MIDTERM CRISIS

A midterm crisis, for those not in the know, is exactly the same as the mid life crisis, except it occurs mid way through a term rather than life, and on a much smaller budget. Not being, middle aged I can't really say what exactly a mid life crisis is about, but my mid term crisis was centred upon the crushing weight of work I have yet to do, things I have yet to organise and emails I have yet to reply to, alongside exhaustion that makes me feel like I could happily go into hibernation, and my current lack of a job. 

I dragged myself into college despite feeling slightly fever-y for a meeting, wearing gym gear and a baseball cap. I have a vague recollection of this meeting being successful despite the fact the room was spinning and I rudely cut people off mid sentence a few times due to not being quite sure whether I in fact was actually in Trinity and not dreaming, in bed. I got ID'd in CEX buying the first bioshock game, went to see the girl on the train. Collapsed into bed to fever dreams that had me convince my boyfriend that there was a drink deal on a viking website to the point he googled it. 

My mid term crisis culminated with a crack. Unfortunately, the crack was that of one of my teeth splitting in half quite spectacularly. Not trusting any dentist but my own with a tooth that has already cost more than I would like to know in root canals I got the first bus I was awake for down to Kilkenny, in deep mourning for my days as a women with all her teeth. 

This was incredibly over dramatic, and incredibly vain. An image of of myself, laughing attractively to reveal a terrifying black gap in my smile where my tooth had once been (despite the fact the tooth was right in the back) was the only thing on my mind. On the way to my bus I consumed a large coffee, and then bought a large chai latte in Starbucks in order to use the toilet, which backfire because once it was finished and I was 20 mins into my 90 min bus journey I needed a wee once again. Eventually though, I got to my dentist office, early, to see whether anything could be done. 

My dentist is a hero. After some begging, she agreed to leave my tooth intact, removing the broken half and reconstructing it. While doing an incredible job, it was also a time consuming job. It could have taken the next 3 years and I would walk out happy at the end of it with the knowledge all my teeth were intact. 

Thirty minutes into what turned out to be a procedure that would take the same length of time as my bus journey, everything took a turn for the worse. The news came on, and the 7th circle of hell opened up. Trapped in the dentist chair, with several instruments stuck in my mouth and no way of signalling clearly to my dentist that I'd like a change in the station, a speech by Enda Kenny was broadcasted. 

Hearing Enda Kenny talk about pornography is a little portal to hell that can be accessed by anyone with an understanding of the english language. I would rather watch the entirety of Nathan Caters bank holiday special that ever here that again (something I wrote about how much I dislike Nathan here). It ended eventually, and I walked out of the dentist office with half a brand new tooth. Weirdly enough, my midterm crisis was over. 

I think it ended because hearing Enda talk about porn was a low point in my life, and it could only go uphill from there. Even hearing him mention the word is like a magical remedy for any academically induced crisis. It hurts, and is painful, and leaves a rather large mental scar, but at the end of the day places you on the up once again. 

The Bedsit Chronicles: Part Two- Neighbour Wars

The novelty of living in one room really wears thin when exams approach. The horror of sleeping in the same room that you have spent the last two days battling through Kant and then accidentally burning pasta, forgetting to do dishes and having to brush your teeth in the same sink is incomparable. I would rather get up at 7 in the morning to be the first person in the library instead. 

So I have started a new chapter in my life that involves setting alarms on my phone for before 10, making green juice, and going to the gym. The library security guards wish me good morning! I am a new person. A person who is reading war and peace before bed mostly every night and makes packed lunches, mostly. 

Before I get into this, I want to stress that if you have never lived in an apartment with thin walls, you probably won't understand how it is possible to know your neighbours so intimately that you have a clear image in your head of what they look like despite never having laid eyes on them. You know their deepest, darkest secrets, because you have overheard them. It's a special, weird relationship that is impossible to imagine until you enter into it. 

The first indication I had of the thickness of the walls was when what sounded like two parents fighting with their son about his fondness for smoking marijhuanna. It was so amusing to hear someones teen angst erupt in a situation that I had no emotional involvement in whatever I actively enjoyed the shouting. It ended pretty quickly, I fell asleep, and weeks went in perfect science, apart from the occasional rumble of a deep male voice and the sound of a TV on quiet. I felt pretty lucky, to be honest. 

Exam season began to approach, and I started going to bed the earliest I have gone in 3 years and waking up the earliest in order to get a seat in the library. Its a routine that has brought me surprising calm. I enjoy it. The third night of this new me, I cracked and didn't go to bed until half one in order to watch Game of Thrones. As I was drifting off into  sleep, the house was blissfully quiet. I was trying to empty my mind of thought in order to drift off into blissful sleep when suddenly, a TV started blaring, I live in an attached house, so it was in the next room (and next house). Whatever the person was watching, it was dramatic. My empty mind filled with the noise of frantic violins, and a couple having a violent argument. 

I laid in bed, the knowledge that my alarm was going to go off in 7 hours filling me with panic and anger. I got close to knocking on the wall several times. I thought about the Buddha, and how he says all suffering is alleviated by abandonment of the self. I tried to abandon myself, and not care about the neighbours for what felt like thirty minutes before my hate fire  was burning so brightly it was impossible to sleep. I deeply regretted not taking my sleeping tablets, and got out of bed to take one, despite the fact that they make me drowsy after 10 (it was two in the morning. 

I climbed back into bed, and the singing started. I am sure the Buddha himself would not have been able to abandon his ego if he had to listen to two men (in my head they were wearing check shirts, had receding hairlines and were wearing jeans with brown loafers) singing wagon wheel over the blaring noise of the TV drama. I knocked on the wall, the univeral symbol of neighbourly displeasure, and nothing. They seemed to be working their way through Nathan Carter's (described by my mother as "a man who should be silenced') entire discography. I banged a shoe, and still nothing. I thought wagon wheel was the song I most despised on this planet, but I had yet to hear Back to Tourmakedy. This inspired me to throw War an Peace (which conveniently was located beside my bed) at the wall. 

They moved on to Tequila Makes her Clothes Fall Off. I realised the music was so loud they couldn't hear me. I had thrown what some considered Tolstoy's finest literary work, one of the longest novels ever written with great force at the partition wall which had proven itself to be very thin and they still could not hear it over the volume of their Nathan Cater sing along.

I had nearly reached a level of rage that would have overcome my hate for confrontation and was considering going next door to ring their doorbell in breaks between songs and then let all of my pent up anger out, when I remembered that I had a secret weapon I could utilise. Two could play at the annoying music game, especially when one of those people(me) had an unusual like for bagpipe music. 

There is an incredible man on youtube called MarinesandPiper, a man I had unleashed against neighbours many times with great success. A man who covered pop songs on the bagpipes. I think he is a hero, and should be sainted, but most people despise Lady Gaga's poker face on bagpipes for some strange reason. 

Pavlov's dog new what was up. I decided that the only cure for this awful, awful, two in the morning sing song was Rebecca Blacks Friday, covered on bagpipes. I turned it up loud enough to drown out the music, pressed the repeat button, and drifted off into sleep confident in the fact that when they eventually did stop singing, they would spend the rest of the night listening to the worlds most irritating song played on what some consider the worlds most irritating instrument. 

I woke up the next morning to the shrill noise of terribly recorded bagpipes. I felt like Leonardo de Caprio emerging from the frozen body of the bloody horse in the Revenant. My sleep had not be the most refreshing, but my desire for revenge made it sweet. 

i wish this was the end of this story, but it isn't. The same thing happened for the next three night. Something had changed though. The singing was coming to a stop sooner and sooner after I began the bagpipe music. 

But on the fourth night, something magical happened. 

The voices started up around half one, and I clearly heard a male voice shout "I have been enjoying a drink for the last forty years, fuck off". Nathan Carter started up. I hit play on the bagpiper cover of Taylor Swifts Shake it Off. 

Nathan Carter stopped a verse in. A broken man shouted "Those fucking bagpipes!", and silence. No more Nathan Carter. I turned off Marinesandpiper, liking the Taylor Swift cover and sending out thanks to the universe for its inception. It was over; I had won. Nathan had been defeated.

The Leaving Cert killed my creativity // Why the Irish education system has to change

The Leaving Certificate was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I got my real, official certificate in the post a couple of weeks ago, and I have felt more emotions over letters from Specsavers. 

I always felt intellectually numbed in school, since I was little. My brain works very differently from most peoples. I think differently. In a different system, I would have flourished. In the irish school system I shrivelled up. 

I was lucky. I had some incredible teachers who made the days of boring, watered down learning somewhat stimulating. Why was I required to spend hours learning things off by heart which I had no interest in and actively disliked? Why did some person in an office somewhere, decided what I could and couldn't learn, and what defined me learning it? 

I am a massive nerd. I wrote Law essays in my spare time for fun. I was probably one of the only people my age who's idea of a fun couple of hours was listening to classical chamber music, or researching the union of german states. If I had been left to specialise in these subjects, I would have excelled. I would have enjoyed ever minute of school. Apart from the sanctuary of my History, English, Art and Singing lessons, I spent the rest of a decent chunk of my early life watching clocks count down to the end of the day. 

I am not the only one who despised school. Unless you fit into the average, you struggle with the educational system because it has been conveniently tailored to those who are average, without regard for the rest of us. Look at project maths. Look at the changes in the science course over the years. They actively encourage people to be medicorcre by not offering an academically challenging course, or catering for people who are not academically minded. The have a box that they place you in, and if you don't fit, if you happen to care that the science you are teaching to junior certs in wrong and will have to be relearned if you want to continue chemistry for leaving cert, then tough luck. 

The drop out rate for college in Ireland is 52%. Most people don't consider it a sign of an educational system that its failing, but many people choose courses on the points they think they will get, not what they really want to do. Or courses they think sound good. or realise, that while the gold standard for education around the world is to equip people with the ability to learn, they have only been taught to memorise. Instead of helping people find their passions, to think critically for themselves we make them feel like they don't fit in, we follow an educational model that hails from the victorian era, and hope for the best they manage to undue the damage it has inflicted when they get to college.