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.

Explaining privilege to the privileged and why not being a feminist is sexist

Emmeline Pankhurst being arrested after demonstrating outside Buckingham Palace for the right to vote. 

When I walk into the library and all the desks are taken, and people have saved some with stacks of papers or books on them, I feel angry. Some people leave for an hour when the official rule is 15 minutes. I am stuck at the trinity version of a children's table at a party, and a pile of books is taking up a desk I could be studying at, instead of wasting my time trying to squeeze my longer than average legs under a smaller than average desk. 

When I am sitting at a desk however, I don't really care about the piles of books. I don't care that there are people at the childrens table and books at the grown up table, to continue the party metaphor. Personally I would not leave for longer than 15 minutes unless it was an emergency, but I am not motivated to care enough about the people that do, because I already have my desk. 

This is how it feels to be privileged. White privilege, male privilege, class privilage,sexual orientation privilege, library privilege. The last one is not a very important privilege, nobody is dying, there are not huge injustices taking place. It is easy to not care about racism when you are white, because you are already sitting at your metaphorical desk in the library. It is easy not to care about feminism when you identify as male, because it doesn't matter that the desks at the edge are smaller and more uncomfortable. Your desk is comfortable. You do not feel the discomfort, so you do not really care. 

You don't really know what it's like to be on the other side until you are on the other side. It's easy to say All Lives Matter instead of Black Lives Matter, because it makes you feel better. All lives do matter, but black lives are more likely to be in danger. When you say All Lives Matter, you are metaphorically sitting in the comfortable seat in the library, but you are not allowing yourself to feel discomfort about the fact there has been a laptop charger taking up a desk for three hours while some people are sitting on the floor. 

I am proud to be a feminist, because feminism means equality for all, but recognises that the ones in need of increased equality are not men. I am a feminist because I have been lucky enough to be surrounded by men and women in my life who raised me to blossom as the person I am, not to shrink because I am a girl. Who told me that I was worth exactly the same as the boys in my class, that I had the right to raise my hand and ask as many questions. That I had a voice that I didn't have to apologise for. 

I am proud to be a feminist because I want to stand behind every single person who has experienced sexual harassment, assault or rape. Feminism taught me to say to the man who grabs me outside a night club that if he doesn't let go, I will punch him in the face. Like a man. Feminism taught me that I should never apologise for having good ideas, or let others take credit for them. 

Feminism taught me that I was worth more than the man who tried to stick his hand up my skirt when I was fifteen, then shouted at me because I wouldn't let him. That it is my body and my choice. That gender doesn't matter, I can do whatever I want. That I can be whoever I want. whatever that may look like. 

By being a feminist, I do not hate men. I don't think that men should be treated better than women. All I want is equality. I am 20 and I am already tired from all the fighting I have had to do to be heard over the stigma that seems to be engrained to so many people's brains. 

I am with Masie Williams on this one. We should just start calling people who are not feminist sexist, whatever their gender might be. Because not recognising that there is a gender imbalance, that women are treated differently to men, that is sexism. If you don't believe in feminism, you believe in equality, you are sitting in your comfortable seat in the library and you are pretending not to notice that while you are on Facebook for three hours someone is trying to write an essay kneeling on the floor. 

Feminism isn't just for women. It is about dismantling toxic masculinity that ensure men who are raped do not speak out about it. So men do not get attacked in nightclubs and schools and by other men and women because it is not ok to assault someone in any circumstances. So male victims of domestic violence get support, Women who commit crimes against men get punished equally, so men who do not fit the masculine norm are supported. So being like a woman is no longer a slur. It's something to be proud of. 

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.

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.