The Gerbals

After I left go Ginger (the cat) I noticed that Damien and Yukochan had a few gerbals and hampsters.  I started to question them about having pets and thought we weren't allow to have pets.  They told me that Ned allowed them as long as they were in cages. It gave me the idea to purchase a gerbal and kept it in the spare bedroom.  It was black with white paws and I was thinking of a name for it.  I asked Damien if he had any idea of a name.  He thought about Sockchan since it has white paws as if it was wearing socks.  So Sockchan was the name for it since the name fitted the gerbal.

After several months had passed, Damien and Yukochan were moving out of the building and into a house at Glasgow Terrace.  It was sad to see them leave the building but they weren't moving too far.  I was also happy for them that they moved into a house.  They were starting fresh so they asked me if I would like to take care of he gerbals and hampsters.  In other words they wanted me to keep them.  Before I knew it I had 5 gerbals and hamsters.

Rioting

Derry and the riots

I could remember around 1996 about the riots in Derry as well as Belfast.  when you walked through the Bogside, the night was lit everywhere by the flames of vehicles and petrol (gasoline) bombs.  There was a bread delivery van that was hijacked by a group of individuals.  They used vehicles to form some sort of barricade against the RUC.

One of my friend's told me that there was one guy who heard footsteps behind him and his jacked was thrown opened and had a gun under his ribs.  The person who had the gun had a mask on his and was cussing and screaming, something to do with taking pictures.  But he didn't give a fuck but played it off walking away and still took photographs.

This whole event went until all hours of the night until like 2 or 3 in th morning.

EXTRA! EXTRA!

During the Eurocat program at The Playhouse, I made a new friend.  Her name was Angela.  We built up a very nice friendship.  I found it very interesting how she knew when movies were going to be filmed in Derry.  There was one movie called Sunset Heights where we booked as extras.  Shawna Rooney who was the co-ordinater for Eurocat at the time was becoming difficult that she wanted us to work on our show rather than running off onto the set of Sunset Heights.  There were five of us that went down to be extras.  It was our opportunity of a few seconds of fame.  Sadly to say that when the movie came out, our scene as extras was pretty dark due to the fact that the scene supposedly been Halloween night.

Angela did it again.  She found another movie called Surfing with William.  We both played Paparazzi photographers.  We really enjoyed the 10 minute movie when it came out.  Actually, I never saw the movie until about 4 years ago when it appeared on YouTube so that was really nice to see.

Trouble, Illegal immigrant

During my time living in Derry the first couple of years, I decided that I wanted to go visit the family back in New York every Christmas.  1994 was my first trip to New York since I had left.  At Heathrow I was stopped through immigrations and they were asking me what I have been doing all that time while living in Ireland.  I told them I was in school.  I had no idea that I was living there illegal.  I wondered about myself how I could be living there illegal if I have relatives in Derry.

The next couple of years I was continously being stopped by the same security at immigrations.  I could not figure it out why I was kept being stopped through immigrations.  Security then told me what was wrong.  They mentioned if I wanted to stay in Ireland, that I would have to go through the passport offices in Belfast and claim a British Passport.  It appeared that I had been using my American passport whenever I was leaving Ireland.  This what was the causing me to being stopped.

So I had gotten a British passport.  To this day my mother still continues telling me that I was to give up my American citizenship.  Well if that was the case then why did the security take my American passport away from me.  This is what I don't understand.

The Derry Walls

I learned many things about the Derry Walls.  It is such an amazing place to visit which such history was held.  It is the most visible of the city’s structures, dominate its skyline and are a constant reminder of a rich but divisive history. A lot of the original structure has maintained its look and also has stood for almost four centuries.  The events had experienced where military encounters had won and also lost.  The length of the Derry Walls is equivalent to one mile around if you were to walk it.  That is how long it is.

You know, from time to time I had see myself breaking free from my day to day activities and spend time walking around the Derry Walls and having a piece of mind.  It was kind of therapeutic for me and how great it was to live in Derry and proud to be a resident.