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. 

Nobody is getting out of bed to fundraise for people suffering from psychosis

I have been seeing pictures of the darkness into light walk which was organised by pieata house, and while it makes me happy to think of all these people raising money for a charity that is helping people experiencing suicidal thoughts and self harm, it isn't enough. It allows for an awareness of suicide that doesn't include serious illnesses that devestate the sufferer such as bipolar disorder, anorexia and psychosis. Illnesses that are frightening and misunderstood by most people. 

I went to Pieta House in 2012, and it didn't help me at all. I was very very very unwell. The sessions were geared towards helping people who were dealing with suicidal thoughts and self harm because of a personal crisis, not someone who was suffering from a psychiatric illness. It's great that there is a service for people form whom this sort of help is perfect, and I am in no way trying to bash it, or belittle it. For most people, it is perfect. But I couldn't get the help I needed from this service because it is not geared towards long term support. It is for talking people through difficulties. 

People who experience the sort of difficulties I experienced, people who are extremely vunrable need the help of doctors and psychiatrists, along with a multi disciplinary team that can work with them long term (pieta house only provided 12 sessions) to manage their illness. Chronic depression, bipolar disorder and psychosis (which is diagnosed as schizophrenia after a certain numbers of episodes) seriously reduce the quality of life of the sufferer. They are stigmatised, and difficult to treat, and if are left untreated for the years most people have to wait, make chances of recovery very slim. Suffered often use alcohol and drugs as coping mechanisms to self medicate, which means that when they do end up in hospital they often find it hard to access the right treatment, or are limited by insurance, which only covers (in most cases) 90 days of inpatient treatment. This means that patients are discharged from treatment when they are doing better, but don't yet have the skills to manage their illness in the community, which means when they come out of the community they often relapse into negative coping mechanisms. A vicious circle. 

A friend I know with psychosis (who hasn't received any real, lasting help from an overcrowded health system that is unable to cope and has been forced to come off her meds completely recently due to a mix up with her doctor and GP) has had psychotic episodes where she believes that the devil is controlling her brain and forcing her to do things (such as serious self harm). She has engaged in behaviour in public (such as shouting, climbing trees etc) that she is completely mortified of while lucid but when she is psychotic seem perfectly normal in the reality she is experiencing. Her psychotic episodes often make her think people are trying to kill her, and it is traumatising and terrifying for both her and her family, who end up being her main carers until she is unwell enough to be admitted to hospital in an never ending cycle. 

Even though we both suffer from radically different illnesses, and mine is nowhere near as severe, we both have been let down by the healthcare system and our parents both pay for private health insurance. I can't imagine the path my life would have taken if my family could not afford this, and instead I was forced to wait months for substandard public health care. 

Once again, I think its incredible that people put so much effort into fundraising for Pieta House. If got up at a god awful hour to raise awareness, thank you because you are giving me the confidence to feel like its ok to be open about mental heath. Lets not let this success allow the government (specifically looking at you, Leo) take any more money away from our already pitiful mental health service in this country. And lets not forget about the people who haven't benefited from this increased openness about mental health problems. 

Confessions of a serial procrastinator

I know everyone procrastinates, but I honestly have a problem with it that would probably mandate rehab if it involved alcohol. I have done things in an effort to procrastinate that actually go so far as to not be procrastination any more. This post is also procrastination, BUT for people who are less endowed in the subtle art that is guilt free timewasting, I thought I would give a helping (and probably self destructive) hand. 

The first key tip that I have to avoid doing the things you should be doing is internet access, although it is not always necessary. The second is an open, curious mind that is willing to do anything to avoid the productive task in hand. The third is creativity. Do not limit yourself to run of the mill activities, like binge watching netflix or tidying your room. That is amateur level, my friends. In order to truly procrastinate you should not just be avoiding doing the thing you are procrastinating about, you should be fully committing yourself to another activity to the point of being productive. And yes, me writing this post is procrastination. And I promise you, I have done all these things in the last week (it was reading week after all) 

1. I have begun learning german. With an app. Apparently I am 3% fluent, and I know the words for water (wasser), bread (brot) woman (frau) and boy (junge) as well as a handful more. This is an especially satisfying technique because I have no plans to go to germany in the near future, have never studied it and can at this point in my life see no practical application for it, apart from shouting it down the phone at my boyfriend, and in person to my dog. 
2. Googling answers to any question I can think of, for example how to sew on a button, how to get balsamic vinegar out of clothes, and my personal favourite, the origin of words. The key for this is to have no plans to use any of this knowledge, but for it to be justifiable 'just in case'. How to withstand torture, how to pick a lock, how to organise my non existent office for increase productivity, medieval law, Mary Boylyns reputation in France while she was at court. I am learning, just not the things I am supposed to know. I feel good, but not stressed. Perfect procrastination material. 
3. Vice. If you are not familiar with vice, you probably have never been on the internet and I judge you. Is it slightly sensational? yes. Gritty? yes. Do I need to be reading 500 articles on drug dealers and sex workers? No, because I am meant to be writing an essay on Descartes and he as far as I know was neither. I feel good because I feel like I am learning something, but I don't have the stress of learning a lot about it, and also don't need to know anything about it so its a match made in heaven.
4. Finding new apps to increase productivity is a brilliant way to waste it. I can spend hours organising my life when I should be doing something else, and no time when I should actually be organising my life, as I am probably reading Vice in bed. Downloading and trying out 8 PDF readers for iPad is a magnificent way to not feel guilty about the fact I have not read any of the PDFs I am supposed to be reading. Same with making 8 different to do lists on completely different apps and making lifestyle changes such as starting headspace downloading 1 or 20 fitness apps. 
5. In the library, and catch yourself on Facebook? Amateur level. Start researching a completely different topic to the one you are supposed to be, as obscure as you can find it. Really use this essay writing/researching time you have among thousands of books to explore as many diverse topics you can. Pile them around you. Read less than a chapter of each. Maybe even take notes. Find your interest of the moment, and then find another one. Ensure you will be able to talk vaguely and uneducatedly about it and move on. If you are not in a library, read the wrong chapters of your text book. They will be 500 times more intriguing and 500 times less applicable. If you are really committed, go back to the start of your course and take notes, in a new style, using multiple coloured pens. Make sure never to complete them. 
6. Get impassioned about a cause and plan to uptake a fight for it. It doesn't have to be charitable  it could be as simple as getting the group together for a night out in your home town. Organise as many events as you can, with as many people as you can. These events may or not take place, but they will be complex and involve logistical planning that should last until your study time is over and you feel justified in 'taking a study break'.
7. Spend hours signing up for job alerts from companies you never really plan to work for. Bonus time gets used up telling your mum about how many jobs you have applied for, leaving out the part about how they were all jobs for experienced visual merchants in Birmingham. 
8. Have an incredible idea for a business, talk about it in great detail to your dad/ boyfriend/ think about it in my head. Plan it all out. Never ever act on these plans or feel passionately about them again. This also works equally as well for hobbies. 
9. Think of all the songs you vaguely know, obsess over one melody and attempt to find the name of it based on one possibly correct line/ melody. If you manage to find it, learn all the words/ how to play it on piano, even though you don't know how to play piano anyway. Bonus points for calling family and friends and singing it to them over the phone. entrap as many innocents as you can in the fruitless search. If you can't find it spend 5 hours watching how to play the piano tutorials on youtube anyway, and a ream of paper printing out sheet music. 
10. Decide on a complex lifestyle/ diet change and spend a minimum of 3 hours researching it and finding recipes. Then make a shopping list, which sometimes get brought to the shop, but more often gets abandoned like the quinoa that has been sitting in my press since I started college. It is the thought that counts when it comes to this after all. 

So there you have it, 10 fab ways to procrastinate guilt free! Please comment any things you specifically do/ websites or anything because I am in a bit of a rut procrastination wise and might actually have to start working soon. 

A limited list of books that changed my life (VERY LIMITED) // World book day

As the sort of person who reads everything that is in my house, including junk mail and cereal boxes, books are very important to me. Once, when I was 7, my mum walked into my kitchen, which was filled with black smoke. I was sitting in the middle of all of it, reading harry potter. I had failed to notice the pan fire. 

For world book day I cannot resist compiling a list of 10 books that changed my life, leaving out obvious ones like harry potter and perks of being a wildflower and game of thrones. That is another list. Also I feel bad for leaving books out so this is a limited list. I will keep it to 10. And I just realised that I can't use numbers because I don't want to put them in order of preference because I cannot decide. 

• The Cement Garden, by Ian Mcewan. This was his first book, and it's fucked up, and crazy, and really fucked up. I needed a half a day to recover after this, but it has stayed with me for years. 
• The Mouse and his Child by by Russel Hoban. This is a children's book but it made me cry (like far too recently). Its a philosophical master piece in the way only a children's book can be, because children are far less easy to fool than adults when it comes to books. 
• The Girl on The Train by Paula Hawkins. I think it is going to be a film soon, so read it before the spoilers come, because it was the first book that kept me up all night reading until I finished it in a long time. 
• Asking for It by Louise O'Neil- I feel like everyone is talking about how great it is but nobody is actually reading it, which they should. Trigger warning for anyone feeling fragile. Also kept me up all night. The thing about this book is it is heartbreakingly real. Most Irish people probably know a girl who's story ended up similarly, even if they don't know, because she has never actually been able to tell her story. 
• The Colour Purple by Alice Walker. My fourth class teacher used to give punishment essays with this title, and I really think he should have read the book first because it is a) very harrowing and b) very graphic.
• Transpotting by Irvine Welsh. This book is so good it is the only book I have ever had stolen off me. Testimony to it that I bought it again straight away. I re read it once a year and it is always just as good. Another book everyone should read, especially if you haven't seen the film. 
• A Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. One of my favourite authors, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Darker then my other Wilde favourites, The Importance of Being Ernest being probably my most. Still supremely relevant in a world where  
• The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell. If you have any interest in philosophy this is an incredible book. Its kind of a tome and doubles as a very good doorstop but I have written down quotes from it which means that it is special.This book was worth the back pain. Also if you don't like philosophy, it is incredible story. 
• The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I found this book in a charity shop and honestly I feel weird thinking about how easily I would have not discovered it. I love fantasy, it is probably my favourite genre, and this book is an unsung hero in the fantasy world. There is a second book in the series, and a third coming out this year which I am eagerly awaiting. Really really fucking good. This book got me through a really difficult summer... famous.  
• Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver. The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness is a children's series, but after I read them (and I re read them about once every two years), it's kind of hard to sleep for a while after. I haven't met anyone else who has read this series but it changed me as a person, although I don't know why. 

There are so many others I want to add, but I can't or else I will be writing this for the next year. Books are such personal things, and these books have made a huge impact on me. I didn't want this to come off like a book review, because its not, its more like a travel guide. The other thing I wanted to say is even though you might be an adult, you are never too old to read children books. Children's books don't get away with being terrible by using adult topics. Children demand a higher level of intellect in books than many adults do. Also, never ever read PS. I love you. I cried after reading it (this isn't even a joke or an exaggeration) because I felt sad about the time I had wasted reading it. It left me with a sensation similar to what I can only describe as being car sick and claustrophobic at the same time. I have learned to feel the warning signs of this and abandoned fifty shades of grey after a chapter even though it was a free ebook preview and I was in a hairdresser. 

Don't waste time reading terrible books, I guess is the moral of the story. Terrible television is a different story altogether. 

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. 

The Bedsit Chronicles: Part 1

I currently reside in a 'studio' in caber. Although it is one room, I love it. Its clean, surprisingly warm for having single glazed windows and just down the road from the house I spent the first couple of years of my life. It's near the phoenix park, my favourite place on this planet, and my landlady is lovely. I share a bathroom with her daughter, who lends me books, and it takes me 15 minutes by bus to get the college. 

I really like living here, despite missing my previous housemates, and it really feels like a home, but at the end of the day I still reside in one room. And my cooker is a small microwave with a hotplate. These were two key fact I blatantly disregarded when deciding to host a pancake Tuesday event to which more than 10 people were invited. The third key fact was I didn't really check to see what cooking equipment I had. Apart from one stirfry the first week I moved in, up until this fateful tuesday I hadn't cooked anything other than microwave porridge. Somehow I just cannot bring myself to cook in my bedroom. I tell myself the smells linger, and they do, but I am lazy. And Mammas revenge is so convenient. And a burrito is designed to contain all your nutrition needs for the day, I'm sure. It has beans, what could be more nutritious? 

So, back to the pancakes. On Monday, while struggling through a very boring lecture, I decided to host pancake tuesday. I photoshopped a picture of my face onto Jamie Olivers, invited more people then could possibly fit in my flat at very late notice and proceeded to think no more about it. 

Tuesday rolled round and I began to panic about the amount of people I had invited. The fact that I only had two chairs had not occurred to me the night before. Is it weird for people to sit on your bed while also in the kitchen? How many people could realistically sit on the bed? I was trying to calculate this in my head when I suddenly remembered I only owned two plates. I owned three bowels which could, if necessary be used as some sort of holding device for a pancake but how did I decide who I liked enough to get a plate, who got a bowel in a kind of second tier of friendship and who I made eat with their hands? i couldn't allow the hands people to have any sort of messy topping for practical reasons but what happened if they rebelled? Or if someone thought they deserved both a chair and a plate? 

Delia Smith has long been my cooking idol. I don't cook, as my dear friends and family know. She makes cooking look easy. I bet she's the sort of woman who plans a party. She has probably never cooked a chicken with the plastic still on, or accidentally put a plastic spatula in the oven. I like to think that she would have struggled in these cooking conditions, but its really only to make myself feel better. Delilah probably would have managed to set up a pottery wheel and make more plates while simultaniously 'throwing together' crepe flambeaux and carving rustic looking chairs out of recycled wood. 

I am a lesser woman than Deliah Smith. 

It was a horrible, stormy day so it was with some relief that people kept messaging me that they couldn't come. The practicality of hosting this party became more and more possible, it was starting too look like I could maybe retain some shread of Deliah (like dignity but it knows how to make puff pastry). The numbers were down to a perfect two, myself and a friend from my course, Veronika, who would be celebrating pancake tuesday for the first time since she is from Finland. 

I remember joking about never having made pancakes before and not being able to cook but I can't quite remember when the realisation that it was true set in. Its easy to google recipes when you have equipment such as measuring scales, less so when you don't and also have no idea what the hell you are supposed to be doing. So I did the only thing a person can do in this situation (well in the first world anyway) and I walked to my local shop for pre made pancake mixture. 

The previous week there had been a whole display of mixtures, now there was a very small one with considerably less choice. Everyone else in Cabra had obviously had the same panic I had except their panic had been slightly earlier. One of these two mixtures looked like it could be nice. It was from odlums, and it purported to make american style pancakes. All you were required to do was fill up to a certain line on the container with milk, shake and then pour on to the pan. 

The other was in a suspect looking box. The sort of box you would think contained baking soda, or something to clean your dishwasher. It's brand was "just-add-water". I am actually not joking. There is a whole brand devoted to making products that you just add water. The pancakes on the front looked like they were made of rubber, but apparently I suffer from selective blindness because all I could see was the sticker that said €1.50. Even though I knew I was making a mistake, even though I knew that a saving of €1.50 would seem like a robbery once I had tasted the pancakes, I bought them. The man on the till looked surprised. He didn't outright say that nobody else had bought this mix of their own free will, but he did point to the Odlums bottle and ask did I want it instead. I wish I had taken his advice. 

If Veronika had been coming to a nuclear winter re enactment party, It would have been a roaring success. This pancake mix was probably sold on by the government when the cold war ended. I firmly believe that all nuclear crisis could be averted if warring governments were invited to my panacake party and told that is what life would be like after the missiles hit, because these pancakes were so disheartening I believe they would make Trump a liberal. This is, however, getting ahead of myself. 

Veronika arrived, and the pancake making commenced. A small crisis was averted when she remembered that water bottles carry a certain measurement, and forks made adequate whisks. I found a casserole dish that looked like it escaped from Plesentville to serve as a mixing bowl and a crystal milk jug that was probably owned by a Home Economics teacher in a past life to pour out the batter. Another small crisis was avoided when I found a tiny frying pan in the cupboard. For a moment, It looked like the evening could be a success. 

Apparently being unable to scoop out batter with a jug and pour it onto a frying pan, Veronika quickly took over. The first pancake was the most unusual combination of pancake types ever. The bottom was like the sort of crepe you buy in a packet in France. The top was burnt. It was the first pancake though, and my mother said the first pancake never counts. We persevered. 

The second pancake brought the realisation that the frying pan was broken and was the reason we were cooking them so badly. Not to be deterred, I whipped out my wok, the only other pan I owned, and a couple of pancakes passed. They looked exactly like the box, which wasn't saying much. 

My boyfriend arrives and after asserting the frying pan isn't working by torching a pancake takes over from Veronika. We sit, chopping bananas and eating them with nutella while the stack grows ever higher. There is a small blip where he decided that I should be involved in making food for my guests at the party I am hosting instead of them cooking for me, and I quickly destroy any hope of that ever happening by making the pan so hot it starts to warp and almost setting it on fire. I return to banana duty, and he returns to pancakes. 

Eventually, the pancakes are ready. We sit down, and everyone gingerly takes a pancake and covers it in as much nutella as possible. There isn't much room for conversation because as well as looking like they rubber these pancakes have the consistency of rubber. I remember wondering why all burned food tastes the same. We chew our way through the first pancake, and my boyfriend is finding it hard to mask his dislike. He pretend the crack in his voice when he compliments them is the start of a cold rather then abject fear of being made eat another one. He suddenly becomes very full from eating bananas. 

Both trying to be polite, Veronika and myself struggle through a second pancake. My nutella to pancake ratio is obsene, and in my quest to mask the texture of the pancakes I have smothered them in a sickly amount of nutella. Veronika has been braver and gone for the pancake taste over overwhelming amounts of nutella. Nobody even pretended to like them enough to mention having a third. The stack had started to congeal into itself. I felt like I had just eaten two large plates of the stuff my dentist used to make mouls of my teeth and entered the marathon equivalent of a chewing competiton. 

Two more old school friends arrived. They came prepared with cans and their own pancake batter. My ability to cook has not been lost on them. Somewhere between reminiscing about €2.50 pints after school on fridays and deciding to buy more cans, the pancakes disappear. Someone has thrown them away and there are never to be seen again. 

Pancake evening draws to a close. I apologise to Veronika for the events of her first pancake tuesday. My bedsit is full of the smell of slightly burned pancakes, and crushed dreams. But it doesn't really matter, because who needs pancakes when you have friends and Tubourg. Friends who love you despite your terrible hosting skills.

Happy New Year Without Resolutions That Hobble Your Soul

I hate the new year. I feel like the fact that a whole year has so markedly gone by and I am aging and getting closer to death and I still haven't achieved anything, not really, that I want to achieve and life is slipping away from me, not even slowly, but really really fast. 

Being an extreme perfectionist, not the high achieving short, the sort that stays in bed because I will never achieve the dizzying heights that my own stupid brain requires me to so whats the point, is extra terrible at new years. 

This blog has become something of a sanctuary for me for that. I don't have crazy expectations. I don't need thousands of people or even hundreds of people to read it. I have people who read it, and they are lovely, and that is enough. 

On christmas Eve my mum and I were driving down to my granddads, and we were on a small country lane, and my mum was driving slowly because I was trying to find a good recorded version benjamin Brittens Ceremony of Carols, when I saw these car headlights in the middle of the road and we heard this scrape. A car, driving really really fast in the middle of the road, had almost hit us, but instead just scraped the side of the car. If we had been travelling any faster our car would have flipped, or they might have hit us head on. 

After that, I decided that I was going to stop worrying about whether I am good enough at doing things, and just do them. 

Its going ok, so far. But I have a project which I am very excited about and involves one of my passions so, hopefully that will rub off on it. And if it doesn't, at least I tried it. 

Hope everyone who is reading this has a happy new year, free from crippling and soul destroying expectations they place on themselves. Maybe I should get that printed on my christmas cards next year. Or written above my bed. Hmm

I DON'T HATE CHRISTMAS (ANYMORE)

I feel like every where I go on the internet (if thats the correct term, go?) I see another person blogging about how to cope with mental health and christmas. Christmas can be a really difficult time for anyone with an illness because of the expectations of happiness that we put on our selves for the month of December. Nobody logically expects anyone with an illness to magically forget about the pain they are in, or the difficulties they experience, but somehow, when you are in pain yourself, you feel like you should be a fountain of jolliness. And when you're not, you can feel even worse than you did before. 

For a couple of years I hated christmas. For me the only way to cope with the actual day was to stay in pyjamas from christmas eve to stephens day and when things got too much, read in the bath for hours. I didn't feel like I deserved presents and the thought of meeting relatives and family friends made me feel sick. So I stayed in my pyjamas and had my long baths and watched movies constantly and I obviously survived and I am now here to tell the tale. If I had read any of the blog posts would they have helped? Maybe a little, but I don't think they would have made the day any easier. 

This year is finally different. I am excited for christmas and christmas day. I will 100% get dressed. I might read in the bath, but not because I want to pretend christmas doesn't exist. I 100% deserve lots of presents and I can't wait to unwrap them. I'm going to buy an elf costume for my dog. I'm going to make my dad wear a singing christmas tie. My mum will light tonnes of candles and my day will worry about things catching on fire, and I will probably laugh at him for this then my lack of spacial awareness will prove him right. 

Christmas this year has made me appreciate, more then ever, the wonderful people that are around me, as cheesy and cliche as that sounds. I'm glad they stuck around through all the crying in the bath stages. Not that they were in the bath when I was crying, that would be weird. But I am really looking forward to christmas, and the fact my boyfriend might finally stop ignoring me in the grand debate of what skis to buy (he's going to end up with the original pair, I'd put money on it) is only a tiny tiny factor.

NOBODY CARES EXCEPT YOUR DOG

With all the shitty things that are going on in the world, I have been appriciating the fact that dogs exist even more than usual recently, which is something I didn't think was possible. Reading week, for most people, was a chance to party, or meet up with friends from home. For me, it was an opportunity to spend as much time as possible with my dog. Yes, that might be weird, but my dog is THE BEST. 

Bambi is 1 year old and we got her on christmas day. Some people probably think the sound of children laughter is the sweetest in the world. They are wrong. It is the sound of bambi's claws clicking against the floor as she scampers over to me when I call her name. 

Nobody appreciates me doing anything like my dog appreciates me bringing her for a walk. Her little face lights up and she waggs her tail so much its kind of like twerking. So cute. So much joy. 

There is a tremendous amount of shitty things happening in the world right now, we still have dogs. Everyone seems to be posting their opinions on Facebook, and someone who I am friends with posted a very aggressive and bigoted thing after the paris attacks. It really made me realise that when people post statuses on Facebook nobody cares. Everyone is just shouting their opinion, and they either agree with what you say, the violently oppose it and fight with you in the comments, or they don't care.

So many people posted educated and enlightening things, and that's so great to see. At least the majority of people I am friends with understand the huge plight that muslims are going through, and refugees are going through. With the invention of social media people are definitely more educated. But it also seems they are deaf to hearing other peoples opinions. People seem to think (i am definitely included as one of these people) that public opinions on social media are things that their friends or followers desperately want to hear. It just isn't true.

The people who want to hear your opinion will bring it up in conversation. If you want a genuine response, tell it to your dog. They will be so excited to hear emotion in your voice that you will receive a more attentive reaction that any of your Facebook friends are willing to give. 

It's my birthday and my anti- wrinkle campaign has begun // reflections on turning 20

Me on my last birthday with my youthful skin

It's my birthday next thursday and I'm scared. I'm turning 20. Twenty. I distinctly remember being 14 and my dermatologist telling me that I had a couple of years left of not using anti agin products but when I turned 20 it was time to start tackling my aging skin. Now I am 20 and my skin is aged. I am old. I am over the hill. Well, maybe not quite but I am no longer a teenager and therefore approaching the hill.

I do things like buy toilet paper for myself, take out the bins and decide that it's not sensible to go out because I have a lecture the next day. I haven't eaten mcdonalds in months. 

I wrote this before meeting my mum and aunt, Rosamund, for afternoon tea. My feeling on the subject after this life changing tea is quite different. 

Rosamund stopped telling people her age when she turned 21. I am going to do the same. Every so often, she has a significant birthday, but her actual age is never revealed. So it doesn't worry her. After all, this is only a number, a cliche but true saying. So after 21 I will officially stop counting the age and focus on the amount of presents I get instead. That is the real reason for birthdays after all. 

I am going to use turning 20 as an opportunity to change some things in my life. Some small and some big. I am going to spend less time watching shitty TV and more time doing things. You never remember the 10 hours you spend watching keeping up with the kardashians, but you remember reading, or crocheting, or drawing. Or not but you have something to show for the end. I know I am turning into my mother when I say this. 

I am going to stop wearing sweatpants outside on most occasions. Obviously, there are some times that simply cannot be got through without sweatpants. Being hungover is one of these. But I have fears of becoming a middle age woman wearing trackies and in my effort to avoid this I am going to try and wean myself off them (at least in social situations).

I am going to read more. And I am going to read whatever I want, and If I don't enjoy a book I am going to give myself permission to stop reading it halfway through. Instead of scrolling through instagram before I go to bed I will read. 

I am going to print more pictures so instead of having thousands of digital images I never look through I at least have some that I can look back on. 

I am going to start putting my health first. Nothing is more important than being well, and I need to stop putting unrealistic goals and my perfectionism above my happiness. 

I am going to start doing the things I love again. I feel like I don't do a lot of the things I really love anymore and I miss them and would be happier if I did them. So I will. 

I am never going to pretend I like kale ever again. I do not like kale. 

I am going to spend more time with the people I love. I am going to travel and see the world and write and listen to music. I will never allow anyone to treat me unfairly, be rude to me, degrade me. I will believe in myself. 

Some of these things are big and some are small. I feel like my life has really changed, and is really changing right now. The main thing being half my face has swollen up so half of me is a happy puffer fish and half is an angry puffer fish. This fact would have made me super self conscious and I probably wouldn't have been able to leave my house a couple of months ago. However, today I went out to lunch with my dad and worked my confused puffer fish face and it didn't bother me at all. 

if being 20 means ageing skin, but I get to care a tiny bit less about unimportant things and actually start being the person I want to be, I am ready for it. 

Apple, the dementors of the technological world

Apple just sucked another large chunk out of my ever diminishing consumerist soul. My iPhone broke. As in, completely won't turn on/restore. This isn't really an unusual thing to happen in the life of a smartphone owner, unfortunately. I guess every phone breaks after a while (even my dad's nokia brick only lasted 11 years) . The thing is, I had owned this particular iPhone for exactly 1 week when it decided to stop working. So by the time my iPhone gets back from apple, where it is being repaired because it is faulty, it will have already spend double the amount of time I have physically spent with it being fixed.  

I feel cheated and let down. I have owned iPhones for the last 8 years. I am a die hard apple fan. The first computer we ever had in my family was a (massive, looking back on it) apple mac. My grandad owned one of the first apple computer in Ireland, and it's still in my granny's attic. So I am a die hard apple fan. How could they prove the haters right and leave me with a broken phone after 1 week? 

For a moment I nearly considered selling my iPhone and getting, gasp, a samsung. I have heard nothing really bad about the samsug galaxy S6 (actually, my boyfriends mum's broke after a week, but apart from that), and I know android is a much more fluid and customisable operating system, and it is equal to, if not better then iOS. 

But, I am not going to. Owning apple products is like being in an abusive relationship. It's so good at the start, and even though they manipulate you and treat you like shit, you keep coming back for more. The really clear interface. The fact that they are so pretty. The fact that I know my macbook will last me for years, and the update after the new one has to be better than the last, surely? 

I know apple are completely playing on all my consumerist weaknesses, from the packaging to iMessage and everything in between. and I am not going to pretend to know a lot about computers, and argue the individual specs. Even writing this makes me feel unqualified for the post (if that even is a thing). I guess all I really know is that I really really like apple products and I really really don't like the idea of not owning apple products and although I may have been brainwashed into thinking this I don't want the fantasy to end. Not yet.

So, I don't have a phone for a week because the new software update damaged the software (ironic, I guess), and even though apple are the ones that left me stranded in this technology desert (ok I am over reacting, I still have an iPad, a TV and a laptop) I am counting down the days until I see that little white logo light up my phone once more. 

And I don't have to awkwardly skulk around bookies to use their free wifi so I can meet up with people. But that is a whole other post. 

Judge a man not by his character, but his ability to wear heels

Walking down Nassau Street last night at around 9.30 I came across a group of girls who were obviously on their way out. A couple of the girls were barefoot, carrying their shoes. Now, I'm not going to pretend that has never been me, on a night out. As I was watching them I was wearing shoes that were trying to amputate my feet, or so it felt. Many times, after wearing heels on a night out I have taken them home and walked home barefoot because I have reached my pain threshold for the night.  

But if it's before ten and you are going barefoot, and you're sober... why did you wear heels out? This is something I cannot understand. I never really wear heels out, not because I don't like them, but because I can't. Dyspraxia, having very small feet for my height and drinking is like the perfect recipe for bruises that look like I've been hit with a hammer. Not wearing heels means I am able to scamper around time my hearts content and walk home afterwards. 

Being tall means that I don't need heels for height, so I guess I am privileged in this way. I am roughly the same size as most of my friends, if not taller, when they are in heels and I am in flats. I can see how it might make you self conscious if you were smaller then your friends and wearing flats. Probably not as self conscious as when you will inevitably flop yourself on dublin's uneven pavements( I have twisted my ankle, sober, in flats about 5 times due to potholes in the pavement) but maybe I'm just sensitive. Also, unless you have that incredible girl-power that my friends seem to have, don't go anywhere near temple bar in heels because you will die, and if you have this power non of this article applies to you anyway. 

Not being able to walk in heels is one of the most unattractive things ever. The pain, or the change in gait or something forces you to adopt a pose much like turkey. No matter how good you may look, or how great your makeup is, you still look kind of like a turkey. And the wobbling makes you look like your ankles are separate entities and they have been drinking for 3 days and are trying to escape. 

The average irish male is about at eye level for me so when I'm wearing heels I can pat them on the head with ease. This is a huge perk of wearing heels but not, at the end of the day, worth the blisters/ walking like this

If you are a girl and you can walk in heels, you deserve a free pair. People (men) who don't/haven't worn heels do not understand the incredible feat that is taking place every time you walk somewhere. Also people (men, but especially women who have worn heels) should NEVER EVER hate on men who do. They are taking something that is difficult and making themselves great. If you diss a man (or anyone) wearing heels you deserve to get that heel impaled in your foot. After all, it's more or less how it feels for them (or for me, because I am weak).

Every day I see women (and the guy who I pass on camden street) contorting their feet into an unnatural position and looking frickin' amazing while doing it and I want to salute you all for your skill and bravery. But, if, like me, you do not posses such skill... leave the heels at home.