Semester One = Done

As semester one draws to a close, I believe it's about time to reflect on my initial college experience. Over the past 3 months, I've witnessed the vast majority of the initially over-zealous, intensely studious folk around me crumble with exam stress and fret about whether they have chosen the right course, whilst binging on Reece's Pieces and ready meals. Oh and I'm one of those, by the way. College has hit hard, and we're all struggling to keep on its good side, but we stand united. There's nothing more comforting than hearing the words "I haven't started yet either" from a fellow student, or lying in bed missing your 10am, knowing your also-still-in-bed roommate is doing exactly the same. We thought this would be easy, now that the dreaded Leaving Cert has been conquered. It's the hardest thing you'll ever have to do, they say. College is a walk in the park after that nightmare, they tell us. Lies and deceit.

Let's take this one step at a time. Attendance for example. First few weeks - perfect, 'golden weeks' all round. After that, people start missing their 9ams because they were out the night before - I'm baffled and even appalled, I mean think of all the vital information they are missing out on!? Eventually a night out breaks my streak, and next lecture I realise I haven't missed anything much at all, no harm done. Then the essays and sleep deprivation kick in and we get a little lax on the 'golden week' idea. 12 weeks deep and there's only one person turning up our Irish language lab (not me), and the debate to go to a lecture or stay in bed or Christmas shop is a valid, heart-breaking one. Now those of you who don't go to college may judge us, but we know what we're doing. If a college student feels a wave over productivity coming on, and is so in the mood to make a start on that essay and get shit done - we know full well that this is a rare blessing, one which much be respected and rolled with, even if it means sacrificing some note-taking practice. And if it's one of those days when we really and truly can't drag our ass out of bed into the cold, ever-raining outside world without crying, we give ourselves that time to recuperate, mentally. In other words - we got this, we've been playing systems for years now, college is no different.

Except college is so different. Not even the course itself, but the very idea behind it. This is what we have chosen to do for the rest of our lives, like as a career... Or at least it's what we have committed to doing for 4 whole years of our valuable, unrefundable youth. So if we've made the wrong choice, we're to blame, and we're pretty much stuck here. Yes, yes, change of minds, I hear you say - but the deadlines for that kind of stuff is pretty early on and once they are gone, the deal is sealed, and short of dropping out and paying full fees to do something else (every mommy's dream, right?) we're sealed in tight. So we are all one by one coming to terms with the consequences of that decision, and eventually accepting and dealing with it, in as positive a light as we can muster.

Also, college is the place where straight A kids start to see the value in just passing - a concept which filled us with horror a few months back. One must bear in mind that it's a Trinity experience I am telling here, and that I spend my days surrounded by the contents of the extreme right of the bell-curve. You need to be smart to get in here - that's a given. But you need to work your little tucus off and possibly sell your soul to the devil to be one of the smartest of the smart kids (most of the time we can agree that having a vaguely active social (and/or sex) life is more important).

All of this, coupled with the actual experience of living away from home is pretty overwhelming, I'll admit. One never realises how costly it is to get around, or to feed oneself until they move out (parents, we now appreciate you raising us, but question why on earth you signed up to this in the first place #didyouchecktheexpirationdate?). Not to mention that the prospect of having to make dinner day in day out is frankly preposterous and I refuse to believe anyone actually goes through with it. Pasta is dinner - we have spoken. Don't underestimate its power to fill bellies in minutes.

With all of the above sounding quite on the ranting side of things, it's understandable to assume college is terrible and we all want to drop out, but that's not entirely true. These are the things we have all had to come to terms with, and grow accustomed to in the past few months. Valuable life lessons are being learned, yada, yada, yada, and we have our (almost) fair share of fun. And the most important thing of all: we get to claim the #studentlife as our own, an extension of ourselves, if you may, adding to our legacy.

Sláinte, Sickness and Student Affairs

Remember when I said I wasn't missing home? Well scrap that. And about that sore throat I referenced in my last post, well, it turns out that it's most probably tonsillitis. What wonderful news to hear three days before lectures start, right? So now I'm just one week into living in the big bad world of independence, and am faced with sorting out doctor's appointments and medication, frantically, on the last day before the weekend, in order to try to survive next week's lectures, which I've been looking forward to for months. Right now, I want to run home to mummy, let her work it all out, and mammy me by bringing me soup, and tea, and stroking my probably feverish head (what college student actually has a thermometer?).

But alas I sit in my empty apartment with no salt, no honey and no cuddles. My housemates are all either gone home for the weekend or out partying arís (mar is ghnáth), which means I'm admittedly a little on the lonely side (bad health does that to you), but at least I'm enjoying the most peace and quiet I've had in over a week. Main concern though: I really didn't buy enough ice-pops to quell my darn tonsils' tantrum.

In less self-pity wallowing news, I've now attended both of my course meetings, and I'm more than psyched to get down to it. The lecturers have explained explicitly that while yes, us art students may have a ridiculously low amount of lectures per week (nine, not even kidding), we are expected to put in a 40 hour week, what with reading, studying, writing etc. I've already gone on the search of English books - and I care not if you think it's a waste of money, the library only has a limited amount of copies, and do not want to feel under pressure to hand them back in, nor do I want to settle for retaining less information just to save a few bucks by getting a digital copy. Third year students are a fantastic resource, with many unwanted second-hand textbooks that they are willing to part with for a very reasonable price, but some books you just have to go all out and spend that large wad of money to attain them, sadly.

Agus mo chúrsa Ghaeilge? Buel, bhí an course meeting ar fad as Ghaeilge (just as I feared), ach thuig mé gach rud a dhúirt an léachtóir (pleasant surprise). But yes, tá sé fíor - tá gach duine (almost) atá ag déanamh an cúrsa sin after coming out of an Irish secondary school, has many Gaeltacht experiences under their belt, or at the very least has gone to a Gaelscoil primary school. But I could keep up thankfully, bhíomar ag caint as Ghaeilge ar feadh cúpla nóiméad tar éis the course meeting, and it was such a refreshing, but strange experience, to have that opportunity, and to feel safe enough to break in and out of Irish as I please gan bhreithiúnas (without judgement), with people who crave that opportunity too. I've been very concerned that I'd be completely out of my league, or that it would be just like the Irish oral practice we did in school, but now I've realised that mo chuid Ghaeilge isn't too rusty after all, and that the Irish Leaving Cert oral preparation was so restrictive and confined, not to mention leadránach and intimidating.

Until next time (probably not too far away if I keep this frequency up), I wish you (and me) dea-sláinte.

Can We Skip Freshers' Week Yet?

College is strange. But what's stranger is this modulating point between holidays and actual lectures. As a Trinity student (yes I got in - no I won't develop a D4 accent, don't worry), I'm obviously a bit of a nerd. I mean it's practically a prerequisite. So I'm in an awful state over here dying for lectures, essays, tutorials, studying - you name it, to take over my life. My waiting continues to complicate things further, whilst I spend my time living in Trinity Hall, the home of nearly all the non-Dublinese Trinity freshers, who are throwing their heart, soul (and livers) into clubbing, and 'prinking' (predrinking). To sum it up: it's loud, and nobody sleeps. Not even this little nerd - who tried to club, I swear, but after two nights, realised it had made her physically ill, and pretty miserable - can curl up in bed and read her latest Hardy book without having to reread each sentence at the very least ten times to combat nearby chattering/screaming.

Yes, I do have a roommate. I'll admit I liked the idea. Y'know, you see it all the time in American college movies, people rooming with one another, bonding, having not-so-secret signals to indicate that the other is 'getting lucky' (that tie though, sooo discrete lads). I wanted a roommate, so I got a roommate. What confounds me is what exactly I must have said in my application that inspired Halls to throw me and Roommate into each others lives. Roommate is lovely, I don't deny that. She's bubbly, kind, not too messy (so I don't have a nervous breakdown), not too tidy (so I don't feel like a slob) and we don't clash at all. But as far as people go, we couldn't be more unlike one another. Even on first glance you can tell we'd been put together by an outside source. She's tall, blonde, and beautiful in the celeb-hot style way - while I would probably fit better in the short, brunette, cute in the looks-like-she-is-still-in-primary-school category. Even our heritage stands on different sides of a fence. I've been raised in such a patriotic, Irish family, that I cannot possible allow myself to study English in uni without studying Irish as well - while Roommate is as Bheal Feirste. Not to mention  hobbies: clubbing vs reading, socialising vs writing, I think Trinity's computer got lazy. But Roommate and I are good, we get on, it's just really not what I had expected.

Everyone else in my apartment could also be placed on one of two poles. The three of us English lit scholars take up the quieter pole, while Roommate and the two others operate on a much more demonstrative level, which frankly exhausts me just to watch them - no idea how they do it. People talk a lot about Hall not feeling like home. Some think we have to adjust, others think it'll never be home. I'm of two-minds. While I have no routine as of yet (meal-wise, arising-wise, exercise-wise, or even reading-wise) here, which doesn't exactly provide a feelings of being adjusted and settled-in, I don't miss 'home'. I'm drained, from the extreme amount of socialising that goes hand in hand with freshers, and hand in hand with sharing an apartment, not to mention my throat is sore, from two nights of clubbing. So I'm not exactly comfortable. But I went back to Cavan today, for a couple of hours, had lunch with my mom, and chatted, and I felt even more out of place there than here. It's like I'm taking up residence in a town called Purgatory. Not fully immersed in college life, but so done with life at home.

Coming back to Dublin afterwards led me straight to my first ever Dublin city sunset. I have a terrible habit of missing the sunset by a few minutes, or getting too impatient to wait for it to start, so I needed this. It reminded me that home is much larger than we seem to classify it as generally. Sometimes all it takes is a peek out at a blushing horizon to bring you back to earth.

Schlemiels and Schlimazels

A schlemiel spills soup on a schlimazel.

    What a fantastic sentence! A schlemiel is a Yiddish word meaning a clumsy or awkward person, who is prone to spilling soup. A schlimazel is also a Yiddish word derived from the German word 'slim' meaning crooked, and the Hebrew word 'mazzal' meaning luck, and translates to an unlucky, accident-prone person who is prone to getting soup spilled on him. Hence the sentence 'a schlemiel spills soup on a schlimazel.'
 
   Interesting eh? Yiddish is quite an entertaining language, it has some brilliant words, that sound exactly like what they mean. The onomatopoeia is amazing. To me, some of the words completely sum up what they stand for. Now, I don't speak Yiddish, nor do I know anyone who does, but I would love to learn it one day. I'm a bit of a language nerd. I'm studying French and Irish in school, but the Irish education system still hasn't figured out how to teach languages yet, sadly.
 
   I'm very fond of the Irish language, although not many people can say that. In my estimation about 80% of people learning Irish in school hate it, and nobody can speak it properly these days, apart from the very few Gaelgoirí left in the country. It saddens me really. As an Irish lassie, I'm quite patriotic and proud of my little island, and whatever we have left of our culture, since being invaded by Britain all those years ago, is diminishing to the point where I have to wonder, will there be any left? I believe the Irish language to be very poetic and beautiful, and while most see it as an unnecessary chore to learn it in school, I love it, and hope to learn it fully in college, and to become fluent one day. It's a tricky little language, because it's difficult to put into practice due to the lack of fluent speakers, but I think it's worth it. As the Irish saying goes "tír gan teanga, tír gan anam", meaning a country without a language is a country without a soul.
 
   I'm also learning Japanese at present, on my own, (it's not like I have the option of lessons where I live anyway) and I would love to study that in college too. Finding a career out of language is tricky business though, but I'm sure I'll get by.

I'll be a polyglot yet!