I bloody fucking managed to do it! ... I DID IT.

I did it. Dissertation in, radio sorted. Life is manageable again. I KNEW the universe wouldn't let me down.
I knew I wouldn't let me down.
And the Dropkicks last night were effin' brilliant. I caught a guitar pick!

Time to start doing myself justice, 'though. As soon as I've recovered from these two consecutive (and painful) all-nighters, I'm straight back in - head first - to make the most of the little college that's left.

I got an award this week (that's apparently been sitting in a box for a while now, having been awarded at a ceremony I couldn't go to - and no one told me!!) and I was thrilled about it. It was for "outstanding contribution" to a college society over the four years I've been here. Delighted.

Then I found out that, this Monday, I'm being presented with another: the Chairperson's Medal for my "outstanding contribution to college life". Again, it's for all the societies stuff I did. Similar - but sounds to be a much bigger deal. I didn't even know such a thing existed. Socs office nominated me.

Whether it's deserved or not, it's certainly flattering. There are 10 medals in total and, when I heard who else was nominated, I was gobsmacked that the socs office thought I was up there with them: People who've worked their arses off and really made a huge difference, people who've set up hugely successful societies, people who've powered through college despite crazy hectic outside lives, people who've done amazing things...

I dunno if I've done "amazing" things for socs, but it feels amazing to have won something like this. I'll be honest... I've, genuinely, spent the last few months doubting my choices... wondering if my priorities were a bit fucked up going through college... wondering if I should have concentrated on the course more than all the other shit I got sidetracked with... wondering if I'd spent four years here working hard at wasting a whole lot of time.

But the shit I got sidetracked with was amazing shit. It was worthwhile shit. It was the best possible kind of shit. And it's that shit that I'm going to take with me from my college experience... and cherish forever.

When our Cumann Gaelach was awarded the "Most Improved Society" award in my second year of college, we got through to BICS - the national final. There was a guy there who'd won "Best Individual" in DIT, and who'd just gone on to win "Best Individual" nationally. Basically, it means he was, by far, the hardest working individual person in any college society in the country. He certainly was. Everyone knew it. He helped make something magical out of the already brilliant Drama Soc. And he was involved in every other aspect of college life too. And studying full time. And doing everything else you could possibly imagine. Think "impossible amount of achievement"... now, double it.

I remember talking to him... Barely. I was "interviewing" him, both of us propping up the bar, drunk as skunks... I wrote down his answers in the margins of the awards ceremony brochure... Scrabbling together a few quotes for my report in the DIT News was tricky; my usually illegible scrawl is even worse when I'm drunk.

But I got one good quote out of it. And a damn good one at that.

"If you're not involved in a society you're not going to college, you're going to class."

Here here.

No Escape

On holliers from all my jobs... All of them. One month of nothing. Nothing. Christ - I can't stand it.

It's probably been about 3'na half years since I'd this much damn time off. Nowhere to rush to. No mad work schedule (with bleak hours of study crammed in wherever possible; never a minute of "free time" without that hanging guilt of procrastination...)

I quit to create time to do my Dissertation, y'see... To finish my research and write it all up; leather-bound and beautiful by the 22nd. Also, the radio project needs finishing (a documentary on how Stand-Up Comics start out - with my very own performance coming up on the 13th. Yes. I'm really doing it. God help us all.)

But, even 'though it's a lot of work, I feel...idle. Helplessly idle. Without the pressure of work and lateness and lack of time to do college work, it's been impossible to do college work.

What's that expression? "If you want something done, ask a busy person"...? That's just it. My momentum's gone. And there's no escape into work or rehearsals or society work or... anything. Seems it was easier to get assignments done when all I had were those tiny, designated, rare windows.

I took this time off to work solely on college: final stretch of final year, get it done! I thought I needed time...
But I'm going insane with endless empty hours... to fill as I please...

Ah well... I'll just have to get used to it.

"You are where you live"

Something in the Sunday Times (Irish, so we're clear) today caught my eye... stuffed in at the edge of Page 8 (most of the rest of which is taken up by a massive, melodramatic anti-smoking article calling for an overall ban on smoking in cars (to protect children, of course) ... Jan Battles can shove it)

It was about people of like minds/personalities gravitating to certain areas... living "in clusters"... very interesting... Not the (fairly basic) article (which I won't bother quoting, even), but the idea.

Do we?

The study was led (a while ago, now) by a Jason Rentfrow)... <-that's a link to a nice little page where he blathers on about it. Lovely little pic, too. Aaw. Lookit him. Proud as punch.

Maybe that's why I wanted out of (close-minded, divided) Limerick the minute I set foot in the place. Or why Phi and I both ended up in (dirty, rushing) Dublin. Or why I wanna move back to (cool, down-to-earth) Galway.

Phi said to me the other day that she thinks she's more suited to city life - she doesn't like to be on her own, likes to keep busy, and loves the general buzz. "You never know who you mind meet!" apparently. Dunno about that. How often do you meet, and chat to, new people in the city?

Though, I'd a lovely (if a bit strange) conversation with a fella on the Luas today - but that NEVER happens.

Right now, we have work and college. That's where we meet people (or... in nightclubs) and that's our community.

Read this - much better article (even though this one's about how his study relates to America). Had to laugh at the bit about the neurotic "Stress belt" - love it!
Maybe I'll move there. :P

My PostSecret. And why I'm "a sucker"

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." - Romans 7:15

Found this quote on PostSecret (in someone's reply to one of the cards)... Didn't bother checking if the reference is right. I always like to double-check any quote I lift from someone else.

But it's 3 in the morning and I'm sipping sherry.

So.

I've been daydreaming today about what I'd put on my PostSecret card, if I were to make one... (I had a 3 hour bus ride to myself, ok?) Something so secret it had to be completely anonymous... I started thinking of all sorts of stuff - so much that I toyed with the idea of starting an anonymous blog.

But what's the point of that?

The reason I started this thing was to get over my fear of other people reading my stuff. I was never good at writing letters to people - I'd be happy with them at the time of writing, but I actually asked one or two people to throw out letters I sent them after reading them. Once was nerve-wracking enough - but the thought of it sitting there, for them to re-read at their leisure... *shudder*

That was then - this is now! And I'm getting cooler with it. Slowly. Still get a bit of a gut-wrenching "eek!"-sensation when anyone IRL says they've seen/read/heard about my blog..

But, look at me now! Post number 60, I think? (Around that, anyway!) Far more if you count the many many I deleted (when cold-feet feeling came back)

Yes, so, anon-blog = no help towards that, in any case.


Anyway, I was thinking of how O said I'm a sucker for punishment the other day.
How can I argue? I mightn't like to think so, but I kinda always have been.
I mean, check out this crap - I wrote that over 5 years ago, I think! I was in a similar spot of bother, convinced (just like now) that it was all worth it. That moment, "that" feeling - brief, pointless, empty (as it turns out), but... exciting, right? :)

Someday I'll get some sort of smacht ar mo chuid impulsive rash antics... Someday I'll realise that situations like this, though irresistible to me (ar fáth éigin) are... Silly. No good. Undesirable.
Bad, even!

... Not yet, though.


"I do not understand what I do..." -- but I kinda like it that way.

Re: Ouch >.<

Isn't it incredible? It's migraine art! I, personally, don't get a visual aura - but stuff like this makes me wish I did! (Instead I just act out of character, stressed, and spaced-out during the pre-attack aura stage..... or sometimes I can get hyper-happy or startlingly low! Which is weird, and I don't know what's going on till the pain hits and I'm like - Oh! Right!)

A few months back I read in Scientific American (my dad subscribes - he's awesome) that - apparently - the migraine "happens" in the front of the brain in people who get visual disturbances, and in people who don't see anything funny it's in the back.
(Sorry I haven't a proper quote or anything - I've lost the issue somewhere in my room!)

Mad jagged designs, blind spots... it all sounds much more interesting than mood swings and concentration lapses! But, yeah, i know; greener grass and all that jazz...

Here's another from this thread (which is worth checking out..):




I totally fucking know how that^^ feels! That, right there, is similar to stuff I've doodled when I've had a headache (and a pen handy..eg: in work/college) - might post some here at some point! But I have a rotten habit of throwing away everything I draw these days...
(something to do with my bitterness at having abandoned the art college dream?)

Have a look at this NY Times slideshow for more examples!

"... there is speculation that some of the mystical paintings from medieval times, including the work of Hildegard von Bingen (Saint Hildegard), were actually the "visions" that resulted, at least in part, from a migraine attack. Van Gogh, Seurat, and many other artists have also been cited as possible "migraine artists." "

^That article from Psychology Today is an interesting read if you've got 5 minutes.. it's true that it's very difficult to describe pain in words sometimes - and I don't know how many times I've felt like slapping a doctor who's dismissed my headache as a sinus congestion-related pain when I'm trying to explain that "it's not just there, it's aaall here and kind of, in that way and pushing down here and sometimes here and... but further in.. and that way and through there!"

ha... clear?
Crystal!

Genius!!

Y'know how a couple of posts ago, when I did my little new year quiz, I couldn't think of an answer to the last question? Instead of goign back and answering properly, I've decided to post a list of some of my all-time favourite quotes. I love these because they're inspiring, or delightfully, hilariously true.. all are just plain genius.

"A long-term relationship is, at its core, two people struggling to put up with each other’s bullshit—day in, day out, year after year—in exchange for things intangible (love) and things tangible (sex)." - Dan Savage

"If I heard a speaker use (downplay) I would upget and outwalk." - Peter De Vries

"A mistake which is commonly made about neurotics is to suppose that they are interesting. It is not interesting to be always unhappy, engrossed with oneself, malignant and ungrateful, and never quite in touch with reality." - Cyril Connolly, The Unquiet Grave

"Be Yourself, especially do not feign affection, neither be cynical about love for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass." - Desiderata, Max Ehrman

"He who has a why for life can bear with almost any how" - Nietzsche

"Its not that the Irish are cynical. Its rather that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody." - Brendan Behan

"It's not like buying a car you know." "I know - it's gotta be that can't eat, can't sleep, reach for the stars, over the fence world series kind of love!" - It Takes Two (crappy movie - great quote nonetheless)

"If you can find someone who loves the you YOU love, well, that's just fabulous!" - Sex and the City

"Good things don't come to those who wait, but to those who dare." - An old friend who I miss quite a bit.

"We're ridiculous"

Yes we are.

Oooh, it's gonna hurt alright. No matter what we decide, whatever happens, it's going to hurt. I have some idea how much, too... so it's more than a little terrifying. But I've been thinking about it and I've decided - fuck it - it doesn't matter if it lasts a week, or a few weeks, or a few hundred weeks. Or even just a few more hours!
Even just one more hour like that would be...

Fuck!

How did this happen? How has everything changed?

I want.......... what do I want? Nnnnnngh I don't KNOW!!


No, I think I DO know what I want. "Think" is the wrongest of wrong words - I KNOW what I want!
I want whatever I can get.
No more. That's ok. More than ok! And even though I'm scared, I'm not feeling weird about it at all. It's petrifying - but it comes so easily too. Does that make sense? Anyway, no amount of nerves or uncertainty or time-restrictions can stop me enjoying it - all of it - every second until...
...


I go from wanting to throw up, to wanting to sing, to wanting to scream, to wanting to dance, to wanting to drink, to laughing at all the aforementioned madnesses.

To sum up: This is the BEST mistake I'll ever make.
:)