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.

Letters to Men who have made me afraid, and why the truth is terrifying

Dear creepy man, 

Hello. You are unabashedly staring at me while I am on the train. You don't look away when I make eye contact. It isn't an accident, because its been happening for thirty minutes. I am wearing a winter coat and a scarf, and no makeup, so I look young. It shouldn't matter what I am wearing but it always does, apparently, because clothes can mean you are asking for it. It's eleven o' clock, and the way you are looking at me makes me uncomfortable. It's aggressive. I shrink a bit. I am glad the train is packed and you are not sitting beside me. I am glad my coat covers me up. 

Dear aggressive man,

Its the end of a night out and you linger around my friend and me, making lewed remarks. We are sober, and when we get angry you call us sluts, and look me up and down like I am a piece of meat. I am wearing a short dress, and it matters. I know it shouldn't mater but when I go home I throw the dress into the back of the closet. I felt good when I put it on. Now I feel dirty. You are wearing a wedding ring and you are proud of it. 

Dear Scary Man, 

I am walking home and you follow me. You shout at me, letting me know that you are going to find out where I live. You laugh when I start to walk faster. My brain feels like its melted in fear. Nobody would care if you did something. It would be my fault, I am wearing heels and a dress. People won't admit it, but its true. it matters what you wear. You don't stop following me until I ask a bouncer can I stand outside their club with them, until you loose interest and I hail a taxi to take me home. 

Dear men, 

The number one cause of death for men is heart disease. The number one cause of death for women is men. We live in constant fear. We don't walk alone, we don't wear short dresses, we grow up being felt up and shouted at and told that it is our fault. Not all men harass women, but all women get harassed. I can talk about equality all I want, but I still have to walk home with my keys laced between my fingers, headphones in with no music 'just in case'. I am not paranoid. Every day women get attacked. Every day women feel inferior, even though its so engrained in us we don't notice. 

We don't want to admit it, because the truth is terrifying. We are second class citizens in every part of this world. I don't know how to change that. I don't know how to change it so my little sister does not have to grow up in a world where she feels like, as a 15 year old, she is valued soley on her sexuality, and is demeaned because of that. I want her to grow up telling the men who try to follow her to fuck off, not being afraid of the consequences. Of being called a slut and being called hot for wearing the same dress, for getting mixed messages of needing to be hyper sexualised and being blamed for it. 

I don't have any of the answers for this. But I am tired of being afraid to ask the questions, of being afraid to even think them. I am tired of being afraid. 

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.

What it feels like to have anxiety

I don't remember 'getting' anxiety. I just know that I used to love talking to people and doing stuff by myself and now I sometimes can't physically get the words out. The shitty thing is, I'm not a shy person. I just have anxiety. I want to talk to you, but I can't. It gets lonely. It feels like there is a tape across my mouth and I can't talk, no matter how hard I try to get the words out.

There's so many things I'd like to do that I can't. People say, 'oh, just try, it's your fault,  you just need to tackle it, you are letting it control you...' but I can't. Try telling a brain thats almost nearly permanently stuck in fight or flight mode to do opposite action thoughts, or lungs that know they are on the edge of a panic attack that they need to take deep breaths. Sometimes, it might work. If I'm feeling slightly anxious. But full, top notch anxiety for me is feeling like I am going to die. Ask someone who is being chased by a polar bear to 'just do some mindfulness'. That's how my brain feels. 

I don't want to feel like this. I am not 'feeling sorry for myself'. I am nearly 20 and I can't send my drink back in costa when they make it wrong, or send a reply to my tutor when he emails me. Or join a society. Or have a wide circle of friends. Or keep in touch with the friends I have. I would do anything not to be like this. 

I know I'm not alone in feeling like this. I know so many of my friends who manage to put an an incredible show of bravery when they feel like there is a thousand worms in their stomaches. People who went to school every single day even though they felt sick, or got on the bus, or stood up in front of a group of people. Or even just managed to say hi to somebody despite feeling like they were free falling out of a plane with no training or a parachute. 

The hardest thing about having anxiety is people not understanding what it's like having anxiety. Anxiety can feel the same as when you're home alone and you've just watched a terrifying film and you think you hear someone upstairs, except you're just returning clothes to a shop, or asking a stranger the time. Anxiety disorders make your world shrink, but people understanding can make the difference between leaving your house and staying in. 

If you have anxiety, tell people. tell your friends, tell your teachers, tell your tutor (if you're in college). Trust me, it will help. If they don't understand, have your GP write a letter explain. (obviously not your friends, that would be kind of weird). Mental illness is just as debilitating and valid as physical illness. Never ever apologise for it. We all know what the stigma around mental illness is like, especially in Ireland, but it is changing and most people simply don't understand. Having the support of friends and family in everyday life, and your college, school or work can be the difference between being able to cope and not, and while you think that you might be able to get by without it, having help and being around people who understand can be a huge stress reliever and really make a huge difference to your quality of life. 

Anxiety is shit, but it can be managed. I got a bus today and I didn't feel like I was going to die. Or vomit anywhere. So if that isn't managing, I have no idea what is.  

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.