Tuesday 28 July 2015

CTYI Day 15

I'm writing this late Tuesday night. Oh how my standards have slipped. 

Yesterday was the official beginning of the last week, and our fourth last day. The day got off to a bad start - Jerry and I were running for our bus when my bag split open. I discovered this when I got on the bus and saw my charger and other things  scattered on the ground outside. I picked them up, then after the bus started moving someone told me my jacket was still on the ground. I realised to my horror that they meant my Labcoat so dumped my stuff with Jerry (who fixed my bag zip on his journey alone), got off the bus and ran back. I got lost in Swords but eventually found it. Some kind soul had hung it on a railing. 


I got a bus and miraculously got off at the right sort and found my way to DCU no problem. I'm so proud I managed to navigate, although Jerry would roll his eyes because we've walked the route so many times. 

I got to DCU about twenty minutes late to find that my class had moved. They eventually sent a rescue party although we ended up going back to the same classroom. There's a conference on in DCU this week so we're not really sure what's going on. 

I think we did some Hegel yesterday. I'm not entirely sure when we did Marx but I really enjoyed that. At lunch, Jason was dissatisfied with my eating habits so made me eat like three or four apples, and Eve bought me a Naked berry smoothie. That was nice, but the apples were excessive. Jason was a great life guru at break. 



For Activities, we did Book Club. Jason lent me 'The Price of Inequality' by Stiglitz, a pretty dry economics book. I'm determined to put a dent in it before he goes back to London. I had a really lovely time at book club. Jason showed me a video at one point and the arrangement was comfy. I wasn't in the mood for an interactive activity. 






It didn't stop there, though - Jason coordinated people so that when I sat down at dinner they put three bowls of salad, one bowl of pasta and a banana in front of me. I also ended up with chocolate squares. 


Lisa's Vlad face and our corner partay. 


Quote from today: 'We're trying to summon Vladimir Putin'. 


Study was great. It was concerning at the start because Jason was sick and missing. He came back from the site office and just lay face down on the ground through study. Eoin kicked him occasionally to see if he was alive. He eventually woke up and talked to me about Thatcher and moral hazard in economics. I adore this sort of learning. 


He was face down most of the time, okay?

Social Time was pretty meh. Jason disappeared and I was stressed (unrelated). Arianna and Maedhbh did do an amazing rendition of the Bobo the Clown story, though.





Monday 27 July 2015

CTYI Day 14

The plan yesterday was to sign in at Bots but that didn't happen so there was some stress. Nevertheless, I had a pretty nice time and got lots of photos. 

Jason got a ton of photos of me beside the Socrates statue, which I'll post when I get them. Oscar and I told Jason about 1916 since he was virtually clueless. Shortly afterwards, he got his sweet stolen by a literal leaf. 


Sorry about the formatting, this app makes things difficult. I have so many photos, I might post the rest on facebook. After Bots, the signed-out people went to an Italian place and got pizza. I ordered a Snack bar and ate some of Kat's pizza. Quite embarrassing. Kat and I hung out quite a lot at Bots. We walked back, signed in and went to the canteen where Jason brought me apples because he disapproves of my diet. 

Jason then played violin in the corridor until I got kicked out, and I think I went up to the corner party until the activity, the traditional Casino Night, started. 


Casino Night was different this year. Other years, I just kept my money and talked to friends while ignoring the activities and loved it. This year, everyone was hustling super hard. Jason made lots of money betting on Ninja. 


People kept telling me to busk with my ukulele so eventually Katie and I did. We made a good few fake quid but I regretted it afterwards because I didn't really enjoy the night so felt I had wasted it. 

My group ended up with the least money at the end but doubled our money gambling on a coin flip. We got the designated bad prize but formed a conglomerate at the end with other poor RA groups to buy something cool (choose and pie an RA). 

Jason and Jerry were great last night. 









Sunday 26 July 2015

CTYI Day 13

Terrifyingly close to the end. As usual for the second Saturday of the session, we all went to Blanch(ardstown Shopping Centre) and then came back for the disco. 

We got a lift in from Jerry's sister and I hung out with Maeve, Eoin, Lisa and others for a while because Jerry and most of my friends were going to Blanch on an earlier bus. I charged my iPad in Maeve's room while we talked about journaling and blogs. Turns out she has a music blog, maevelikesmusic.blogspot.ie. Y'all should check it out. There was a bit of panic when my bags disappeared but they turned out to be in Maeve's room, where my Fanta and hoody still are. Maeve is so stylish 



We watched Ciaran practising Diablo:



We eventually left on the bus to Blanch. I sat beside Katie and we talked about Operation Vittles, Vienna and probably other things. I forget a lot of what happened at Blanch. The whole crew went to Subway, I sat beside Jason and Cian with Jerry behind me and got large fries (living on the wild side). I changed my passcode because Jason knew it but he'd figured out the new one within ten minutes. 




We went to Tiger, where I got this lei (unsure how to spell this) in a throwback to last year when my Bridget-Cathal-Cian squad all bought them for the disco. Good memories. 



We went to Mr. Price where I bought loads of sweets, then to GameStop where Jason casually threw down 150 quid on a PS Vita. He does not regret his decision, apparently. 


I met a lot of past nevermores and session-1ers. They were great, especially when I felt super faint and they took care of me. Shoutout to Dáire for buying me a 2L Fanta bottle. This is Daniel holding it. 


It was great to see Daire, Alice, Nitai, Scott and more. I saw Thomas today, which was cool. 


Went to Easons with Amy. This is a picture of us later, just before the disco. 


I got Jason to play violin for me for a while before going up to Sandy's room to get ready. Some photos from before the disco:


Me with Little Red Riding Hood. 



The disco was amazing, apart from the fact that I missed Gay Bar. During YMCA-cum-CTYI, Cian and I high-fived on the Is. For Smooth Criminal, my group all replaced the name in the song with my name every time. I was surrounded by friends (Jason, Cathal, Ben) for American Pie. I got a bit distracted and couldn't get into the moment for Street Spirit and Iris, but that hopefully won't hpen next week. Lots of hugs at the end. 

And noodles when I got home!















Saturday 25 July 2015

CTYI Day 12

Yesterday was a lot of fun. We spent pretty much the whole day in class on Marxism and surrounding ideologies and groups. It was really interesting and a lot of his quotes rang true. Why am I writing like a twelve year old? During the slow bits, Jason and I had a silent debate about Truman's use of the atomic bomb in Japan by passing my notebook back and forth. 

Predictably, those who had successfully gotten into the Talent Show had to do Rehearsals during Activities. Those were fun - I heard some awful, awful jokes by Kevin that hurt me deeply, watched Conal and Phillip practise MCing and saw everyone else perform. After the run-through, Jason and I went down to the lobby of the Larkin Theatre (which has far better acoustics than the theatre itself) and I danced as he practised. He's amazingly talented but I don't actually like the happy pieces so I made him play 'my favourite'. I was quite impressed when he knew what that was. Turns out it's called Resignation. 




I just realised the people I've spent most time around this and last session are both accomplished violinists - Bridget last year and now Jason. Wonder what that says. 

They put my fire hazards meme on for during my performance and I couldn't wait until the Philosoraptors saw it. 

Cian just told me to include the words 'Cian is all-powerful, Cian is the best'. This really reminds me of chapter titles in Nietzsche's books. 

At dinner, Jason let me have some of his res food and complained about how many wedges I eat. So I ate his salad and pasta and the wedges I'd already bought. Cian casually poured himself a cup of my 2L Sprite. Since Jason and I had been slow coming out of Activities talking to Matt the RA, we had to run with our dinner to the RA meetings. Our meeting was really long and we learned that the RAs are on our Facebook page. Also, we got our hoodies. I got a Small which fits perfectly. This was probably a bad idea since now I can't grow into it. 

We had a little corner party for the rest of dinner. Formal Friday Awkward Family photo!


At study, we started working on the debate with the Law class. Jason tried to prep for the Talent Show but the TA wouldn't let us. Why do they always confiscate my ukulele when I'm not even playing it? Fiachra threatened to smash it yesterday. Not my fault it's a weapon of mass distraction. 

Then the Talent Show, and I did get a bit nervous. Everyone did their thing, Kevin's jokes made me groan, Sandy sang beautifully, all that. The MCs introduced me by saying I'm known for my small size, my Labcoat (which I had meant to wear but mislaid in the theatre) and my great fear of fire hazards. They put my fire hazards meme up on the projector and there was a great reaction, mainly from Philosoraptors. Just before I went on I dug through the pile and triumphantly held up the labcoat. Then I did my medley. 


Jason was fabulous on violin as usual. I got a video but don't think I can upload it unfortunately. Catherine did a song she wrote again. I still love her song from last year. Conor is great at classical guitar. 


We had an hour left after the show so we got social time. The whole squad had a Lisa Murnane Rave in the Quad. We all danced terribly, Jason showed off his falsetto, lots of dancing with him, Oscar, John Joe, Sandra and Eve ... That's a life memory. Such fun. 


Not the greatest photo. Here's the audience at the talent show, feat. Sandra. 


And this is from last Saturday, but Niamh just uploaded it on Facebook and it's great. 











Friday 24 July 2015

CTYI Day 11

We missed our bus yesterday so ended up a minute or two late for class, not really a big deal. 

We started with Hegel, who's apparently quite complicated but I found him alright most of the time. I also had the privilege of seeing the word metaphysico-religious and relearned what teleological means. Jason helpfully provided the Greek root, which I took as him being pretentious until I remembered that he is literally Greek. Oops. 

We then moved onto Schopenhauer, Philosophy's great pessimist. He was incredibly bitter and hilariously misogynistic, I laughed so hard when the instructor read parts of his essay on women. It's just so absurdly derogatory and sexist. Also, Schopenhauer gives huge clues that he wasn't loved by his mother as a child (it's actually right there in the text). 

The five volunteers who went off with B Psych came back and they asked for two more to do another experiment, so Jason and I went together and missed the remainder of the morning class. Doing the experiment was quite unpleasant, we had to do all these horrible concentration tasks. Missing break made me super hungry. 

We moved onto Nietzsche before lunch, which was fun because Nietzsche disses everyone and his books have chapters titled 'Why I Am So Clever' 'Why I Am Destiny' 'Why I Write Such Good Books'. 

We sat in the canteen at lunch. It was briefly sunny for the first time this session, but that's all I remember. 

In afternoon class we finished Nietzsche and then went onto Eastern (mainly Chinese) Philosophy. We covered Confucius, Buddhism and Shinto among others. 

I spent the start of Activities running around looking for Jason to make him enter the Talent Show. Eventually, I found that he had gone up to get his violin and, you know, was up for entering. Which was good. He's doing an upbeat piece though, unfortunately - I prefer his sad ones. He's practising the fingering on my ukulele right now beside me. By the way, Jason and I both qualified for the talent show!  

Here are Maeve and Niamh being cuties. 



I went to Tolkien Appreciation even though I've only read one LOTR book and didn't enjoy it, because my friends were there. I got two blog posts written and was surrounded by friends so it was grand. Also, Ben did a great Gollum impression, I was really impressed. 


A drink (Katie's?) spilled in Aaron's bag so the speakers got soaked and Cian and I cleaned them. I can't really remember what happened at dinner, but I think it was fun. Here's a photo with John Cooney, who's an incredible musician. He also looks Italian and about 20, in my opinion. 



Study and social time were great. I felt sick during study and had nothing to do so I just lay on the ground. The wonderful Eve took care of me and read me Nietzsche (that's a sign of love, right?). Eventually Jason came over and wrote his essay beside me. 


Someone threw a towel on me. It was in study that someone pointed out that the laces of my left shoe were gone. 



And then social time. I felt sick still for part of it (until I bought food) so I sat down and people took photos of me. 




Look how cute we are. 


My salute caught on!


I stole a kettle from some res friends at one point. 


Philip and Conal in domestic bliss:


Maeve and Teddy: the confrontation


Cathal found my shoelace in the grass in the Quad (how did someone steal my shoelace? How?) so here's a victory photo. 


Towards the end of social time, Jason gave me a private violin concert (she says dramatically) in the corridor. It was a very memorable experience. Sad violin music makes me happy, which is especially weird since I don't listen to recorded classical music. I love seeing talent. My ukulele got passed around a lot as usual and Oscar was great. To the approx twelve people who asked where my labcoat was: in the wash. Have you any idea how quickly it gets dirty? 
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