Paddy K and the Leaving.

I wrote this around Christmas time and for some reason it stayed stagnant in my drafts. I don't know why. I think it's quite a nice post. In the spirit of today being my second last day as a Leaving Cert. student, I think I'll post it. I promise stuff that isn't about exams as soon as I finish!

We studied Patrick Kavanagh in English class in sixth year, and while I wasn't enchanted with him like I was with Heaney or Rich, I did love the poem "Advent". In the poem, he talks about self-denial and other lovely Catholic ideas (no), but he does open with this charming and wise couplet:

"We have tested and tasted too much, lover/Through a chink through wide, there comes in no wonder"

When we did this poem in class, racist jokes were made, but that's not the point. I hate the idea of Catholic guilt but Kavanagh was onto something here. A chink too wide, comes in no wonder. Life gets very dull and monotonous very quickly if you're exposed to the crazy stuff all the time. Take this school year: Leaving Certificate year. The chink has become too wide, forced open by Home Economics notes, maths equations and Irish essays. Nothing I learn surprises me or interests me because the chink has been blown open, creating a huge chasm which I have to fill with really boring knowledge, like the Modh Conniollach and Simpson's Rule.

I tried to cram it all into my head (well, more or less. Thank you Biology.) and thus, there was  no room for wonder this year thanks to the unwieldy behemoth of the Leaving. I needed big things - a week off school, a party, way too much blue WKD - to cancel out the relentless slog of this year. Unfortunately, that sort of thing was thin on the ground, particularly when I got used to the Blue WKD. The little things that make me happy - or used to - no longer do so. Which is a bummer, because I used to be the sort of person who loved little things. A free class used to mean chatting and not cramming. A clean room used to matter because I got to stay in there. A phonecall used to make me happy, instead of an excuse to bitch and moan about the breadth of the History course. Little things are now met with a kind of "okay...great..." radiating from my very being.

Unless you count the wonder of a new refill pad or finding your purple biro after a three month absence. Or actually being able to do my maths homework - this happened last week, and hasn't since October. Or a particularly funny history class. A good speaker for Religion. No study on a weekday. Maybe the little things that make me happy haven't vanished, they've just...shifted slightly. Changed. School-related little things for a school related life. I miss normality, though. That might sound self pitying and over dramatic, but life hasn't been normal this year, not with friends telling me just how close exams are on a regular basis. Not with more rows chez-moi than ever before. But I guess I can't complain, considering how near the end I am. I'll probably look back on these posts from my wonder-filled life and wonder what the hell I'm on about.

Or at least that was the case. As of writing, it's the 19th June, and my summer holidays are just around the corner. Life has a funny way or surprising you - I looked at that paragraph up there, nose wrinkled, and went "really? REALLY, Áine? Life was that bad, was it? Grow up!" but the fact is that it sucked. I couldn't see the little things because the big things (aka exams) took over my life. With this sage knowledge, I look forward to a summer filled with little things that make a big difference. Big things have small beginnings, to quote Prometheus. But that's another blogpost.

Maybe the trick with wonder is to look for it. Maybe I have to stop passively noticing and start working at happiness. Go out and find things to marvel at. Have adventures. Through a chink through wide there comes in no wonder - but through a chink too narrow there comes in none, either. In lieu of that, here is my list of small things that made me happy throughout the last year: 

• Phonecalls with David.
• Going to the gym.
• Lemon traybake.
• Zoe's baking.
• Red and cream spotted underwear sets.
• White Apple earphones.
• The Hunger Games.
• Swimming.
• Doctor Who.
• Sunlight freckling my face at the bus stop.
• Going without a jacket.
• New friends.
• Seamus Heaney's love poetry.
• Writing something really good in class.
• The Big Lebowski.
• Sunday evenings in my granny's house.
• Babysitting a three year old.
• Long hair.
• Rum.
• My history research project. That was fun.
• iPhones.
• Sporadic blogging.
• Caitlin Moran's twitter.
• Twitter in general, and my little bunch of LC themed followers. 

And above all...

• Knowing that someday soon, the Leaving will be over. And real life cthe day after tomorrow at 12.30pm.
• Just around the corner.

Have some LCD Soundsystem. Party music.