Fortunately I can remember most of what I said. The first thing, topically enough (or should that be tropically?) was the weather! I’ve been sitting by the window for most of the day, with one eye on the stormy winds and the other on my laptop.  It’s the tail end of Hurricane Katia, now downgraded of course, and it’s battering the west coast of the country today. The only noticeable effect in my  immediate vicinity is just a pretty effect on the trees up the road, which are bending and swaying in all kinds of directions. I believe it’s worse elsewhere though, and I’m told a large pane of glass crashed out of one of the big buildings in the city centre. No reports of injuries, thankfully.

In other news, a project I was expecting to start today has had to be put on hiatus. The plan was to do some observation of teaching methodologies over the coming months, liaising with a lecturer as well as communicating with a group of college students. I was excited about being involved in research, so it’s disappointing that it didn’t start as planned! Hopefully the lecturer involved will be back to full strength soon.

With that out of the way for at least the next two weeks, I’ll be looking for other side-projects to keep me active. I used to upload videos to Youtube, whether of me playing music or of my friends engaging in funny conversations. I’ve been thinking of doing recordings of some of my old poems and uploading those. I have a micro-phone somewhere that’ll connect to my laptop via USB, so it might be an option. I’ve also been writing a bit again recently. I have notes and scribbles for five or six new poems, but they’re a long way from being finished yet.

On the sports front, the Gaelic Football Junior Championship got off to a predictably bad start last night. Most of our panel hasn’t trained this year, and those that have been training are mostly aged 16 or 17. Of the five players we had over the age of 23, four haven’t trained at all since last year. Monaleen had a lot of young players as well, but had some very strong players in key positions who took full advantage of our short-comings. A bad season for football in the club continues.

On the bright side, I’ll finally be grading for my green belt in jujitsu next week! I was scheduled to do it last year, but college commitments got in the way. I missed close to 8 months of training and got rusty, but I’m happy that I’ve got on top of the basics again. The techniques on the syllabus are coming along nicely too, and my fitness is good. I know it’s going to hurt, but I’m looking forward to next Wednesday night.

Also, I finally got around to signing a registration form for a local soccer club. With any luck I’ll be getting called for games in the next few weeks, although there’s a chance I’ll be away from home for some of the coming weekends. Time will tell!

That’s enough for now, I think. I’ll try to post something new soon.

In my life I’ve only ever attended three funerals. The first of those was a long time ago, when I was still in primary school. A boy in my class, who later became one of my very best friends, lost his young brother. I didn’t really know them well at the time, and I was detached.

A few years later my grandfather died. I was 13 years old. Two weeks before my grandfather’s death, I was told what a “hospice” was. Then I was told that he was in one. He passed away on a bright, blustery Friday in September. I didn’t attend the funeral. Instead, I stayed in my grandparents’ house with my brother, my sister and one or two of my older cousins. There had been a trend of houses being burgled during funerals, so we were on a mission to mind the house. Well, that’s what we were told at the time anyway.

Later that same school year I was in the guard of honour for a teacher in my school who had died. He never taught me, but he left a lasting impression on those who did have the privilege of being in his English class. I’m reliably told he was an inspired teacher, and a remarkable human being. I remember little of the ceremony, but I know I wore a black jacket.

Years passed. The next funeral I attended was a Church of Ireland ceremony for the grandfather of another friend. I can’t recall much of it now. I just wanted to be there for my friend at the time, even though I had no idea what I was supposed to do or say.

All that time I thought I was lucky. I’d never lost anyone close to me. I knew my Grandad, but I never knew him well. My mother’s grandmother had died when I was four or five, but I hadn’t been close to her either. And anyway, she was ninety years old. She’d lived her whole life. It was her time. Grandad wasn’t expected to see his 70th birthday, so people seemed consoled that he lived two or three years beyond that.

And then the news broke. Tuesday, 31st of May 2011. I found out at approximately 21:05, although others had known since 18:30 or so. Maybe even earlier. I guess the time didn’t really matter. What matters is that a truly amazing young person died this week.

Róisín Burke was my first real girlfriend. We went out for 13 months, between 2006 and 2007. I’ve written about her here before, at least in references. Our relationship was made up of a series of incredible coincidences, first-time experiences and startlingly powerful emotions. We broke up at the end of May 2007. I thought I’d got over her by the start of 2008. Thinking about Roe this week, it was clear that I’d never fully recovered from the break-up.

She introduced me to web-fora, to house-parties, and many other things besides. That was before we ever became an item! She’d been seeing another guy when my friend, Seán, first introduced me to her. I went along to a house-party that she hosted in Kildare, and then another for New Years Eve 2005/06. Everyone else was getting drunk. I was on pain-killers for a broken collar-bone, so I tried to avoid the crowd. Sitting on my own at the bottom of the stairs seemed to leave an impression on Roe.

I flew out to Vancouver for a week in April, knowing that she’d be in Limerick by the time I got home. She’d broken up with her boyfriend by then. We kissed one night in the middle of April, and arranged to meet up again around the start of May. On May 1st, we decided to give a long-distance relationship a go. She gave me a gorgeous green friendship bracelet with little beads on it. I wrote poems about her. She came to see my soccer team win the National Under 17s Cup in Limerick.

But it wasn’t easy. We were so young. I went off to Irish college in June and met another girl. That should have been the end of us. But, we met up again and made an effort to put things right. When she came to Limerick for my 18th birthday it looked like things would be okay. We saw each other only once every month. We regularly argued over the phone. I played sports too often, or didn’t text often enough. It’s hard to describe it now, but there was an intensity of emotional investment in that relationship that I’d never experienced before.

When we were together it seemed perfect. I’d never met anyone I could talk to so easily. There were nights when we’d stay up talking for hours and hours, taking turns to tell each other about our lives. We had some shared interests. The music of Snow Patrol was one such shared love, at the time. I could never sleep easy though. I was always afraid I’d snore, or breathe too loud, or talk in my sleep. After cheating on her, I was terrified of messing things up again.

On Thursday this week I went into town with friends. I wore my red tie for the occasion. I bought that tie for a black-and-red themed New Years Eve party at the end of 2006. I remember going to that party in blue jeans, and knowing nobody there except for Roe. The only other thing I remember accurately from that night was a fire-juggler from Galway.

In February 2007 my friend Seán had his 18th birthday. Roe and her friends came down to Limerick again for the occasion. It was a fun night, but by that stage cracks were becoming clearer in the foundations. We broke up the night before St.Valentine’s Day, just because she wanted to. We got back together again two days later. The Leaving Cert was drawing close. Neither of us was entirely sure of what course we wanted to do afterwards, or where in the country we’d be studying. We argued more and more often, and by the end of May we’d broken up. It’s entirely possible that Roe’s death coincided with the fourth anniversary of our split. It’s hard to recall exact dates at this stage.

One of the few consolations I have now is that I saw her again before she moved to Indonesia last year. Boards.ie’s Nocturnal Forum threw a party in her honour, aptly titled Rozabeers. After over three years, I finally saw her again. By that stage I’d been through another entire relationship that had lasted 2 years, and  was 7 months into a new one. I’m happy to report I’m still seeing that girl, coming up to 17 months now. Roe was one of the very first to congratulate us on getting together. She was such a good friend like that.

That night last summer was the last time I saw her. It was as if there had never been a bad word between us. She introduced me to her friends, we drank cocktails, we posed for pictures with giant bronze cattle. I fully expected to see her again, for a home-coming party in June 2011. It’s so hard to accept that she’s gone. I’ve cried myself to sleep four nights this week. Nothing I write will do justice to the mark she left on my life. I try to remind myself that we broke up four years ago, but it makes no difference. I loved her beyond words for over a year. Part of me, somewhere deep down, never stopped loving her.

I’m hoping to make it up the country to her funeral, which should be on some time in the next week. I don’t know how I’ll cope. I can’t even imagine what her family and close friends are feeling right now. I’d seen the girl once in the last four years, and I’m barely consolable. I know there are hundreds, if not thousands, who feel the same way. She touched so many people, whether that was through college, work, play or through the forums she used on-line.

It hurts so much right now, but I know that in the future I’ll think of her and count myself lucky. Roe was a special, special person. She shaped me, and even the way I look at life, for the better. I’m so glad I knew her, and I wish beyond measure that the world hadn’t lost her.

R.I.P. babez. x x x

 
Right, college. As I stated 20-odd posts ago, parts of my college experience coincided with some of the worst emotions I’ve ever felt, while other parts have been incredibly enjoyable/beneficial. I’ll probably take quotes from my old blog posts to help keep this fairly accurate.

 
I started into Mary Immaculate College in Limerick in September 2007, coming off the back of a bad break-up in May, a very decent return in the Leaving Cert in June and meeting a new girl in August. I missed out on my first choice (Primary Teaching with Psychology) by 30 points, but I’d never really put in the work to get that course anyway. Instead I got my second choice, the Bachelor of Education degree. By Christmas time I was sitting in the college counsellor’s office wishing I could be anywhere else.

 
Looking back now, it’s easier for me to see where I went wrong. I went in to register on the very first morning, signed some forms, got my photo taken for my I.D. card and then left again straight away. I didn’t hang around to chat with anyone else. I didn’t check out what events were planned for Freshers’ Week. I didn’t ask anybody about what clubs and societies were in the college, or when training would be starting.

 
Then lectures started. Many of these were “sign-in” or “roll-call” lectures. Some of them were held in a room designed to perfectly resemble an Infants class-room. I think it’s room G37. Think badly-drawn pictures, multi-coloured posters, labels on everything and boxes of bricks/straws/lego/toys, etc. on the shelves. I was in First Year, but it felt like I was being treated like a 5 year old again. The lecturers even snapped at students as if they were bold children, tried to confiscate mobile phones and gave out if people were sketching/doodling during lectures. It was pathetic. And not liking the lecturers meant I didn’t want to do any work for them. I’d safely say I did less than 10% of the required reading for First Year.

 
The worst parts of first year were my Visual Arts lecturer, and Micro-teaching in Semester 1. She wasn’t just condescending; she was abusive. It should have been my favourite part of the timetable, but by week five or six I felt absolutely miserable because of her. I couldn’t chat with the people around me, or even crack a smile, without her launching into a tirade. Once she decided she didn’t like me, none of my work was good enough for her either.Micro-teaching involved doing very short lessons with very small groups of very young children! We did 5 sessions over 12 weeks, which were recorded on video. The idea was that we’d go back and watch over the videos and self-criticise our performances. this was supposed to be done with a partner, who would give some more objective criticism. Even after a month into the year I didn’t know anybody well enough, so I had to write my own “partner” critique myself. By Christmas time I was lonely in college, not seeing enough of my old school friends and doing no work. The one highlight was a creative weekend in County Tyrone with three 2nd Year students. I’d probably have dropped out if not for that.

 
Second semester was a bit better. The break did me good! I was less shy around people and I was starting games for the Freshers’ Gaelic Football team. I think we made it all the way to the national semi-final for our division. Not bad for a panel of only 18 players! There were different lecturers for most subjects too. I passed my first Teaching Practice experience, somehow. We had to go to Irish college for 3 weeks at the end of first year and I ended up in a house in Minaird, between Anascaul and Dingle, with 14 other lads. Of all the true friends I made in college, all but one were in that house with me. The other one used to spam post in the C&H forum too… >_> I also spent 6 weeks working in the Irish College in Inis Oírr that summer.

 
Second Year kicked arse. And I mean, like, TOTALLY, roysh?! The course material included philosophy, 2 psychology modules and a History of Education module. I picked Gaeilge for my Arts subject and so did most of the lads who’d shared the house in Kerry. Only one or two lecturers maintained the sign-in policy. On the negative side, we were still spending far too much time studying Religion (a constant issue across all 3 years) and the man-hating Sociology lecturer alienated the men in the hall whenever we bothered showing up for her lectures. I passed my driving test early in 2009, which was a massive confidence-boost. I’d also completed the Gatekeeper: Suicide Awareness and Prevention course around the same time. The kick in the teeth came at the end of the year when I got the very same Sociology lecturer as my Infant TP Supervisor. The woman has never taught in a primary school classroom in her life, and there she was, responsible for my grade for the biggest module of second year. I passed anyway. Which was nice.

 
Anyway, along came the summer holidays. I’d secured another 3 weeks of work in Inis Oírr. In 2008 I was lucky enough to work as an Ardchinnire for six weeks, three of which I did alongside D4RK ONION. In 2009 I arrived on the island with tonsillitis, unable to speak and a full stone lighter than I had been a week before the course. On the bright side, my colleague was one of my best friends from Secondary School. You’d be very lucky to meet a nicer guy. It was also coming up to my 2nd Anniversary with the girl I’d met just after my Leaving Cert. She dumped me a week before the big celebration. The break-up coincided with some other shocking news: my colleague from the second summer course in 2008 had gone on a stabbing spree, killing himself and another young man. I went into a slump that lasted about six months, including a spell when I dropped out of my 5 week Home Teaching Practice module after only 3 weeks. I was very, very lucky to have some fantastic support from a number of different departments in college. I got away with all sorts, getting rules bent for me and everything. A great many people helped me sort myself out, and again, somehow, I passed the first semester. I started moderating C&H at the start of that semester as well, and having that gave me a sense of responsibility that helped me get through everything else.

 
My final semester as an under-grad started just over a year ago. It was mixed, but grand overall. I had some good friends, some really interesting modules and I was starting to get to know people on C&H a bit better. One poster in particular had made a great impression on me during the Christmas holidays. I’ve been going out with her for over 13 months now! :p I gave up soccer and Gaelic Football in 2010 and returned to ju-jitsu after a 5 year gap. I also moved out of home for the first time, giving me a chance to shop and cook for myself. Alas, I stopped writing poetry. Not by any choice, but because I had lost all sense of inspiration for it. I got through the last semester with some great nights out, some last-minute essays and a bit of luck. Once the exams were done, I had to get straight back to work to prepare for my Home TP repeat. That nearly wiped me out again. I only had to do 4 weeks, due to having completed 3 weeks during the first attempt. I think I averaged four hours sleep per night over that month. My supervisor was much, much better than the other woman who’d supervised me a year earlier. It’s a shame I hadn’t met someone like her earlier. She pointed out so many areas where I had room to improve, and it was a great shame I only got that guidance at the end of my time in the course. I just couldn’t improve so many flaws in such a short space of time. I got the minimum grade needed to pass the module, and, therefore, a poor grade on my degree after three years.

 
Looking back, I believe now that I should have dropped out early in First Year. Either that or looked for a transfer over to Arts. The word that best sums up two thirds of my college experience? Torture. To describe the other third takes a few more words. It was all about getting to know the right people. When I was with friends, the bad stuff became tolerable. Without them, there was nothing to hide just how much was wrong with the place.

 
The idea was that I’d milk that year for everything I could. I wanted to do as much as possible to “better myself” that year. I took the option of doing ju-jitsu for P.E. for the year, while most people alternated between swimming and the usual sports/exercises/games. I did the Gaisce Award (Bronze Medal). That gave me a chance to learn to play guitar, train more consistently with the local soccer and GAA teams, volunteer with the local youth club and organise a 20 mile hike with my dad. The school got our whole group to do the Edmund Rice Award as well, and I got 2 weeks voluntary experience in a local home for the elderly. I helped with the school’s application for the Green Flag. 4 weeks of work experience during the year convinced me that I wanted to be a teacher (not that it ever worked out in the medium term :pac: ). I started writing poetry as well, and ended up winning Project of the Year for my end-of-year-project: a collection of 12 original poems. It was just an amazing year on every level. And of course I punctuated the summer with another awesome 3 weeks in Inis Oírr.

 
Around the same time I was introduced to on-line message boards. I got into posting on teenireland.com (which vanished, sadly, about 4 years ago). They organised a few meet-ups and I eventually went along to one in Dublin. I think 8 of us showed up to go bowling, from Limerick, Monaghan and Kildare. I’d started into 5th Year at this stage, and I’d started to feel part of a much larger circle of friends I’d got to know better during TY. People were forgetting the rubbish they’d thought about me from earlier years. My brother and I transferred to a new soccer club and started training with a gang of incredibly talented young players. A broken collar bone from an accident training for GAA at school screwed that up for me just before Christmas time. I ended up going to a New Years Eve party in Kildare dopey on pain-killers with my arm in a sling, while everyone around me got wrecked on vodka. Shortly after that I applied for a youth leadership programme in school, and got picked with 5 other guys to act as group leaders for a special retreat. Our training for that retreat? 8 days in Canada with a group of guys in their final year in Vancouver College. That trip changed my life. I smuggled home a 12-pack of Mountain Dew and a box of Lucky Charms and a load of people called over to my house the day I got back. There was no time for jet-lag! A few of the girls from Kildare were down in Limerick, staying with one of my friends. I ended up kissing one of them that day, not realising I’d end up going out with her for over a year! One month later she came down to Limerick again to watch as Wembley Rovers won the National Under 17s Cup, with my brother setting up the winning goal. And then, for the last time as a student, I went to Irish college in Inis Oírr.

 
Got mediocre results for my 5th Year summer exams, but still started 6th year on a high. I was still writing poems, and there were still parts of school I hated. The rugby clique, the snobby attitude of the lads on the hurling squad, the blatant favouritism shown by the principal and certain teachers. Orwell’s quote from Animal Farm summed it up pretty nicely: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” I put my name forward for the Student Council election and got voted in by the same shower of pricks who had bullied my three/four/five years earlier. 3 of us were voted in to represent 6th Year, and they picked me to be Student Council President. Our biggest issue? The principal removed our access to toilet facilities because a certain group used to smoke in the cubicles. We were told very early in the year that we would not, under any circumstances be having a debs. Four friends of mine formed a committee and organised one independently! I got a lot of credit for that event, but I really had nothing to do with it. I was convinced to sign up to Boards.ie at that time as well. We ran our very first 6th Year Retreat, which was an incredible success. They’re still running that retreat two or three times a year now, following in the formula we established after coming back from Vancouver. I got a poem published in a local poetry journal, and was working hard to convince my English teacher that I was above his estimation of “might get a B in the Leaving Cert, if he keeps working at it”. We weren’t allowed to establish a school GAA team that year either, which also pissed me off, but over-all it was another good year. Broke up with the girlfriend just before the Leaving Cert and did very little for the summer.

 
I pulled a very decent points tally in the LC, but I know I could have done much better. That said, I wasn’t chasing a high points course, so I had no real motivation to break above the 500-point mark anyway. I finished secondary school with a group of about 15 guys I knew I could call friends. I could trust those lads with anything, and I know I still can with most of them. I was on first name terms with another 100 guys who still salute me and come over to talk whenever we bump into each other in Limerick. I got the college course I wanted at the time, but, despite the incredible high I’d been on for three years at that stage, I was feeling pretty low within a few weeks of starting it.

In one of my dreams on Tuesday night I was cycling home from training, but it was along an old road out towards Clare, intending to go towards the seaside (which would be about 4 hours away by bike…)

I stopped a short distance along the way and watched in slow motion as a girl driving from my right chatted on her phone, turning to pet her dog in the back seat. As she was facing the wrong way, the road iced over and her car glided across into the wrong lane and crashed into another car, driven by an older driver who had stopped in the vain hope of avoiding the collision. The younger driver got out, all smiles and silliness, putting on cheery faces to make it seem like the crash was nothing.

That’s when things got really weird. I was the only other witness besides the two drivers. I called 999 and then lost the plot. Started giving out to the girl who was at fault, for her using the phone, for facing the wrong way, for petting her dog while driving, for taking the piss after crashing. The next twist is that the two drivers, instead of being mad at each other, both turned on me. Pushing, scratching with nails, that kind of thing. At that point I reach into my gear-bag and pull out a small baton. I don’t have one of those things in real life, but in the dream I knew it’d be there. I start swinging the baton and spinning around like Bruce Lee, aiming for joints, their wrists and elbows and knees. This gives me time to get back on my bike, and I cycle off to hide.

I end up getting to the sea-side village after a couple of minutes of panicked cycling, and skulking around the side-streets to avoid the police, who of course by now must all be after me. I know I’ve hurt both people more than the crash did (but nothing life-threatening) and that I need to hide.

My alarm clock woke me up after that, but I hit “snooze” and went back to sleep for another hour.
The dream had changed, but I still felt like I was a being followed. I was in a world where people could have super-powers, but I was a freak because mine kept changing. At different moments I could feel like Batman (Dark Knight-style), Wolverine or Spiderman. I ended up spending most of the dream as Spiderman after falling from a great height and panicking until I could shoot webs up at the high buildings around me. I found myself above rooftops, sometimes looking through enormous office-building windows, at other times clinging to gargoyles to stop myself from falling, at other times again sitting in the shadows behind Edwardian-style balconies and roof-designs with my knees hugged to my chest. I think there was a lot more to that part of the dream, but unfortunately I can’t remember any of it.

Make of this what you will.