I have successfully managed to curb my Internet usage, well for today anyway. After coming home I put the head down and did my homework, even wrote up the Chemistry experiment 'to determine the relative molecular mass of a volatile liquid'. Woo!

After dinner I had a little look around Facebook and PRoC, and managed to stay away until about half an hour ago. Very productive day.

I also found a new Blogger template! Yay! The long search is finally over (for this week anyway).

Ireland played France in the second leg of a world cup qualifier just there. Ireland lost. I didn't watch it because I had to have a shower and then have my Internet time. Every single Facebook update in the past half hour or less have been about the match. I think I may have missed out on a monumental moment in Irish history.

Time to emigrate I guess, before I'm rejected by the Irish population.

I've already been called a loser on Facebook for not watching it like...

I physically cannot bring myself to do any homework. At all. I'm sitting here with this feckin' laptop glued to my lap and wasting my evening away. I was in town until half 5 and when I got home I had absolutely no desire whatsoever to take out a book. Disaster. I was so much better back in the good ol' JC days.

Was heading into town after school today for a meeting at 4pm. Didn't have to get the bus in because Aisling's mum came and gave us a lift seeing as she thought it was going to be raining. Off to a good start!

Then had an hour or so to kill before Caroline came in so I went to BTs and changed out of my uniform; looked around Oasis, A|wear, H&M, Penneys, Topshop, Debenhams and so on, and then headed up to Cork Coffee Roasters to meet Caroline.

Being the absolute retard that I am, I left my phone at home today so I had no way of contacting anyone and it just about nearly killed me. I couldn't tell my parents when or where to meet me, or get in touch with Lorna to see was she coming up from Tralee for the meeting, or text Caroline to arrange somewhere to meet. Ugh. NEVER leaving the house without it again.

After having the good ol' cup of coffee, we walked through the lashing rain to Civic Trust House. I was involved with this youth theatre project as part of Cork Midsummer Festival this past year and the meeting today was regarding the future of the project. Seems verrry exciting altogether. If I get to do it and it goes ahead etc, then we'd be going to Scotland, Helsinki, London, Belgium, Holland, Dublin, Belfast, and last but not least, Cork. And everything's paid for.

Lorna offered to give me a lift home, so we walked in the rain to Paul Street, me falling en route and ripping my tights, and then had a wander around a few floors of the carpark before we found the car. Traffic was deadly, but we had a nice chat. Need to sort some form of a fake ID actually...

But I've done nothing since them, except eating food. Think I might go to bed now and read. I should really have had a shower coz my hair is severely curly after the rain but I kinda ran out of time. Tomorrow; tomorrow shall be productive.

Hopefully.

So our mini-summer has been and gone. When we left school on that joyous Friday after a horrific Maths test, it was but merely autumn. We return to its doors having walked through winter winds. Only 6 weeks now 'til Christmas exams and then the whole holidays thing will start again.

Mid-term really did surpass many expectations. I went out a good bit, and didn't spend EVERY waking second with the exact same people. We spent sleeping seconds together too! Nah, it really was a good week, and Christ did I need the break. I had my plans to do my homework the first weekend and then a little bit of study each day, but we only make plans so we can go against them and then feel like we've actually done something worthwhile.

I've my written homework that's due tomorrow done, but haven't even begun learning those stoopid quotes from Hamlet. May as well learn the whole play the amount we're getting. I'm not going to freak out about school anymore; I'll survive.

I played alot of guitar over the past week, which was nice. It's been a while since I've learned new songs and it's a damn good feeling. Bought a new capo too which is easier to change, and is ten times better seeing as it raises the pitch evenly instead of having everything all over the place. I'm still using the first pick that I got with the guitar. It's a nice soft, pale grey Dunlop one with little bits of dents in it from being used so much. I have others, but they're alot harder, more for the ol' electric when I'm jamming on a Sunday with the band. =P

I wish I didn't have to go back to that place tomorrow. It has been SO good to just be able to forget about it for a week and not have to wear that uniform, or sit in those horrible hospital-coloured classrooms and count down the hours 'til I can leave. And now we return to results from those tests last Friday and "back into the swing of things" again.

I cannot wait for Saturday when I will go for coffee in Cork Coffee Roasters and get a free coffee with my full loyalty card. Or perhaps Friday afternoon.

It's going to be a long week.

I'm sitting in the leather armchair in the bay window, wearing my pyjamas, dressing gown, and a hideous pair of luminous socks. When I look out the window, things look a bit blurry because of the little streams of rain running down the window. The effect is a bit like when you put on someone else's glasses. According to my usually inaccurate estimations the rain is driving down at a 45 (Oh My God I just realised there's no little circle thing that represents degrees on the keyboard!!) degree angle. (I suppose one could represent it like so : 45^o.) Everything is really, really wet, but I'm one of the very few people who don't mind the Irish weather. I have been known on occasions to go as far as actually liking it.

We have too many people staying in our house at the moment. Obviously there's the four people that normally reside here, but now we also have three of my mother's sisters. Two have been down from Kerry since Tuesday, and now we have another down from St. Luke's Cross (about 20 minutes away) because her 'partner' has focked off to India on some hike. Now, considering the fact that we rarely have guests, we only have one guest bedroom. Wait, what am I saying only for? It's one bedroom more than my parents, the people who paid for the gaff, need. So anyway, my aunt is now sleeping in the lounge on the most comfortable couch in the gaff (debatable) where I spend quality time with my laptop. So now I've had to move to the leather armchair next to it. How shall I ever live.

Today, anyway, I have the choice of going to town and sitting in Cork Coffee Roasters with my friends and talking for hours on end about things that don't really matter, and then searching high and low for a Halloween costume for a party tomorrow night. OR. I can go for lunch in the Sheraton which will be paid for for me. But it would be with my aunts, so obviously the conversation would matter even less. Hmm.

I'm also beginning to worry slightly about the fact that I have yet to start my mid-term homework. I had great plans for revision and everything else, but to be quite honest, I needed the break. I might start it today if I get a chance, and if not, Sunday evening is as good a time as any to do it.

Oh Jesus, the child is putting up a few Halloween decorations. Oh the joys of living on a household akin to a zoo.

Good day my loyal readers! Enjoy this day as it shall be like no other.

So we're already five days into midterm. Nearly over now like. Haven't opened a single book so far, apart from attempting the maths papers in bed last Friday night. That was thrown by the wayside (i.e. under the bed) pretty quickly though. My room is an utter bombsite too. I've been out so much and stayed over at a friend's the other night so everything is kinda just fecked on the chair/desk/floor when I come in, and the prospect of having to tidy the place before I can start my homework is all too much, so I abandon the homework. I think it's a good plan of action.

The aunts are up from Kerry (pronounced 'Kyerray') anyway so we headed down to Kinsale today, five of us packed into the tiny Corsa because my mother is incapable of driving my dad's automatic. 'Twas a feckin' horrendous journey down, having to sit next to that irritating child that I am unfortunately related to. But we got there, and he fecked off with one of the aunts while the rest of us went for coffee. I had a damn good cappucino. As I sat there sipping my frothy coffee I gazed at a poster for a Cara O'Sullivan concert being put on my Kinsale Arts Week. And oh did the memories come flooding back. My summer spent between Short Quay and Guardwell running 9 days of gigs. Making arty musician types get on and off stage on time. Heading up to the Folk House and through the back to rob ice and bottle-openers from Bacchus nightclub. Stopping for a chat in the box office. Talking Boo for walks around the town. Freaking out when people didn't arrive. Going buying refuse sacks to pick up all the alcohol-related rubbish. Talking to nice people, and not-so-nice people. Falling in love on a few occasions. Talking to my knacker-culchie friends and making them fill out surveys for me. Pushing through the crowds in Jim Edwards to use the bathroom, or get a cork-screw. Ringing Ed in a panic multiple times. Going from the square, to the office, to the box office. Sitting on the landing outside the office as the Bangladeshi people changed their clothes and the children ran around the building. Keeping dogs away from the area where the dance group was performing, and trying, but to no avail, to make them go away. Getting lunch from the food stalls. Sheltering from the rain to avoid frizzy hair. Feeling oh-so-important in my KAW Crew t-shirt. The fluorescent-freaking-vest at Paul Brady in Charles Fort. Cutting every single chair apart and fighting over who'd stacked theirs in the neatest bundle. Stopping people from leaving via the shortcut. Making the man in the Internet café leave his Internet on all night so we could broadcast the DJ sets. Switching a record for DJ Juice when he had to pee. Trying to avoid a certain person. Curry chips from Dino's. O'Conaill's hot chocolate from Jo's. Flyering in the pubs with the 18-year-old South African who had just gotten here by sailing across the Atlantic on a randomer's boat. Pissing myself at the sight of what I thought was Caroline dressed up in a Maisy Mouse costume talking to kids (it turned out to be the hot French exchange boy). And of course, discussing in awe the amount of out-of-date drink in the Folkhouse. Serious good times. How I miss Kinsale Arts Week and stage-managing Sounds on the Square. The title of this post is no longer very appropriate, but I'm not going to change it, because it just underlines how the last paragraph of memories really came from the heart. CHEESE, I know.

My mother ended up getting a parking ticket for parking in a loading bay then. I was too busy studying the gig posters in the window of Londis to even notice. Whatever.

So back to what I was talking about. Mid term. No study done. Oh yeah, Chemistry study party in Hannah's gaff tomorrow. Aisling, Hannah, Liam et moi. How bad. And we will, of course, get so much Chemistry done...

It's now "Nosebag time" according to my dad. Dinner to you and me.

Later folks, and thanks for reading this. :)

Too much feckin' work to do tonight that I couldn't spare a minute to write here. And I want to go read my book now, so you'll just have to wait 'til tomorrow for a riveting update on my life.

Oíche mhaith!

Sixteen years old and sitting a laptop on a Friday night. Hey! It could be worse!

And at last, the weekend rolls around.