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 I'm not saying you should eat that yoghurt that is ten days out of date.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.

How do you get to Carnegie hall?

Between growing up with the word “gifted” thrown at my head every five minutes and having the vocabulary of an academic by the age of twelve, I’ve always assumed myself to be quite clever. Sidenote: the word “clever” is brilliant. It implies a certain amount of intelligence without arrogance or what I scientifically class as “wankery”. Eight year olds are clever. The Doctor is clever. Meanwhile, in Trinity College, students are “bright” or “academic”, two words I absolutely cannot stand. It’s all in the language, folks. Use wankery terms and you will sound like a wanker, even if you’re not. Trust me, I know from experience.) Things came naturally to me – drama and storywriting in primary school, progressing to learning vocab and essay writing in secondary. Academics were easy-peasy in my head. I never really had to do much to be good at them. That’s not to say I didn’t work. The Junior and Leaving Certs. were four years of coffee fuelled toil for me — but I did extraordinarily well in both. Particularly in the latter, when I did so well that I got into Trinity College. Oooh, Trinity. Fancy.

That was almost a year ago. Maybe it’s listening to the current crop of LC students moan about poets and papers, but I’ve been thinking about one particular element necessary to exam (and possibly life) success. Practise.
Maybe it’s because it’s nine am but practise seems something that I, as a so-called “talented youth” never quite did. All my life I could just…do things. Things just got done. Spellings were just in my head. From a school point of view, I just knew things without much effort. It’s not that I  never had to try, I just didn’t have to try hard.
So anyway. What started out in my head as a SpunOut style article aimed at banishing procrastination has propelled me to new heights of narcissism. Shocker. What occured to me lately was this: nineteen years of free-livin’ has caught up with me. I have now reached a stage where a bit of practise wouldn’t go astray. For instance, writing. This summer I want to get into writing. I have a ton of ideas for what to write, and where to send said writing – but I can’t bring myself to write them. Why? Because I don’t want them to be rejected. I want them to be good from the word go, without me doing any actual work. That’s the curse of the interminably lazy former clever kid.
It’s the same deal with exercise. I’ve always been very, very lazy in this department but I’d love to be able to be fitter and a bit more…toned or something. I’m not sure how to describe it. This morning, I thought I’d go for a run, but I envisioned myself a sweaty, scarlet mess after 100m. I’ll never get fit cos I don’t want to practise.
How do you get over an irrational fear of working for something until you get good, when you’ve always been vaguely good? And how do you prevent your blogposts from derailing into a crazy train of narcissism? Christ.

There and back again: some thoughts

So I have returned to the flat. It's amazing how much time one person can spend on buses -- I spent an hour at home today, vs. three hours bus time. It's also amazing how quickyl one person can get used to making their own dinner, walking everywhere and staying up all hours to watch Girls. Have I mentioned that living independently is amazing? It's already strange to be asked to em[ty the dishwasher or cean my room at home. Both of these things I do in Dublin, but more often than not at about 2am...

Remember how I said I'd be reviewing Django Unchained tonight? Yeah...not so much. I spent my evening in Centra instead, selling 1c coffee and having friendly banter with customers. Exciting stuff. It's a shame that it's so late, because I'm overflowing with blog ideas at the moment -- and not a moment of free time to be seen! If I do manage to do any writing, expect some sexism, religion, Tarintino (hopefully) and nightclub antics over the next week. Oh, and Girls. I have quite a few opinions on that show. I'm just not sure what they are yet.


I don't think it's like Sex and the City and I think it's the exact same. I don't know if I like any of the characters. I don't know if Lena Dunham can write. What I do know is this:
I need to watch more to make up my mind.

Oh well. Until I get some time to write, dears. Apologies for the shit post today. I was out earning money -- you can't win them all.
xx

Happy Independence Day

Quick post today -- and a photo of a very glamorous me, fresh from my flat in Dublin city! As of today, I live in the Big Shmoke. I have a duvet, an internet connection, tea and glow in the dark stars -- what more do you need, really? Of course, this is going to mean a good few posts about How To Live Away From Your Parents And Cook For Yourself. Today, I had soup, but I'm going out for dinner now, so I'm not too concerned. Though I was telling my sister about my meal plans and I ran out of ideas after Wednesday's macaroni cheese, so maybe I ought to be...

Anyway. Wish me luck in my new adventures :D

(I have visitors. Happy birthday Conor x)

Ink'd.

My friend Frances recently blogged her New Year Goals, one of which was to get a small tattoo. We were talking about it yesterday (over a mound of peanut butter cookies -- oops) and it got me thinking about tattoos. Again. After my Leaving Cert., I decided I wanted to get a little tattoo over the summer: I was convinced that this was what I wanted. This, like the blonde I stuck into my hair in June, was part of my post-Leaving Cert rebellion. The hair worked out, the tattoo didn't because I just couldn't decide on a design. I had plenty of ideas, of course. Just like when I was in Transition Year, and third year, and fifth year...

Tattoos and I have had a long and checkered non-history. It started off when I was fifteen, when I decided I wanted lyrics from The Killers' "All These Things That I've Done". Specifically, I remember thinking that getting "I need direction to perfection, you gotta help me out" up my arm was a good idea. In retrospect: it wasn't. While I still love The Killers with every beat of my heart, it's just not the most optimistic of things to get slapped on your arm. While the reminder to get help with things probably would have helped while I was crying over history assignments last term, in retrospect I'm glad fifteen year old me didn't have the guts to go through with it. Plus: up my forearm?! For all to see?! How about no!

Of course, I didn't stick with this idea for long. The fancies of the teenage girl never stick around, and pretty soon I had hit on a new idea: I wanted to get the lyrics of "La Vie Boheme" from RENT tattooed up my back. In case you don't know about RENT,  I wanted to post the video, but Blogger won't let me post videos, inexplicably. So here's a link.


Don't get me wrong. It's not a bad song. But for a start, my back isn't that big. The idea of getting an eight minute long musical song on my back was nonsensical. I'm five foot four, for God's sake. However, the real issue is: cringey or cringey? I can't listen to the song without wanting to curl into a ball and go to bed forever, hoping that anyone who remembers my oh-so-earnest tattoo plans will be dead by the time I get up again. Can you imagine a middle-class, Irish country girl getting ~bohemian~ lyrics tattooed on her? It's been three years and I've only just discovered who Allan Ginsberg is. I couldn't be less Bohemian if I tried. (Well, I could, but that would mean agreeing with people like Ronan Mullen and wearing bodycon, and I'm not prepared to do either of those things. They just don't suit me...) It's incredibly embarrassing to think about, but I was sweet on that idea for a good year or so. Christ. If I ever, ever mention wanting to get the word "yoghurt" on my person again, please slap me, friends.

Fast forward a year and a half to June of last year, when my longing for a tattoo reared up again. Picture it: I'm studying all day every day, mostly English. Mostly poetry. Mostly Adrienne Rich, in the vain hope that she'd come up on that pink paper in June (spoiler: she did. And I got an A1. Mwahaha.). So of course, the obvious conclusion was a nice homage to the wonderful feminist poet who I loved so dearly. I had the quote picked, the spot on my body picked, even the font had been chosen. ("The words are purposes, the words are maps" on my right hip in Courier, in case you're interested.) All that was left was to scrape some money together and head to a tattoo parlour: but I never did it. Something stopped me. Maybe it was the pain factor, maybe it was the idea of the two-year rule with tattoos...but something did. Thank god it did, because four or five months later I studied Adrienne Rich's feminist theory in college. Turns out she is something of a raging douchebag who believes motherhood is a social construct and that Trans* people are 100% not okay. Much as I adore Diving Into The Wreck (and my god, do I), the woman has too many poisonous ideas for me to tattoo her words on my body forever.

So now, I'm stuck. I desperately want a tattoo -- what Caitlin Moran calls "a marker pin on your body, to reclaim yourself, to remind you where you are: inside yourself. Somewhere." Since starting college, I've been a bit all over the place, and I want something that's really me: something that would have been ten year old Áine, is nineteen year old Áine and will be forty-five year old Áine. I don't want one for the sake of a tattoo. I want something that'll look cool and that will remind me of who I am, who I was and who I will be. Apologies for the odd, biblical sound of that last line. Maybe I just need to get very drunk and make a snap decision. Though knowing my luck I'd end up with a Bane from TDKR quote on my leg forever...

The Transformation

I've blogged about getting fit, losing weight and eating healthier before, when life was a post-Leaving Cert bag of smiles and sunshine. Over the summer, I went to the gym several times a week and dieted like crazy...and all I lost was a cup size! Three hard months of dieting and I still had a big tummy, big thighs and a general air of wobbliness. Much as I'm an advocate of loving your body, I found this a bit of a kick in the face...so I stopped dieting.
College started, and fifty hot chocolates, an immeasurable amount of Kinder Buenos and a lot of pizza later, I'm back where I started: the same weight I was doing my exams. And again, I do accept how I look (it's not too bad), but it could be a lot better. Less -- wobbly, shall we say. I could do with tightening up the screws. (January, being the most depressing, dreary month of the year, is of course the time for it. OF COURSE it's time to eschew chocolate with a firm hand. Of course. I'll never understand the January fitness craze. It's such a depressing month without dragging yourself into the freezing rain for a run and ignoring those delicious biscuits. I should start a petition for Get Fit February. January is just not okay.)

Of course, Trinity College seemed to read my mind, and last week I received an e-mail about TCD Operation Transformation. It's basically a bunch of people getting together to follow the TV show and to get fit together. Sounds great, right? I was a little hesitant about doing it, largely due to the following:

• Problem one: I haven't got a TV in my flat. This makes watching the TV show -- and following my "leader" (a notion that sounds vaguely cultish, but I'll roll with it. I am the newbie here) somewhat difficult. But Operation Transformation is all over the RTÉ website, so bang goes that excuse.
• Problem two: Cooking meals is expensive, yo'! I can't afford that! I'm a student! Except that the "diet" for the show involves massive quantities of fruit and vegetables, which are cheap as anything in Aldi or Lidl. No excuses!
• Problem three: Exercise. I just don't like it, yo'. I'm going to do the exercise (read; THE HARD BIT) with the lovely Louise, however, plus find a way to go with David. I mean, come on, if working out with your boyfriend isn't motivation enough, what is? 

Thing is, excuses won't get me anywhere, and neither will delicious, delicious Dairy Milk. So there you go. For the next seven weeks, I am transforming, coming close to the light, and eating lots of carrots and Special K. It's going to be a bumpy ride that will probably culminate in a lot of tweets about hunger. Maybe, just maybe, though, I can learn to love exercising and healthier food. Now put the cheese down, Áine... 

...and suddenly i'm an adult!: pillows edition

Sometimes, things don't feel real until the smallest things happen. Moving out is one of them. When I signed the lease on my flat, I figured I could survive pretty well: I can cook, I'm reasonably clean and I don't have wild parties on a regular basis. Though I'm not sure if that last one is a big plus or a big minus for moving out. I'd been thinking about moving out for months, and BAM! here I am in a little flat with my parents, 97% I wanted to move there.
But, as always, I didn't really...take in the gravity of the situation. That is to say, it didn't really hit home (hehe) with me for a while. I stayed in the flat on New Year's Eve, which was fine, apart from the fact that I couldn't work the oven or the heat. "Maybe I'm less prepared than I thought!" a voice chirped in my head. Fortunately, it was NYE, so a bottle of Rosé sorted that out nicely. I slept on a mattress with a sleeping bag, terribly pleased with myself. I woke up in a very sunny mood the next morning. "It's 2013! I'm in my flat! This is the first day of the rest of my life!". That sort of thing. But, of course, it's easy to think that when you're having pizza for breakfast.
Of course, now that I've been home for a week, reality has set in. Heaton's shaped reality. I went shopping with my mum yesterday, thinking I'd pick up one or two things I needed. You know yourself. Maybe a pretty duvet cover or some nice mugs. So I'm standing in Heatons and I have this...crystalizing moment of realization. Or horror. Though I think that's Heatons fault. I'm not sure how many of you have ben to Heatons, but it is one of those bizarre shops that seems to stock everything and anything, but stocks it all in such a way that it's impossible to find any of it. I wandered around, lost in a haze of bath towels vs. bath sheets (will someone explain to me what a bath sheet is?!) and whether black bedsheets was a good idea. In the end, I figured out what I needed -- save bowls and plates, which I forgot -- but it was an eyeopener.

In less than a week, I will no longer live under my parents roof. I'll be fending for myself. Buying washing powder, toothpaste and soup will be my responsibility. This is not a case of a few nice mugs and a duvet cover. This is TOWELS! PLATES!  SPOONS! A CAN OPENER FOR ALL THE CANNED FOOD I'LL BE EATING! (Fun fact: I can't really open cans. I'm a leftie and I grew up in a house that never seemed to have a working can opener. I've stabbed them open for as long as I can rember...not very safe, that, I think I'll stick to ring-pulls for my flatmates' safety)

All of this hit me in Heatons, of course. Suddenly mugs weren't so important and I set about finding the cheapest bedsheets. And pillows. It's these little things that you don't think about -- cooking, cleaning and washing, yes. But the other things. I have my own tube of toothpaste now. My pair of €7 pillows are sitting in my bedroom, ready for off. I HAVE TO BUY MY OWN SHAMPOO.

Sheets! And pillows! And, eh, toaster bags!

And that's terrifying. Not the buying the shampoo, you must understand. The symbolism of it. The real world-ness of it. The "if you screw up at work you can't eat that week" of it. Tins of soup I can deal with. Washing I can deal with. But the idea of being self-sufficient is pretty scary.

All that said, I'm moving in on Saturday and it's scary, all right, but it's also terribly exciting, wonderful and life-changing. I can't wait. :)

Busing it

In case I haven't spoken to you for more than five minutes lately, here is a small fact: I take a lot of buses. Twice a week, I take a Dublin Bus to work and up until recently I took a Bus Eireann one home. Having done this for the past several weeks, I have to say; I tip my hat to you, regular commuters on the 14, 15 and 27b. I didn't think anything could make me like Bus Eireann, but here we are. On a bus, as it happens.

I get the 27b (nervously) at Amiens Street or Eden Quay, clutching my bag for fear of the junkies that hang out at bus stops. I've never seen a bus stop quite as bad as Amiens Street for junkies - not the "sorry love, have ye a spare euro for a hostel?" Kind, but the fighting, I'll-kill-ye-for-your-chips kind. Genuinely scary. When the bus finally arrives, I jump on, only to be met with an angry driver who doesn't want a student asking how much it is to Fairview. They want to go for a smoke and a coffee; which they often do.
Can someone explain to me the phenomenon of changing buses? At Eden Quay (a stone's throw from Busaras, so the temptation to leave and
retreat to the country is always there), buses switch drivers. Which is fair enough. But more often than not, passengers are forced to switch buses for reasons that seem lost on even the driver. A few weeks ago I got on a bus had to get off at Eden Quay and THEN wait fifteen minutes, only to get back onto the original bus. All this and I'm charged 2 euro to be late for work!

Charges are not my biggest problem with Dublin bus, though. I'm a huge fan of the Leap card, which allows me to bop around Dublin with my student ID - and it's a bit cheaper than a regular fare, too. No, Dublin bus isn't expensive. Not when one spends so much on Bus Eireann: specifically the 120. A bus route of majesty and sadness. Let me tell you, the sight of a double decker bombig it down the quays at 80 mph is quite something. This sight is a familiar one -- the queen of the Bus Eireann Fleet has become my second home since September. In fairness to Bus Eireann, it doesn't have the scary junkie or angry driver problems of Dublin Bus. Sometimes it has wifi and more often than not, it's lovely and warm. I have two very different issues with bus Eireann: first, the cost. Do you know, dear reader, how much my bus costs? It's 50 euro a week. Fifty euro. For some context: a flat in town is double that. For 100 euro a week I can go out, walk to college and NOT spend my nights staring at the grey and red seat in front of me, wondering who's idea that itchy, scratchy material was. Bus Eireann has a monopoly on the countryside and by god does it abuse that. Which brings me to my second issue with bus Eireann. You know the dinky orange signs you Dublin folk have to tell you when the bus is coming?

In the country, we don't have signs. We have faith. We spend hours every week oping that the 9am will arrive before half. When half comes
And hoes, we shrug, sigh and hope that the 10am will be on time. at night, We crane our necks at the Ha'Penny bridge, watching for the big neon 120 to loom out of the dusky dark of the city and carry us home. And when it does arrive, we rejoice! I have never once seen a bus Eireann passenger berate a driver for being late. Never once did I consider it myself, overcome with joy at seeing that bus arrive. Such is the complex relationship we culchies a have with our national bus service.

All this commuting was a holy terror, and to be frank, it got to me. I don't hate waiting in the cold for a bus, but I don't relish it either. No, what I really hate is running from a lecture (full-pelt, with open laces and a laptop) to my stop, praying that I haven't missed the bus. The infrequency of my bus drives me mad! So now, after a mere term of commuting, I have moved to Dublin. I've chosen junkies over waiting around and leap cards over ten-journey tickets. Though a small, slightly mental part of me will miss the banter of Bus Eireann, I'm mostly glad I won't have to hear the words "Setanta
House"* over a scratchy tannoy every day


*for the uninitiated: Setanta house is one of the few announced stops on my bus route. No one ever gets off there and it's a horrible halfway point between town and home. It's the most depressing place on earth.

Meeting Caitlin Moran.

It's 9.15am on a Friday morning. Trinity College is in the midst of Freshers' week, and I am on the floor of Trinity Hall, wrapped in a sleeping bag and trying not to move. I have a very bad hangover. I am awake very early. This is not good. However, I have a lecture at 11am, so I suppose I'd better get up...very slowly. I don't feel too bad as long as I don't move too much.
I get up, put on a jumper and make my way to college, sipping a bottle of water and trying very hard not to get sick all over the lower floor of the 140 to Rathmines. By the time I get to college, I feel slightly more alive -- though still not very good. I collapse into my lecture and proceed to stare vacantly into space for the next hour, scarcely taking in a word the lecturer says due to the spiky headache building behind my eyes.

Fast forward six hours, several cups of green tea, some shopping and a hugely welcome bag of Doritos, I am in Easons', waiting to meet Caitlin Moran. Incidentally, Doritos are the best hangover food. Carbs, fat, salt and a lovely flavour I can only describe as blue. Remind me to write a blog about Doritos. Anyway...Moran is a feminist writer and columnist who manages to be a) important and b) funny at the same time. I read her book back in January and I've been (somewhat accidentally) turning into her ever since. We have similar hair, similar eyeliner tendencies (read: we both wear lots) and, joyously, Moran has a big round face. I've said it once and I'll say it again -- what celebrities have round faces? If I google "round face celebrities" I will get Kirsten Dunst, who has a face that is as round as...an oval. Anyway. I like Caitlin Moran, and at the moment my hungover self is clutching three books by her (I have bought two copies of "Moranthology", her new book) and I am very, very excited.

Moran arrives late, but that doesn't spoil anybody's enthusiaism -- especially mine. All squicky hangover feelings are forgotten as she starts speaking. I hate to fangirl, but come on: this is a self-confessed strident feminist. She's funny, she writes, she looks strikingly like me. She used to be fat. Caitlin Moran gives me hope for my future. When she starts speaking, she's like a truck with no brakes: she's all whirling hands, swearwords and giggles. She speaks about celbirites, about her book and about feminism (and how important it is). I am either laughing or nodding in silent agreement for the entire hour she's speaking and then -- wonder of wonders! -- she takes questions from the audience.

I'm lucky that I'm a confident kind of person. When I say hello, Caitlin compliments my eyeliner and then wryly notes my "familiar looking hair". In June, I dyed a blonde-y streak into my dark brown hair, partly because I did it for a Ceilí last summer and partly because "it looks good on Caitlin Moran, thus it will look good on me!". Moran requests that I give her a pound. I'm not sure if she's joking or not. Next,  I ask Caitlin about male feminists -- she's all for them. "Everyone is invited to the feminist party!" Excellent. I have (hopefully) ended an argument with David that has lasted about six months.*

At the end of her talk, we get our books signed. Caitlin writes "you have my face!" on the inside of my battered copy of How To Be A Woman, before defacing the cover of it with an arrow saying "YOU!" pointing to her face.I get my photo taken with Caitlin and we both do "the Muppet face". I also hug her, which is nice.
I've heard on and off that you should never meet your heroes -- that they'll nearly always end up being a disappointment. I'm not one for "role models" myself, tbh, but Moran is as close as I get. Obviously I was terrified that she'd be arrogant, or rude, or much taller than me. Moran is a wonderful, funny, clever, averaged heighted woman with a face just as round as mine.

Worth the hangover? I think so.

"Keeping my options open" and nostalgia overload.

I'm just back from the DCU Open Day, which I went along to with a few friends solely because I had an Irish test toda-...I mean, I wanted to keep my options open for myself. The CAO application has been open for a few weeks now, and to be honest, I can't think about much else until I finally fill out that form. I'm fairly sure where I want to go, but it's no harm to have a look around, as my mum would say.

As previous readers know, I attended CTYI in DCU for three weeks in the summer of 2009 & 10. I loved it at the time - however I may feel now - and arriving into DCU today was a really confusing experience. Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely college, and it was much friendlier than the UCD open day - there were helpful studenty types everywhere, we were given bags of free stuff and it had a really nice atmosphere of student-ness. DCU is forever intertwined with the CTYI experience for me, and even the smallest things caused a wave of nostalgia.

For instance, the restaurant smells the same as it did, and the revolving trays for food are still in place. The Quad is still the Quad - just with a good deal more smoking. Spar is still horribly expensive and I felt nervous sitting in The Street, despite being a prospective studnet and completely allowed to. It's really weird to think that all I have to do is get 400 points and I could be living permanently in the Larkfield apratments and hanging out in the same places I did two summers ago.

Though they really are the smallest student apartments on Earth.

My problem with open days is that I'm generally too busy running around seeing my friends from outside school to really get a proper look at the place. Today was no different - Franki and I left the Communications lecture before it started and looked at make-up instead. Then I met Conor, but that's beside the point - my point is that I seem to get very little DONE at Open Days, particularly at DCU's today. It just...didn't appeal to me though! Now that I think about it, it's probably the fault of CTYI that I never considered DCU as the university for me, and today I was proved correct in thinking that going back as a student would just be too weird. As I said earlier, it's a damned cool university, just not the right one for me. The right one for me is currently way up in the air and causing quite a bit of stress, but hey, it'll be fine.

One thing I will say, though: student food? Deadly. I got curry chips, a Snack bar, soup and juice for a fiver!