We have too many friends who are silent about the discrimination we face daily, and we have too many friends for whom ‘gay’ is a term for ‘weird’. We must campaign for our rights and ensure that our visibility on campuses across the country is a force for improvement. We must continually compel Student Union Officers to represent STUDENT ISSUES BEFORE ALL ELSE, not political concerns thousands of miles away.

It is easy to be distracted by irrelevant agendas. We weaken our cause by directionless rants about issues not within our mandate. The NUS system takes some work to understand but can be made to work in our favour. I will aid our delegates in casting INFORMED votes and help them understand how to make the system support our positions.

* I strongly oppose and am continually offended by the ban on gay male blood donors.
* I prefer ‘marriage’ to ‘civil partnership’. How can it be acceptable that LGBT citizens are denied the same institutional unions as everybody else?
* FIGHT to encourage the acknowledgement of LGBT issues by the student body. We can and must be more ambitious than we are. When LGBT allies and non-activist friends show their support we CAN BE A FORCE OF STRENGTH AND PROGRESS.

VOTE Patrick for LGBT Conference!

This is even more prevalent when those I’m trying to interview are not quite keen on being the subject, on having a microphone under their nose, on me recording their words. There’s an interesting phenomenon that occurs when you’re talking to someone in a journalistic capacity which I see this all the time; you’re having a marvelous and stimulating conversation with a subject, getting lots of really useful information from them. Normally this takes place in the couple of minutes before you decide to start recording. It’s part of the warm-up process so that you can build a form of rapport with the interviewee. They say something very concisely or something a bit unexpected and you say to them ‘Hey, that was really interesting, can I just get you to say that again on tape?’ I ask them the question once more, we kind of run through our conversation again, but the second time it’s boring. People HATE being interviewed and I think often just the concept of having a mic in their face is incredibly off-putting.

I often try and really go past that level of discomfort with subjects and put the microphone so close in that they can’t really get away from it. If it’s too close to really be able to perceive it properly, as in if it’s so close to them that it’s out of their line of sight, people relax a little bit. It’s like a journalist’s blind spot. People end up not noticing the mic, or at least they end up feeling less uncomfortable with it.

But that doesn’t change anything for the subjects who rearrange, who move the location around, or who suddenly discover they’re pulled away. It wastes my time so much. That said, it’s often worth waiting around because those people who squirm are those who give depth of sound. They often have the most raw and real contributions. Waiting around gets good results. When people approach you, I’ve always found, the results are often near useless. Someone spotting you on the street asking about topic X, realises they have something to say about it too, often has a whole lot of five minutes to tell you nothing you want to use.

Rearranged appointments is never ideal, not only because you’ve spent that time to get ready and prepped for the initial occasion but because it no doubt screws up the rest of your timetable. Bang goes your study hour. On the other hand, the one way I’ve found to almost guarantee that your interview won’t be delayed or postponed is to turn up long before the arranged time. If you’re there before they even go into their preceding meeting there is little chance they’ll forget: you’re already waiting in the foyer. So when I have a 09:00 appointment, getting there at 08:30 might sounds like being desperately keen but, bring a book, and you have a much higher chance of keeping the date. On the plus side, planning arriving early allows you to sort out problems like the interview subject being at a different location, forgetting the date or such like. Those minutes are your insurance that you’ll keep to your plans, and it works.

Univers, taken by Loutseu (stand by).

The image above comes from the Flickr photostream of a Frenchman, called Loutseu whose work I stumbled across earlier today. His photos are fantastic: a combination of macro, HDR, black and white, long-exposure and just well framed interesting shots. Of course I also appreciate the fact that there’s always a bit of french thrown in there. It makes learning easier!

I was in Leeds from last Friday. I took morning flight from Bruxelles that got me into Leeds for about 10:30. I had been planning to see my friend Helen that morning, as I was staying at her house, but she’d just started a new job the morning in question so that idea wasn’t possible. I killed some time by heading into the University and sorting out admin that I needed to do for my own piece of mind. Not completely necessary but good to do. That’s kind of how the whole trip turned out: not necessary but good to do.


Over the last couple months I had been pretty scared with myself becausem having broken up with my boyfriend at the end of the University term I was then pretty out of touch for about a month and a half. Then I came to Belgium. I had felt myself very isolated and alone at firstm compounded by a feeling that I was being completely forgotten by this boy I’d really fallen for. So part of my intention of the trip was to ask him if I’d somehow done something wrong. From two meetings we had, one uncomfortable one in a nice but loud and overpriced bar and another at his apartement I found out there wasn’t anything I’d done wrong. I hadn’t been a shit by leaving, by not being in touch enough, by doing any of the number of things that had been going through my mind. He said he’d simply been busy and his life (him being the same age but two years ahead of me at University) had been changing a lot with his new job. I really didn’t want to accept that reason but in a way I have to. When we were together I’d felt as though at times he was maintaining a form of distance between us and as a result was shocked by how upset he was when we went out separate ways. That hesitance on my part had always made me question whether I wasn’t hearing from him because he was busy or because he simply didn’t really care. I still don’t feel like I have a real answer to that. I told him that I’d missed him and that the silence had hurt. I told him that it surprised me, and that I was saddened by the way our meeting the previous night had felt like an awkward first date. I’d never really ever sat down with someone before and told them directly how I’d been hurt. I felt like I wanted to shout at him but could sense that really he didn’t deserve it. That was a shame because a bit of shouting would have done me good! I had been so angry! Not so much anymore because seeing him was a bit like some sort of absolution.

One thing that I learnt from that encounter was that if I want to be happy in a relationship and not just feel like I’m settling, I need to be prepared to complain more, to cause more trouble, to have fights but to get over them. A relationship without any arguements cannot be really honest for either person. Human beings whine, and I’m sure I need to vent just as much as the next person. Holding it in is like blowing up a balloon and never letting the air out: at some point the whole thing’s going to explode.

I found that I have some amazing friends who went out of their way to arrange to meet up, who are amazing people and who I love. These are people I may not have very much in common with but who are absolutely stellar individuals and who I know deserve to go far. The people address books are made for. I miss them already. I also saw some people who, even when I went to see them and met up with them were not that interested in seeing me, asking anything about what I’d been doing or even wanting to tell me what they’d been up to. I know some people who, perhaps, are not all that worth knowing. I find it really heartbreaking to think of evaluating friends in this way because they’re people who I know and have invested a lot of time in, but when I come back and see them again, from perhaps a slightly new perspective out of the context of daily University life, do not reflect the personality traits I thought I’d seen in them in the first place.

Some people I didn’t know that well to begin with but were unbelievably kind and generous while I was there. Friends of friends who (impressively) actually remembered my name! I wouldn’t have if I were them! Honestly, I’m not that big a deal. I’m really sad that some of my friends and the friends of friends will not be around when I return. That is really tough, but I know if we were real friends to begin with, we’ll stay in touch somehow.

I went to Paris on Friday mid-morning and arrived in Blvd Montparnasse expecting to meet a sweet, 70-odd year old French lady with a strong accent and not perfect English, smoking away non stop on her cigarettes. I found all of those things but instead of being a sweet old lady she was a horrible old lady who was opinionated and didn’t mind telling you about it, insulting your friends and language and manners and appearance. She was not agreeable or kind and made the 24 hour stay I submitted to a little slice of hell. I decided after those 24 hours that instead of staying until the Sunday afternoon as I’d planned that I would leave early. International trains from France to Belgium are not hard, they don’t even bother checking passports. I was not prepared to leave with my tail between my legs as though I’d done something wrong, so told her why I was leaving and my thoughts. I was not insulting or rude to her, save telling her I myself had never been so insulted in my life. She wasn’t impressed, but then I didn’t expect her to be. I felt bad though because this left Caroline high and dry and remaining in the fallout of my departure for the following 24 hours. That cannot have been enjoyable. But after her time of horror she came and visited me in Belgium, spending the rest of her birthday (the 4th this is) with me. It was an ultra-quick visit but still great to show her around ‘my’ town so that when I talk about certain people or places she at least has a clue about what I’m on about!

Two great visits and one less successful one. I’ve tried, while writing this, to think in the way Ellen mentions in this interview in W magazine. She talks about not being duplicitous, not publicly making fun of people. I get a deep feeling of empathy from her. In the interview she says:

I got to learn how to sit back and watch other people and learn what judgment was and have compassion. And learn that not only was I strong enough to make it in the first place, but I was strong enough to come back and make it again. How lucky am I to have learned that? That took a lot. I wanted to crawl up in a ball and climb in a hole and hide forever; I was embarrassed. That’s why I look at it as a blessing.

Today I don’t feel overly concerned about talking about anything in particular on this site. I’ll talk about that past relationship, discuss friends (though no specifics please), and even future ones. Hey, speaking of which, am going to a party thrown by some Spanish gay-guy tonight. He has a boyfriend. Shame. But all the same who knows what might happen!

I’m visiting friends in Leeds and Paris over the coming week. I’m really looking forward to it but at the same time a little bit apprehensive because I want it to go as well as ‘mes rêves’ and anticipations would have it.

I’m scared I won’t see all the people I want to and people will just forget: forget I’m visiting, forget to care, forget we were friends. I guess it’s the standard year abroad problem but this time only half way through the year. It’s amazing how quickly one can loose touch with people and how doing so really shows who the people that don’t let that happen are incredibly valuable friends. I have to wake up in four hours.

I have to hand everything in by five o’clock and it takes me a good 30 minutes (in rain, as it is now) to walk into my department. My dad hasn’t sent me a copy back yet and once he does I still have to read over his comments and try and rectify the all-too-apparent flaws that he reveals. That’ll take some time.

It’s funny how, even though I’ve been working for the last week on these pieces, everything still comes down to the last hour. My friend was in the University’s main lending Library today and said that you’d never recognise it because of the noise, ‘like a zoo’ was her text-message description to me. I’ve avoided the library, having already taken all of my books out, so that I don’t have to be distracted by all the people milling around, trying to be quiet and failing.

So the essays are done. Now: exams!

It was started by Harvard sophomores in February 2004. Now, a year later the infectiously popular website Facebook has come to Leeds. Created as a way for members of different residential houses to keep in touch during the digital era the Facebook website interlinks users in a way no normal yearbook cood. With a copy dead-trees yearbook, you can’t search, you can’t update and you can’t ‘Poke’ people to say a quick ‘hi!’ as you can on the facebook website. It turns out, this ease of use and interlinking of friends, quickly creating large but not infinite social networks, is exactly what people have been waiting for.

Linking everyone in Harvard together suddenly became very successful, with 6000 students signing up in the first three weeks spurring the students who created the site to progressively open it up for other schools. Now the site is reported to be the 9th most visited site on the internet and 3/4 of the five million US college students who make up the majority of users log on at least once over 24 hours. Alexa ranks theFacebook at 35th most visited English language site, behind MySpace (5), Orkut (34) and near Hi5 (37). From November 2004 to November 2005 Nielsen/NetRatings showed Facebook increasing in traffic by 530%. Its speedy popularity is clear: on Sunday 19th of March, over 9,500 photos were uploaded to the profiles of Leeds students according to Facebook’s ‘Pulse’ trendtracker. What makes Facebook unique is that to become a member you have to have a college based email address so in the US that’s .edu or in the UK it’s .ac.uk. By limiting the numbers (and kinds) of people who’re on the site there is an automatic limit to how many unknowns can see your information. If you find a friend on the site, before you see their information you have to be added as a Friend. It doesn’t let you add just anyone and instantly have access to their information; you have to get permission from the other person by that agreeing that you are in fact a friend.

While others like MySpace, now owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News International thrive on the thrill of opening your information up to potentially millions of people, Facebook thrives on the community. It lists information on parties thrown by members of your college. You get groups of people who have a common interest like clubs and societies, halls of residence and course modules enrolled in. Some of these you have to sign up for, others are automatically created by the information you provide. You can be linked to everyone from your hometown, highschool, first year location, major or just film-interests.

This interlinking of contacts could be annoying (do you really want all the people you’ve left behind from secondary or highschool to be able to get in touch?) but it can be refreshing. Because there is the ability for so many people who you know to see your information and pictures, there’s a sense of self-censorship. People don’t post pornographic or especially rude images on their profiles or photo albums. Why? Because your whole university will see it, know who you are, and distain you as a result. There is another issue of personal information. I at first struggled with what information to post online because, as a member of several different and often conflicting groups, causing conflict and trouble for myself isn’t a goal in social-networking. As a member of a military training group, do I post information about my boyfriend, a potentially agitating disclosure? But the question boils down to whether you care about the people who could potentially add you as a Friend on your individual lists.

The answer comes from thinking about who those people think that you are, and if you’re not that person, why do you want them to be your friend. If they’re a friend of yours, then in a way you have a duty to be honest with them, and so if you’re not interested in those games you always used to play, if secretly you’re a math geek and you’ve now achied far more than your school bullies who taunted you for your skills, why hide it? Some things users may find virtue in not displaying. Following a recent series of articles about the dangers of Facebook publicity, some users are becoming wary of what to post on their profiles. With the ability for alumni registrations, potential employers can log onto the website and look up the information of an applicant from their alma mater. When you have photographs of yourself inebriated, in scanty clothing or (in the US at least) under-age drinking, the consequences become more notable. The message: don’t put anything online that you wouldn’t want everyone else you might ever meet, to see. It may sound Orwellian, but because you are so clearly identified on the Facebook website everything you post can be forever linked back to you.

Many of us innocently put up photographs, funny quotes and stories, and assume that there is not someone pouring over our weekend escapades in search of bad behavior. Apparently, this is not the case.

-Chris Berger, Facing Facebook: The Daily Princetonian

As the many media articles on Facebook have discussed, there’s a degree of popularity contest in the database of users. How many friends do you have? Who do you know and from where? The numbers of connections in your university life are laid bare. There’s little value in quality, but when you look at the lists of some people it is the quantity that hits you. In retrospect, you know those friends from Elementary School – do you feel as cool? Do you?

At the same time as being a fake and superficial exercise in the vein of MySpace and Friendster, while the number-popular look busy and those who care not don’t show up at all, Facebook has an impact. It allows fellow students to get in touch with an ease that’s unmatched in the real world. My department has a social society that last year died a form of death by apathy. This was apt since the death of the Politics Society comes at a time of declarations about voter apathy. Anyway, in a meeting on Tuesday of last week I was asked by the Secretary about what we could do to revive the group. Was it just because people don’t need a social society? Apparently this isn’t the feeling because there are many politics students who have few friends within their own course. Perhaps we can point a finger of blame and say they’ve been lax in not nurturing relationships, but there’s been little done to help these people. A Facebook Politics Society group was created on Sunday night and by the Tuesday evening we were able to report 168 members. This with absolutely no publicity, no promotion or official sponsorship. When there is a need, groups like Facebook can come and bridge the divide because in the end nobody wants to lose contact with friends, and if that contact network comes with added benefits and tools, there’s a great chance it’ll thrive.

Wired News: College Facebook Mugs Go Online
The Associated Press: Finding Friends with Facebook
LA Times & Xeni Jardin: Pouty-mouth poses for narcoleptic dudes
Cake Party misleads Campus Police: ‘Ummm…so I’m in the New York Times’
Ars Technica: Google + Facebook + alcohol = trouble
[Princeton's Department for Public Saftey] issues guidelines on [officials' use of] Facebook
Guardian: Social networking site helps college students around the world make a connection
Odeo.com: DORM’d Interview: Chris Hughes of Facebook.com

I’ve been waiting patiently for him to come and get it
I wonder if he knows that he can say it and I’m with it
I knew I had my mind made up from the very beginning
Catch this opportunity so you and me could feel it ‘cos

If you’re ready for me boy
You’d better push the button and let me know
Before I get the wrong idea and go
You’re gonna miss the freak that I control

Sortroom.net’s Flickr Pages

One of my best friends, Helen, told me how a guy from her course has been asking after me during the evening. He’d been wanting to know if I fancied him, obviously a loaded question since he’s demonstrably straight. Showing great aplomb (and truthfulness), she told him that I don’t comment on straight guys.

That answer was so perfectly what I would have wanted her to say, I could have kissed her right there, apart from the fact that the idea is disgusting! (Love you Helen!)

He insisted that he had a right to know, since he is, after all, “homersexual”. Either he’s a big fan of ancient literature or he’s been getting the wrong idea from The Simpsons for a long time.