Going with your...not-gut.

There are numerous reasons why I didn't really blog for the last few months - largely because I was too busy trying to wrap my head around college. Anyone who tells you that it's easy to settle in in your first year is a liar: with the Leaving Cert., you have set goals, boxes to tick and a points system that is a simple as it is insufferable. it's all very structured...college? Not so much. I spent most of the last term sleeping 'til midday and eating ridiculously overpriced pastries in cafés on Dawson Street. But such is life, onwards and upwards - if I had any time to do it, it was first year.  Or so I thought. Then - BAM - suddenly my last essays were handed in and exams...well, they were happening. I was convinced "I wouldn't know enough" --  or ANYTHING. That, as many of you very well know, is not a good feeling. The stress levels were sky high - so high that I couldn't study, really. Just eat chocolate-covered nuts, cry and sit in the library, trying to convince my hardworking friends to take a study break. Eventually I got over this - because that feminist literary theory ain't gon' learn itself - but it was difficult, and when I arrived in the RDS in May I couldn't have felt less ready.

The exams came and went: so it goes. I finished up after ten days and was left with nothing but a sore hand and a niggling feeling that I hadn't done quite as badly as I expected. Of course, as the days turned into weeks, I began to worry. Privately, I assumed the worst but hoped for the best. Trusting my own judgement led me down a somewhat negative path - and that's the point of my convoluted (and slightly gloating) story about my exams. Sometimes you shouldn't trust your own judgement.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you should go home with the creepy, bearded guy making slightly off-colour jokes in a loud voice. I'm not saying you should eat that yoghurt that is ten days out of date. For the love of god, step away from the yogurt/creepy bearded guy! No, what I'm saying is based on the principle of human error: sometimes, we're wrong. In fact, I'd wager that 70% of the time we are wrong. And that's okay - we can't always make the right decision. Mentally, I mean. I make the wrong decisions all the time, but what if sometimes what we rely on -- our inner decision-maker, that weird core of ourselves that tells us what to do even if we don't know why -- is wrong? That nagging feeling that just won't quit can turn out to be bullshit, as I found out!

I truly believed I was going to do crap in my exams. I had dreams about low 40s, about repeats and I'd pretty much resigned myself to a summer of study. This is not to say that I have a negative personality, or that I wanted to sound shocking come results. It really is a case that my gut instinct was wrong. It's happened before and it will happen again -- I got two 2:1s in my exams and I'm single. You win some, you lose some, huh? It just goes to show that sometimes instinct is wrong and that one's natural mentality - in my case, one that's maybe a little pessimistic - can get in the way of the reality of things. The reality of things being that, as far as Trinity College is concerned, I did not get good exam results as a fluke. I got them....

I just really wanted an excuse to use that .gif. I'm sorry.

I suppose what I want to get across here is that sometimes we can't always trust our heads - or indeed, that weird feeling in our stomachs. They do lead us astray from time to time - giving us notions, implying we're fatter, or more arrogant, or stupider than we really are. The long and short of it is - try and hope for the best, because you can't trust your head, sometimes. Pro-tip, though: always, always run if you feel the need to. Always.