2016 Review

Hi guys! 2016 has been a pretty weird year  -- it feels like the Leaving Cert stole 8 months of it from me. I'd say March, September and October were the best months. Look out for some brief thoughts on the year at the end!

January

January featured spending the Christmas holidays in school helping the Young Scientists and attending the BTYSTE, studying really hard (I actually studied more for the Mocks than I did leading up to the Leaving; it meant that slots for the information already existed in my brain by the time I started revising hard again in April. Highly recommended.), and some cool time with friends at reunions and such. I also spent a lot of time in January creating my website to help Irish people of all ages and interests find opportunities, Tigertunity. 

Here's my face for much of January but also for most of January-May (bored studying long hours every day. Yes, that is raw spaghetti I'm holding).

February

Honestly haven't the foggiest what happened in February, and I didn't write a February review for some reason. I do know I had the Mocks, which were exhausting. I got 540 points in them though, which was reassuring because it was 25 points over what I needed and people usually go up from the Mocks. I also did a lot of work on that month's project, which was studying experimental design. That was fun.

March

Finally, some excitement!

March was pretty cool. I went with Chloe and Gabi to speak at the World Youth Organisation's International Women's Day Summit in London, then to Birmingham for a meeting of the Youth Panel of the British Science Association. I also attended a Particle Physics Masterclass in UCD. I did my Irish and French mock orals and studied LOTS, and did some cool freelance writing work. I also worked on my Scifest project, and had some fun with my whiteboard. I spent a lot of time with Ben, Alice, Chloe and Gabi.

Exploring London after the #WYOWomen #IWD2016 Summit! pic.twitter.com/dRRsGqu29L

— Elle Loughran (@frizzyroselle) March 9, 2016

When you claim the kitchen table as your desk pic.twitter.com/V5yRPyrfWd

— Elle Loughran (@frizzyroselle) March 3, 2016

April

April was an unexciting month, again full of studying. I felt I did pretty well in my French and Irish orals (overall, ended up with an A1 in French and an A2 in Irish). I spent the month doing a ton of labwork for my UVC/bacteria/antibiotic resistance project. I also found out that I'd won National Runner-Up in the Drugs.ie writing awards for my age category, but since I won it the year before...

May

May was essentially two things: studying for the Leaving Cert (and being stressed about it and then less stressed when I started powering through exam papers), and Scifest. Scifest was at the start of the month, and I won the highest prize I was eligible for being in 6th year, which I think was the best senior biological project prize. Study study study. 

June

Yet again with the Leaving Cert stealing my year! Obviously the Leaving Cert, which went well, dominated my month. After that, highlights included hanging out with Ben, speaking at and attending Inspirefest, and working on stuff in an international collaboration of talent centres for high-ability students as chosen representative of my national talent centre, the Centre For Talented Youth Ireland. The lowlight was the massive burnout I experienced days before the Leaving Cert started, which took months to start to lift.

Amazing panel! Coding is creativity and Outbox is amazing. #Inspirefest #OutboxFam @AccentureIrlJob @InspirefestHQ pic.twitter.com/dfG2OUTEbC

— Christine Costello (@c0slo) July 1, 2016

July

July held the end of Inspirefest and a lot of resting and recuperating from the Leaving Cert. That said, I did get to see a lot of friends, including reuniting with some Outbox pals and an English CTYI friend, plus I crashed CTYI, attended my Debs and was voted Most Likely to Become a Billionaire, redesigned the blog, read several books, did a bunch of freelance writing, got into the final round of consideration for a TEDx talk and partied quite a bit.

August

Things are more exciting from here on out, I promise.

In August, I got my Leaving Cert results (600 points), celebrated my 18th birthday, celebrated Gabi's birthday, went to an Ireland 20 under 20 meetup at Dogpatch labs, was offered and accepted a place in Trinity, did lots of prep to speak at TEDxDrogheda, Zeminar and TY Expo over the next few months, hung out with friends plenty, went to CTYI reunions and figured out my goals for the next year. 

September

Good month! Spoke at TEDxDrogheda and TY Expo. Taught 80 kids about antibiotic resistance and what they can do about it. Won a Naughton scholarship and went to that awards ceremony. Started college. Moved out. Was elected to the Physoc committee. (Lowlight was my planned accommodation falling through at the last second; highlight is hard to choose.)

October

Also a good month! Flew to Manchester for Think Digital Manchester thanks to the Emerging Talent Fund. Flew to Budapest for a meeting of the European Talent Support Network representing CTYI. Spoke at Zeminar. Attended an event with Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. Went to CoderGirl Hack Day briefly. Went to a TEDx preview party. Hung out with my wonderful new college friends.

 November

Obviously, the world, and by world I mean US election, went to shit. Apart from that -- academically, college went pretty well. I had a fun time with my friends. I went to Pink Training in Cork for a weekend. Got promoted on my main freelance writing platform. Was awarded my Trinity Entrance Exhibition scholarship. Got some exciting news that is currently under wraps. Went to the MathPhys ball. Wrote for Trinity News. Tried sports and got a genuine diagnosed concussion (not the most co-ordinated).


December

Academic stuff improved further so I now have straight 100s in my last 7ish college assessments. Friends continue to be great. Went to Dunsink Observatory with Physoc and hung out on a friend's boat. Worked with squad on Syndicalab (soon to be renamed) survey, which is now out in the field. Was reelected to the Council of the Youth Platform of the European Talent Support Network. Went back to the family for Christmas.

Thoughts

2016 has been, in the words of many, the Year from Hell in terms of world politics. It was a bad year to get engaged in politics, as we were delivered disappointment after crushing disappointment, from the small-scale (Aodhán Ó Riordáin not being re-elected to the Dáil) to the global (Brexit and the US Election). 

Personally, though, it's been a pretty different story. Professionally, this year has been pretty good, with lots of new experiences, including 8+ conferences, work-related trips to Birmingham, London, Manchester and Budapest, the start of my antibiotic resistance project, freelance writing progress, developing a love of public speaking, good results in various competitions and more. Personally, it's been pretty rocky with family stuff and battling perfectionism and anxiety but I've definitely grown up and I've loved moving out and becoming financially independent. Academically, it's been good, with 600 points in the Leaving Cert, receiving a Naughton Scholarship and Trinity Entrance Scholarship and getting (almost exlusively) firsts in college. Socially, there's been a lot of change with the transition to college, but I have wonderful, wonderful friends in my life and I really appreciate what they've brought to my year. 

I suppose, more than anything, this feels like a year of getting things started. I think I've laid good groundwork this year -- I'm going to take the last few days of 2016 to (a) figure my head and plans and priorities out for the year ahead (b) have some fun.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Review: November 2016

Hey guys. 

This month has mostly just been normal college stuff, which is fun but not particularly interesting for other people. So I'll keep it short.

COLLEGE:  College has been going well - I've finally gotten used to the level of challenge and am enjoying it and doing decently. Stats has clicked at last, I'm loving matrices and, weirdly, Chemistry (Thermodynamics) is now the hard one. It was weird adjusting to a place where I'm not "the science one" or "the academic one" because that's almost everyone, but now it's kinda cool because we help each other work through things and then chill together.

EXTRACURRICULARS: I tried sports (trampolining) and literally gave myself a concussion so I can't go back to that for 4 weeks. Oops. Physoc Committee stuff has been going pretty well, with a post-Halloween party at the start of the month and regular Brain Foods and prepping for the observatory trip we held at the start of December.

FRIENDS: A+ best squad ever don't argue with me on this. Probably the best part of college. Spent a lot of time together this month, and long may that continue.

PROJECTS: The squad (I know, that word is so 2k13) have joined me on Syndicalab and we brought it for a first meeting with Launchpad this month. We're now working on market research and then Lean Canvas stuff. Also, my TEDx went up on the TEDxTalks Youtube channel. Hoping to do more antibiotic resistance stuff in December. Attended an interesting Leadership & Campaigning workshop held by TCDSU (here's my article on it in Trinity News).

PINK TRAINING: I spent the weekend of 25-27 November down in UCC learning about gay stuff (queer history, activism, different identities, gender politics) . Was pretty cool, and I liked getting to know a cross-section of Trinity (my article on this with Rory Codd in Trinity News).

WRITING: I got promoted to a Level 2 seller on Fiverr, meaning I did a lot more work than I remember doing. Also, cool/exciting but secret upcoming stuff.

SCHOLARSHIP: I had my Trinity Entrance Exhibition ceremony for getting over 585 points, but then so did half the college so y'know. 

WORLD: [screaming] I went to the Hist Lockin with Will on Election Night in a good though nervous mood. Ended up crying. Very glad Will was there, for both moral and physical support. I'm still sickened by the US Election result, and can't help noticing all the recounts and efforts to persuade electors even though I know that realistically Hillary is not going to become President. 

Overall:

Not a great month for major things, but day-to-day life was pretty cool thanks to my friends and getting used to college.

GlassesShop.com Review

Hey guys! 

A few months ago, someone from GlassesShop.com reached out to me and asked if I was interested in receiving a pair of glasses from their site in return for a review. I said sure, I'd love some glasses, I'll give you an honest review. So now that we're all on the same page, let's go.

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Here is a photo of my friend's plant wearing the glasses, to demonstrate that these glasses don't discriminate based on taxonomic kingdom.

THE SITE

I found the site easy to use, with a wide range of glasses (prescription glasses, sunglasses and glasses frames) and lots of filters for simple sorting. One thing I really liked was that the site let you virtually try the glasses you were looking at on a variety of models - so you could find the one that looked most like you to see what the glasses would look like on your face. 

THE GLASSES

I won't say too much about the glasses because I was able to pick out a pair that I wanted, so obviously it depends on what you like. But I've been wearing these glasses around all day for the last few weeks and they seem to be high-quality. The large frames took some getting used to, and they're quite heavy, but they seem well-made.

DELIVERY

Delivery is where glassesshop.com is not great. My glasses took weeks and weeks to deliver from China, to the point where I wasn't sure they were coming at all (although, in their defence, they do offer tracking). That said, the glasses did arrive all wrapped up safely in a cute box with a lens cleaner. I had been doubtful about them - I had no idea what level the quality would be, having just ordered them off the internet - but they're actually very good!

PRICE & DEALS

Glassesshop.com have lots of deals going on all the time, but one interesting one is 50% off a pair of glasses for readers of this blog with the code GSHOT50! You can also get your first pair free (excluding shipping) with the code FIRSTFREE, and besides they're all pretty inexpensive anyway.

OVERALL

I had a good experience with these guys. Browsed the site, sent them my prescription, pupillary distance and address, and got high-quality glasses with lots of choice. So if you want good glasses for a reasonable price and can afford to wait around 6 weeks, I recommend GlassesShop.com.

Review: The Call by Peadar Ó Guilin

I LOVED THIS BOOK.



This is not going to be a detached, professional review, because I'm too excited about this book for that. It was amazing, and really exceeded my expectations. I was in a hurry looking for a book to read on the bus from Dublin to Cork and a friend of a friend pointed this one out so I bought it, and I sure am glad I did because despite the fact that it's a YA dystopia and that market has been saturated for years, it was fabulous.

The blurb it comes with really doesn't do it justice, so here's my description of it:

Thousands of years ago, the Irish pushed the fairy race Sídhe out of their Many-Coloured Land and banished them to the Grey Land. Now, the Sídhe are back for revenge, determined to wipe out Ireland. 25 years ago, they cut the country off from the rest of the world by crashing planes out of the sky and destroying ships and communications; now every Irish teenager gets a Call at some point in their adolescence, spiriting them to the Grey Land where they have to outlast a day running from the Sídhe who are very powerful and want to torture, twist up and murder them and contort them into strange pitiful shapes. School has been replaced by training, where everyone practises becoming as fit and strong as possible and studies the Sídhe to have the best chance of surviving and continuing their race. Still, in twenty-five years the survival rate has increased only from 1% to 10%.

Into this world comes Nessa, cursed by polio with twisted, useless legs she can hardly walk on, never mind run. When she is sent to the school aged 10, everyone knows she's a goner - but Nessa is determined not to be. With no medicine or means to fix her legs, she builds up arm strength and uses her intelligence to come up with ingenious ways to overcome her disability and diligently studies the Sídhe. But in a world where 90% of even trained teenagers will die, will it be enough?

Rating: 

Characters:

The character creation and development in this book is brilliant. I adore Nessa, and I haven't been as emotionally invested in a character in a long time. I love strong characters who never give up despite the difficulties they face, who are smart and brave and hardworking and proactive, and Nessa meets all those criteria in spades. I really liked her on a personal level too - we both rely on our brains. 

The secondary characters are also well-developed, and we get a very interesting insight into everyone when they're at their most vulnerable, in life-or-death situations with the Sídhe. Conor, a power-hungry egomaniacal fellow student, has a cool (and suspenseful) arc, I liked the subtlety of Nessa and Anto's fledgling forbidden romance because it never came near overpowering the plot since both were very aware of the stakes, and Megan and Nessa's friendship was nice. I liked the different alliances and enmities among the children -- it's an interesting exploration of what happens when you put a bunch of children with likely PTSD from seeing their siblings mangled by the Sídhe into an environment where they are constantly thinking about the Sídhe, speaking in Sídhe and competing to be in the surviving 10%. 

Stakes & Suspense

The overall stakes are exquisitely clear in this book - the Irish are a dying race, and the fate of the entire country rests on the shoulders of these teenagers who must survive a day with the murderous Sídhe. Towards the end of the book it gets very interesting, as some surprising stakes are uncovered and certain actions turn out to have unexpected but foreshadowed and resonant consequences that only serve to make the book more gripping. The Call is difficult to put down, especially near the end. 

Writing Style

I didn't really notice much about the writing style, to be honest, because I was so immersed in the story. Which means this is an actual good story instead of some annoying pontificating literary fiction. At the start of the book, the writing annoyed me because it was very on the nose, but once I got swept up I stopped noticing the writing. All I can say is that it's effective and occasionally memorable. It's sharp, direct and does the job, so for that I say it's well-written. It's perfect for this story because it avoids bogging down the action and doesn't slow down the thrill. 


Representation

There's a two-girl couple, which isn't made a big deal of, which is nice.  I have no idea what the characters look like (probably because I have aphantasia), except that Nessa is described as beautiful from the waist up, so I can't say much else on that. 


Ending (No Spoilers!)

I mostly liked the ending, and it was one of those nailbiters where I looked at the number of pages and wondered how the plot could possibly get wrapped up in that few pages. I can't say much because of spoilers, but the book is left open enough for a sequel. That said, most of the threads are wrapped up. I took off half a star for leaving it open for a series and I'm sick of YA doing that. 

YA landscape

Sorry to compare something to The Hunger Games, but this is like that except more horror, a school dynamic and more fleshed-out characters. Similar in other ways.

Aphantasiac Review

I have aphantasia, which means I can't visualise at all except sometimes when I'm asleep. I can't remember images or generate them, and when I'm reading a book, even if it's very visually descriptive, I see nothing. 

Here's a link about aphantasia, and here's a relevant excerpt from it:

"I scour fiction like an archaeologist: Find the bones.

The slender, olive-skinned man brushed the golden locks out of his hazel eyes. He was so focused on preparing for the assassination that he burned his tongue on the scalding cuppa joe (hazelnut, light cream).

That becomes: There’s an assassin.

I hurdle over paragraphs and pages, mowing down novels in one night because—while others make love to the olive-skinned assassin—I’m just fucking his skeleton. Some books are so fleshy they’re opaque: Lord of the Rings numbs. But Lord of the Flies gnaws, because I could meditate on the idea of society-gone-wild forever. Animal Farm is awesome. 1984. The splendor of Hogwarts is lost, but the idea of a dementor is brain fuel. And 2 + 2 = 5."

So basically, books that are heavy on visual imagery are very boring to me because i can't remember or benefit from any of it (or have to do work in remembering the specific words) but I love books that are thought-provoking and suspenseful and have interesting issues I can mull over. I've heard that about 2% of people have aphantasia, so writers, remember that world-building is not just about the visuals of the world. I do not care at all about the landscape, but give me some fascinating world systems and I'll love you.

Anyway, I'll be doing a whole post or two about aphantasia soon, so back to The Call. The Call is very gory, and I'm kinda glad I couldn't actually visualise any of the ripped up faces, but I still got to enjoy the suspense and workings of the world and figuring out the plots and issues I could think about like who was to blame, the Irish or the Sídhe, and the group dynamics of the teenagers. 



Overall

I highly recommend this book to anyone who ever enjoyed YA dystopia, and also to fans of YA and Irish folklore, and fantasy.

The book has a pretty grim subject, but I think the amazing characters, gripping plot and high concept definitely make it worth reading. One of the most enjoyable books I've read this year. 

Recent Reads

Hey dudes! Life's been pretty crazy lately but I did have time at the end of October to go book shopping. So here's the rundown on three books I read over the last month. Enjoy!

Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity - Steve Silberman

Neurotribes is a masterful tome that traces the history of our understanding of autism from "childhood psychosis" to changeling children to refrigerator mothers to neurodiversity, through the horrifying extermination of disabled people during the Holocaust and the eugenics movement and the growth of nerd culture's creation of Aspie communities.

Neurotribes was a fascinating read on a topic that's very important to me, as someone who definitely aligns with the "little professors" archetype. I particularly enjoyed the parts about Asperger's syndrome and its first case studies. If I had any criticism, it would be that it can get bogged down in certain topics, like ham radios. It was very unpleasant to read at points through no fault of its own, like when discussing how 5,000 autistic children ("life unworthy of life") were murdered by institutions in Nazi Germany or the extreme behavioural therapists who essentially tortured autistic children in an attempt to make them seem normal (neurotypical), but it was definitely an illuminating, comprehensive and important read. Highly recommended.

Everything, Everything - Nicola Yoon

Everything, Everything is a YA love story, which normally would not be my thing, but I was intrigued by the premise of the protagonist having SCID (Severe Combined Immunodeficiency) which meant she would die if she went outside, and the love interest's efforts to reach her. Unfortunately, while I did enjoy the road, it did turn out to be just that, a love story, and so it didn't really stick in my mind afterwards like it would have if it had more scientific/medical content. That said, the twist at the end is pretty great. Recommended if you enjoy romance and YA and don't need lots of action and high-concept to keep you engaged.

Asking For It - Louise O' Neill

I was so hyped for this book after being floored by Louise's debut, Only Ever Yours, and hearing rave reviews and awards for Asking For It (e.g. winner of the Irish Book Awards) coming in from all sides. I couldn't get away from it - for months I've been seeing it on trains, had it recommended by people who usually don't read, seen it at awards shows, on Twitter, everywhere. I was told it was genius and a wake-up call to rape culture. And I really wanted to love it, because I loved Only Ever Yours so much.

But unfortunately, I was very disappointed. In a nutshell, the storyline is that the character is queen bee in a small village called Ballinatoom, then gets gangraped at one of the many parties she attends after drinking and taking drugs. Dozens of photos are taken and uploaded to Facebook on a public page for all to see, and her life is ruined.

The central question of the book is meant to be was she asking for it? and we're supposed to come out realising that no matter how someone acted it is never their fault for being a victim of rape. The issue is that Emma is a prick the least sympathetic character I've ever seen, completely unrelatable to me in every way. Not only am I not the type to drink and do drugs etc at parties (which on its own would've been manageable in a protagonist), she's a horrible person, an obvious bully who exploits the fact that she's beautiful to make others feel bad. She has no plans for her life beyond being a trophy wife, and after the rape she compounds problems for herself by lying to police and is just generally a weak character. There's only so far sympathy can go when someone is that unlikable. 

Look, I get that she was intentionally made unlikable and a bad victim so we would be tested in our support for her and taught some big lesson about supporting rape victims in all cases, but I just didn't appreciate being preached at. I don't have to empathise with a character if they're an awful person. 

So yeah. It's an issue book, with completely unlikable characters (except neighbour boy, whom the protag ignores). You might be able to get past the characters, but I wasn't. Which is a pity, because I really wanted to like this book. So if Louise writes future sci-fi/dystopian books, I'll definitely take a look. But something like this, maybe not. 

I feel like I could've gotten the same value from the book by reading a pamphlet saying "Sex with someone unconscious is rape, and rape is difficult to prove in court even with loads of evidence". And I've already read those.

On the bright side, she did manage authentic teenage slang? So there's that.

Review: October 2016

October's been a busy month, to say the least! Great fun though. I'm only going to put down the days when particularly big things happened, but pretty much every day has been super busy with long hours in college/meetings/fun so bear that in mind. Let's go.

3. Attended an event on the future of learning with global Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Thanks to DCU President Brian MacCraith for inviting the Naughton scholars!

10. Flew to Manchester. Met an internet friend IRL for the first time and attended a workshop run by Thinking Digital Conference Manchester on paid social media marketing.

11. Attended Thinking Digital Conference Manchester, which was amazing. Flew back to Dublin. You can read my blog post on that here. Also, I ordered a tablet from Ebay because I was sick of not being able to take photos when I saw how beautiful Manchester was. Then when the tablet arrived a week later, I discovered that it didn't actually have a back camera...

Photo from Happy Creative

12. After college, I attended a TEDx preview party back in Drogheda the day before our official TEDx talk videos came out. It was great to see everyone and I was so proud of how much everyone's talks improved since the workshop, definitely including mine. Here's mine: 


Elle Loughran from Infocus Media on Vimeo.


13. I spoke at Zeminar. Met lots of cool people, including Rose of Tralee Maria Walsh and Twitter media EMEA leader Mark Little, and got to see the lovely Aoife from Outbox again. Will update this if/when the video comes out.

14. This happened. I love my squad (three of us featured here, the fourth took the picture).

15. Attended Coder Girl Hack Day at Dogpatch Labs. 

20. Watched the third presidential debate at a PolSoc/SOFIA event with Will. 

24. Had an interview in Intel. If only I was any good at interviews!

25. Donated to my friend Edel's crowdfunding campaign to help her get her work closer to market. Was delighted to find out the next day that she reached the fundraising goal! Helped out with Physoc's Brain Food session, just like every Tuesday.

26. Flew to Budapest, explored a bit (Heroes' Square) with the Romanian member of the Youth Platform of the European Talent Support Network.

27. Had 6 hours of meetings and then spent the evening on a guided tour of beautiful Budapest. Just look at this! The photo is taken by a member of our group, Indian delegate Rohan Shetti, and is the view from atop St Stephen's cathedral.

28. 6 more hours of meetings. Gave a presentation along with the four other members of the team. Have some photos sent to us by Csilla.

29. Flew back from Budapest and hung out with Ben. Finished reading Neurotribes by Steve Silberman.

31. Celebrated Halloween with Ben just like last year. Spent a ton of money on books and, not gonna lie, it felt great. Bought and read Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon and bought Asking For It by Louise O' Neill, Oasis by Eilis Barrett and All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. Excited to read the last three! 

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So that's that. Probably looks less busy than it felt at the time, because wow I was swept off my feet trying to do all that and intense college work and Physoc committee and the things that are still in the works at the same time! If you want to compare and contrast, here's the October 2015 review.

Think Digital Conference Manchester

Hey guys! Long time no see (obligatory excuse) but yano, college.

Anyway, last week I went to Manchester to attend Think Digital Conference, sponsored by the Emerging Talent Fund. It was an amazing experience -- definitely one of my favourite conferences ever, and my first time visiting the lovely city of Manchester. Let me share with you the three big things about the trip for me: getting to fly, discovering Manchester and the conference itself. Oh, also I got to meet my English internet friend in person for the first time.

(I didn't have a camera for this trip sadly, and in fact seeing all this gorgeous architecture without being able to capture it led me to buy a tablet from Ebay while lying in my AirBnB bed in Manchester. So most of the photos from this are other people's, and will be credited accordingly.)

TRAVEL

As you may know, I absolutely bloody love travel and independence and adventure. So going abroad is one of my favourite things in the world. I love flying and exploring new cities and staying in AirBnBs/hotels/hostels. So this was a treat.

I got up at 4.30 am and hung out in the airport until my flight at 6.30 am. Interestingly enough, I saw several Professors from my college's nanoscience research standing at my gate (we didn't say hi to each other though). Presumably off to a conference.

It might sound silly, but honestly the liftoffs were definitely one of the highlights of this trip. I love the idea that I'm in a plane, miles off the ground - how amazing is it that humans designed this? I love watching the ground recede, and honestly I think seeing city lights at night from afar is a spiritual experience, or at least as close as I'm ever gonna get to one. 

(Aside from all the philosophizing, I was also pretty tired -- when I was walking through Manchester Airport on the Tuesday night, I saw something in the sky and genuinely wondered whether it was a helicopter or a bird or something before realising duh, it's a plane. You're in an airport.)

My AirBnB was pretty cool too. It was in a quiet residential area that was nevertheless near a shopping centre and 10 mins walk from the tram (Manchester has a brilliant tram system). The one fault was that the houseowner had really loud dogs, but hey, the bed was comfy and it only cost me €32 for the night even though I booked it only seven days before my trip.

Also, I took a taxi, which was nice (although I wasn't able to get it reimbursed because I forgot to get a receipt), and got a TON of trams. The trams are cool, although it was difficult to figure them out at first. 

Several English strangers were nice to me in small but charming ways, like that woman who gave me 2p in a shop to make up the total (I was trying to get rid of my change before leaving the country ... obviously was too effective at that). 

THINK DIGITAL CONFERENCE

This was amazing, and honestly I wish I wrote this blog post last week so I could have clearer memories of it, but here are some of my thoughts on the conference. First of all, the venue was great. I much prefer venues with comfortable, theatrical seating with the audience darkened, so it has a showy kind of feel rather than a meeting.

#ICYMI here is Happy John's #blog on @ThinkingDigital conference for #tdcmcr https://t.co/xBABs9lZ1G #digital #creative pic.twitter.com/P3ZyQ6pmP7

— Happy Creative (@Happy_Creative) October 21, 2016

There were workshops the day before the main event on various topics. I was too late to get the ones about VR and Design Sprints at the BBC unfortunately, but I did go to a workshop on paid social media marketing which was not what I was expecting. I learned quite a lot and the guy and his agency seemed very skilled ... but one of the groups had to design a marketing campaign for Bet365 and they came up with a Facebook thing that would target people about to turn 18 with ads about gambling and then send them a message on their 18th birthday inviting them to use Bet365 with a voucher or something. I found that highly immoral, getting people into gambling as soon as possible.

Now, my thoughts on some of the speakers:

Amber Case - Cybernetic Anthropologist

I'm mainly putting her here for her cool job title. She talked about calm technology and reforming technology so it's less disruptive to our lives while still being powerful. I should go watch her TED talk and you probably should too.

Clara Gaggero Westaway - Cofounder of Special Projects


Clara was amazing. She's a designer of, well, all sorts of things, from Lego office calendars to a phone manual so well-designed it's in the Museum of Modern Art. These presentations are very hard to distill down into a concise description (#youhadtobethere) but oh man, the things she could do with design! Also, she was beautiful and had an awesome accent. 



Ian Forrester, Senior Producer/Firestarter @ BBC

This guy was amazing. He told us about the innovative stuff the BBC is doing, and holy crap. I normally avoid using the innovative word because I'm so sick of it, but I had no idea the BBC even had a significant R&D department and it turns out they're awesome. Also, I just noticed he's uploaded his slides GO WATCH THEM.

Slides + attached video from my talk yesterday at #tdcmcrhttps://t.co/DblmcwaP9k pic.twitter.com/IgzfPHULLi

— Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden) October 12, 2016

They have an app that gives you a detailed survey about your preferences and then shows you a certain movie which has now been edited (soundtrack, lighting, focus on certain characters you're likely to relate to) to suit you. They had so many cool things like that, including VR stuff and a system that lets you edit stuff digitally on paper using a digital pen. So cool.

Sam Aaron, Sonic Pi

Yet more mindblow. Clara, Ian and Sam made up the Shapers session and wow I don't think I've experienced more wonder in one session ever. Sam designed Sonic Pi, which makes programming music easy. He's a live coder and does performances - he did one for us, creating this incredible music with the code up on the screen. It was actually incredible -- impressive and genuinely enjoyable music too. He started out by saying something like "play 95" which would make a note at that pitch, and then he added breaks and samples of other instruments and looped stuff and added drums and oh man. Highly recommended. This is a video from a previous Think Digital conference; the music starts at about 13 minutes in and builds up and up towards the end.

Ed Barton, VR Educator

Ed uses VR to teach things like anatomy and marine biology (like getting up close and personal with a shark). I liked his focus on curiosity (his company is called Curioscope), and he mentioned the theme of my TEDx i.e. the opportunities curiosity brings.

Jennifer Arcuri, Ethical Hacking

The apocalypse isn't going to be one with guns & governments, it will be being hacked through their microwaves.@Jennifer_Arcuri #TDCMCR pic.twitter.com/DDZcNa2jQX

— Harry Sharman (@harrysharman) October 11, 2016

Jennifer had probably the best stage presence I have ever seen (so much energy!). She was also smart as hell. She runs Hacker House, which finds young hackers who are talented but likely to go down the wrong path, and takes them in to teach them how to hack for good. As a cybersecurity firm, they also help people find flaws in their security and teach them how to fix them. Honestly, while the topic was really interesting, what I loved the most was how Jennifer presented it. She was never boring for a second, and most of the time she was both funny and informative. Kudos.

Amy Zima, Product Manager @ Tweetdeck

Twitters very own @amyzima on product management, tweetdeck & work team culture! #simplify #TDCMCR Thanks to @TDCMCR for a captivating day! pic.twitter.com/4TZaSRcCF6

— Danielle Lomas (@ThisIsDaniLomas) October 12, 2016

Amy was pretty awesome. She talked about product design at scale - something I found particularly interesting was how little changes can be a huge deal when you have millions of users. For example, it took them months to change their login system because they had to get so many people used to the new way, and people often don't like change to their favourite websites.

Then there was a guy who talked about coffee and pseudoscience via Skype for a really long time.

And then, last but definitely not least....

James Veitch, Nerdcore Comic

I'd seen James' hilarious TED talk about replying to scammers (the Nigerian prince kind), so I was excited for this. This talk was similar, though it used different examples. It was very funny and James came across really well. Also, I went up to him afterwards and he was really nice, which is a plus. Here's his TED talk.

Think Digital Manchester was an incredible experience. It's definitely not an in-depth industry conference; instead, what it does is give you a brief but enormously compelling insight into a wide range of unexpected tech subfields with deeply refreshing originality. Lots of fun.

JACKSON

Finally got to meet up with my internet friend Jackson, who I started talking to like a year ago. That was cool. We got lost a lot but y'know.

MANCHESTER CITY

Manchester, it turns out, is gorgeous. Also very easy to navigate after a day! The architecture was stunning - unfortunately I have neither a camera nor a knowledge of architecture with which to express it to you, but there was a lot of stone and arches and intricacy and man it was beautiful. I definitely recommend going to Central Library if you're ever in Manchester, even just for the architecture alone. The whole city centre is really nicely designed. 

It was almost annoyingly so, actually - I was trying to find the theater the conference was on in and was looking out for a fancy building... but all of them were fancy. It's a mix between futuristic-looking glass buildings and Victorian(?) stone and, surprisingly, it works.

Here's the library (this photo is from dsphotographic.com)

And here's one of the futuristic ones:

Such a lovely place - I wish I could do it justice! 

In summary: last Monday and Tuesday, I got to go to a galvanising conference, meet an English friend, discover a new and beautiful city and take my favourite forms of transport, planes and trams. Oh, and I got my lab report mostly done on the plane, which was a plus and also a reminder of how weird life can be.

Much love.

Review: September 2016

Hey guys! September has been pretty busy, mostly with talks, my antibiotic resistance project, scholarships and starting college.

1. Did a photoshoot as a speaker for TY Expo. 

2. Was officially announced as a speaker for TEDxDrogheda.

3. Finished the excellent (and heartbreaking) Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee. 

4. It was confirmed that I'd be representing CTYI and Ireland in Budapest in late October for a meeting of the European Council of High Ability. Big thanks to both for sponsoring my trip!

Also, the accommodation I'd had planned for a year fell through at the last second (SCREAM).

5. Looked at a place to rent. Turned out they didn't want first years, the deposit was €600 (3 months rent) and they wanted me to recruit someone else to rent as well to get the room so ... no thanks. At this time all I had was my SUSI grant money of €330 a month so. 

8. Received a phone call around 9 pm informing me that I'd won the Naughton Scholarship for Co. Louth! Screamed a lot as soon as I got off the phone. It was such a relief and an honour. Now I could look to rent non-shared rooms in Dublin, like bloody royalty. 

9. Tested 70 kids on antibiotic resistance to see how much they knew in case I had to make adjustments to my presentation to reach them at their level.

10. Viewed a room in digs in Skerries. It was beautiful and one of the final two I chose between, though I did end up going with the other one in Citywest.

11. Viewed aforementioned room in Citywest. 

12. Hung out with Ben, who helped me get through my mountains of work instead of just stressing out over it. Ben is great, be like Ben. Corrected 70 tests on antibiotic resistance with his help.

Also, in a weird turn of events, clicked on a Tweet by the British Science Association because they're cool, and saw a picture of me speaking being used as the background for the event?! Weird seeing my face pop up around the place lately. The event was to inspire girls into STEM.

13. Spoke at TY Expo about how to make the most of TY. Pretty cool. Hung out with Catrina. Taxis are nice and so much less stressful than public transport. Also, my first paid speaking gig (although others have had expenses paid). And I know, great face I'm making there.

14. Taught two 6th class groups about antibiotic resistance, tested both groups.

Also, was told that I'd been selected for the Emerging Talent Fund and would be attending Think Digital conference Manchester in mid-October. Yay!

15. Taught a 5th class group about antibiotic resistance, gave test. Finalised my TEDx talk The curious path to opportunity and practised it. 

16. TEDxDrogheda rehearsal.

17. Spoke at TEDxDrogheda! Was a fantastic experience, I've blogged about it here.

18. Moved out of the family home and up to my family home 2.0, aka my friend Alice's house, for a week before moving into digs.

19. Started college in Trinity! Attended orientation things and joined lots of societies including SciSoc, Physoc, Mathsoc, Q Soc, The Hist (for Prof Brian Cox), Lawsoc (Buzz Aldrin is visiting!) and probably a few others. Went to Q Soc's film screening on the first night.

20-23. The remainder of Fresher's Week. Attended more orientation things, and went to some events including a Mathsoc mixer and a Mathsoc talk and wow, lots of Mathsoc. Also stuff by The Hist and Lawsoc. 

24. Naughton Scholarship Awards ceremony! This was a really great afternoon, I've blogged about it here.

25. Moved out of Alice's and into my digs for the year. I really like the freedom of being moved out. And having to pay rent as a substitute for doing chores is fine by me.

26. Started my first week of actual lectures in college. My timetable turned out to be pretty intense (damn science) but I have most of Friday off, which is nice. The lectures are challenging but my friends in the course and I work through them, it's pretty cool.

27. Lectures, and then went with William to PolSoc & SOFIA's screening of the first Clinton-Trump debate. She absolutely demolished him, it was a very fun watch.

28. Lectures.

29. Lectures, then studying in the library with Grainne, then went to PhySoc's Quiz which was great fun. I wanted to run for 1st Year Rep to the PhySoc Committee so when we were told to give an impromptu speech about why we should be elected I gave it my best shot and I was indeed elected! That was awesome. First meeting is tomorrow, October 3rd, and I'm excited. 

30. Lectures, then hung out with William in the city centre, then visited Ben.

Busy month! Fun though.