely breeze which stops things getting too hot. There are lovely beaches and restaurants and it isn't just a place for tourists. I've included some pictures below.
Well I finally did it, I have submitted the final version of my PhD thesis to the university as well as the organisation who funded me. I have received a letter saying that I've met all the requirements for the qualification of PhD and now the only thing I need to do is register for graduation and actually graduate. On one hand it is fantastic to be done, on the other hand the process dragged on unnecessarily so it almost feels more of a relief to be done rather than a celebration. I am looking forward to graduation especially since several of my friends who also did PhDs are going to be graduating as well.
Me and my four copies of my hardbound thesis
The canvas bag I got from the university for submitting my thesis...
My personal copy
In other news I am still unemployed! Unfortunately I didn't get either of the jobs I had interviews for that I mentioned in my last update. That said I have had another interview since then that went well and I have another one next week. I guess I should be reassured that I am being invited for interviews. I have also started talking with an advisor from an organisation called Action on Hearing Loss about ensuring that there are no issues at interviews in regards to my hearing/communication as well as other things.
I don't know if it is because November was so rubbish or if it's the fact that I've been home so much but it feels like it has been a really long winter. Thankfully now with the clocks moved forward it's a lot lighter in the evenings but it is still cold for this time of year. Not much has changed since my last update though I think I forgot to mention that I submitted my revised PhD thesis a number of weeks ago and so I'm hoping to get it signed off, printed, hardbound and submitted within the next few weeks. I've been applying for jobs and have over 10 applications submitted. I actually had a busy week last week with a job interview on Monday as well as another one on Thursday. I thought they went quite well but it is always difficult to know and with both jobs it may be that they had other people with more relevant experience.
That's all I really have to say about what's going on with myself at the moment but I will hopefully get some other posts up soon.
