Hullo. Is what I would say if I was happy with the work I’ve been doing recently. Which I am. But, I’m also seriously disappointed with my progress. Sure I’m getting more work done than ever, all my homework is completed before time and more besides. On the other hand I’m becoming increasingly lazy and am not adhering to my ‘study table’ in the slightest. For all it’s worth, the sheet white-tacked to my wall may as well be another poster of some form of punk band as I seem to stare at it wistfully more than do as it says.

My relationship with Irish has hit a rocky bank. See, I did the whole Gaelscoil thing. I even went as far as to do most of my JC in Irish(I like to think I wasn’t granted that extra 10% by fatal error and in fact got much higher than my B average) and got an A in JC higher Irish.(My old Irish teacher went from telling me I’d go nowhere because of my cockiness to telling her other classes how I was a shining example. Some people still wonder why I moved schools.) Come fifth year the first cracks and, well, gaping wide chasms began to appear. I’d lead a charmed life of messy hand writing up till then and had(still have) terrible Irish spelling and knew no grammar, I just played it by ear and if it sounded right it was right. Tuisil gramma-what? was more or less my first sentence to my brand spanking new, and improved,(now with a 2 year no claims warrantee) Irish teacher. She failed to beat the grammar into me(literally) and eventually grew to dislike my carefree attitude. I then won the Gaeltacht scholarship(thanks to charming the interviewer) and came back even more cocky with my new Irish vocab. This nearly ended up in a divorce settlement. Ms kept me back one afternoon and asked/ recommended/ ordered me to drop to ordinary. I refused and produced seven a4s on an triail that she must have framed over her mantelpiece as she was super impressed with me. After that she managed to catch a viral ear infection or something along those lines and was out for two months. This meant that I’m now back to my fifth year oblivious state of Irish and need a serious kickupthehole to get back into action. I got this today. She was unimpressed with my aiste ar polaiteoiri that we did in class, citing that I hadn’t studied, even though I had, I’d written up an essay on it last weekend as a draft. All that I can do now is to blow the socks off(hopefully not literally) her by managing to memorise the ‘helpful’(now in color!) Irish Grammar Book that was seriously overpriced in easons. One can hope and one can pray.

On the bright side, my spoken Irish is decent and I can charm most people so give me a friendly examiner and the A is mine. My poor oral language is French. As a build up to the mock orals I phoned a friend of mine in Navan for a ‘chat’ in French. He spent most of it saying ‘sacre bleu’, ‘merde’ and ‘mon Deau’. We ended up speaking Irish.

I’m listening to ‘When It Rains’ by Paramore. I quote: ‘You’ll sleep ‘till May and you’ll say that you don’t wanna see the sun anymore’. Relevant words?