Every Monday, Tuesday and Friday I have Irish in a classroom with an amazing view. When I sit down in the back corner of the room I can see all the way up as far as the city centre.

From day to day the view varies. Some days it's raining and misty and dull and cloudy. Others it's sunny and bright and clear and fresh. It doesn't matter whether it dry or wet, there's still something absolutely magical about that view. It's like you're here, inside this classroom, with a 28 other people wearing the same clothes and listening to a woman try to teach you something. Only a few metres away, there's a completely different world going on. There's women (and men) doing jobs at home, or watching tv, or on the phone. There's people commuting to and from work, meetings, catching up with friends. There's students struggling to drag their hungover heads out of bed.

And all this, separated by a mere sheet of double-glazed glass. You are so near, but yet so cut off, and so separated from this world you desperately long to be a part of. I can see various UCC buildings. It makes me think of how the only reason I am sitting in classrooms for 7 hours a day is so that, in two years time, I can be there. I can be sitting in lecture theatres learning about stuff that interests me; that is my passion.

And for a split second, I am motivated by that thought. But then I come back to reality; I focus on the teacher, and I wish, I wish so hard, that I could be a kilometre downstream walking around the Quad, or strolling down College Road, or having a coffee in town. I want to be living a life out there with the rest of the world.

Being me, and enjoying the little things, one day at a time.