Year Book: The Parties! Ms. Cullen

P. Cullen’s Last Day.


Fifth year was at the end of its wick. The last full day came. There was that buzz of freedom in the air and one thing was on everyone’s mind. That was the day that Ms. Cullen dropped the bombshell. She wasn’t going to return to St. Finian’s the following school year. Shocking stuff, one might say jaw-dropping. I wasn’t planning on coming in for the last morning of fifth year, since absolutely nothing happens. But when Ms. Cullen announced that she’d have a little party, I thought again. The idea of getting sweets still attracts me, especially when it’s Haribo.
And so, I trudged to school for a “party”. And by God, it was some party. There were fizzy drinks, Haribo galore and crisps. Ms. Cullen went all out. The guests were a little on the short side, but I suppose that can be forgiven. I can count the active participants of the party on one hand; David, Louise, Zidalee, Yombo and I were all sitting about participating in the nothingness of the party. Matthew was part of his own party as he read to himself in solitude. What made everything so much better was that Ms. Cullen put on her Bon Jovi CD. How bloody wonderful.
As the morning slowly dragged on, all the girls, including Ms. Cullen began to pour out their emotions, as girls do. It was obviously building up inside each of them as the floods came burbling steadily. I watched in awe of this event that had no effect on me, it was just another change of teacher. Dave sat over by the piano and played awkwardly. I doubt Matthew was even aware of what was going on, let alone have a reaction to it. This didn’t last too long, thankfully. There were pictures taken, in which I think I looked away or looked generally silly. At this stage I was dying to get out of the land of tears and get home, probably to have a cuppa, and to lie back in the summer independence. And so, the party was over, as was fifth year, such a miserable year.

Lent update...yes, I've nothing better to do!

Today is Sunday the 25th February and it wasn't a nice day weather wise. I didn't really care because I only left the house to go down to Mass this morning. Anyway, it's been five days alomost since Ash Wednesday and I haven't had a coffee since then (apart from the one on Wednesday morning, but I've already confessed that). I'm still alive and well, with no withdrawl symptoms. Isn't that great? Well it's not like I was on some hard drug. I didn't need a daily fix. I was always aware how much I was injecting, I mean, drinking a day. I didn't want to be have more than 2-3 cups a day. That would be ridiculous. The Irish are the greatest tea-drinkers on the planet though. I read that somewhere, can't remember. But, I'm going cold turkey.
The only bad thing is that I've made a bit of a substitution. this isn't my fault, my Ma gave me the idea. I had a cup of hot chocolate today and yesterday. It's sooo nice! So, I'm not sure if that just cancels it out or not. Giving up one thing but replacing it with something else to fill the gap. There's a small downside to hot chocolate too. When made with warm milk, it's a killer concoction. If the stone didn't worked for David, I'd say he would have offered Goliath a nice cuppa hot chocolate, waited until he dozed off and then hacked his eyes out and gone for his liver. It's a sleeping pill in a creamy delicious solution. Well, maybe that's a bit overboard, but it'll make you drowzy alright. It'll deter you from doing any work for at least an hour. It's a bitch trying to get maths revision done on a Sunday afternoon after knocking back a good measure of the stuff. I'm telling yez now, don't try it at home.
So, that how things are going. Easy and steady wins the race. I'm the tortoise, and I go movey movey. Look at the first few pages of Poetry Now 2007 and you'll know what that's about. The rest is a heap of shite. Those bastards thinking they know the whos-its and the whats-its in the world-shite! Slán go foill!

Lent, a time of sacrifice.

So, the Lent is upon us again. Just like Advent, it is a time of preparation, as far as I know. It leads us through Holy Week and it ends on Easter Sunday. The word "lent" means something in Latin and I just don't know what. Oh well, it means something nice anyway. It is a time of penance and fasting to commemorate Jesus' fasting on the wilderness. Yez can look it up for yourselves.
It is customary to give up something for Lent. Or some people start doing good chores and it's equally as viable. I can't really remember, because I happen to have quite a rubbish memory, if I ever gave up something for Lent and stuck to it for the duration of the period. I might have had all the good intentions to cease eating chocolate or something of the sort, but I imagine I fell short on committment. So what? Jesus won't really mind if I have this Dairy Milk bar, or this whole tin of chocy biccies. Well, this year is going to be different. I'm making my statement and I'll making it loud and clear. It's going to be so fuckin loud that even the bloody prophets and all those little wingéd people will hear me in Heaven. I'm aiming not to have a single drop of coffee during Lent! D'ye hear that up there?? Ye better, coz this is all in your name! It doesn't really sound fair does it? Jesus fasts for forty days in a desert and in the end, the Devil tempts him and he still doesn't give in to him, while we on the other hand give up coffee or chocloate, give in several times (not me though) and then in the end we stuff our faces with Easter eggs. If the devil in the story is symbolic, then we sell our souls twenty times over.
Being a priest must be fun sometimes. You can denounce things and nobody says anything. You can tell people off and they don't mind. Well maybe not anymore, but back in the day like. Anyway, I'm not a preaching man. So, forty days without a coffee, sounds easy, real easy. I didn't start off too well. I was in Newry yesterday, Ash Wednesday, and I forgot my intentions and I had a white coffee. It's really all my mam's fault, she ordered it. But as I said, bad to start, good to continue. Or something like that anyway. I didn't even think of this torture, I mean Lent observence, it was initially Lorna's idea. But it's a decent one. I'm not trying to say that decent ideas rarely come from her, I'm just saying that it's a good idea. I think I'm digging digging here. Ok, I'll put down the spade. It's day two anyway and I haven't had one so I'm good. I'll see how I get on. Maybe I'll keep a record as the days go by. "Day Nineteen. I think I'll die if I don't get caffeine into my blood before this day is out." Nope, I don't think I'll go insane. I've gotten a bit used to it, having a cuppa after school. I'll pull a Kavanagh and charm back the wonders of a child's soul with this. I'm going all the way, not just stopping having sugar, so I'll be like a seven year old twice as fast as Paddy! Happy Lent!

Annoying typing mistakes.

I am always doing it! When I'm typing, I'm not very fast but I'm not slow either, I end up making the same mistake about twenty times! When I mean to type "to" I type "ot". So, if you ever see "ot" in a sentence that I've typed, you know what I mean. It's quite obvious what it's meant to be anyway, I'm just putting it out there, ya know, admitting that I have a problem. It's the first step so they say, well on telly anyway. I'll have to accept it, as will everybody else. I feel a lot better now. Thanks for understanding. Nice one.

I'm telling yez now. Radio talk, why, don't ask!

Welcome along to LiveLine with myself Joe Duffy. Well, not quite thanks be to God. Although apparently Joe Duffy is the voice of the people. I don't listen to Joe Duffy, I have better things to be doing with myself, like being in school. So therefore I don't really know what goes on during the show and can't really give out too much. But when Joe gets himself on the cover of the "Senior Times" with the caption "voice of the people," I think everybody is allowed to have a laugh. From this, it can be concluded that the elderly in our land feel it impossible to get anything done without the aid of good ould Joe. There's no show like the Joe show ey? If Mrs. MacNamara, 78, from Kinsale wants something done, she doesn't go to her local county council, or the local Teachta Dála, not at all, she'll call Joe Duffy on Radio 1. It's a poor state the country is in if that's the way issues are raised among our elderly.

The same can be said for Gerry Ryan and his show. Again, I don't listen to Gerry because thankfully I have to be educated. But as far as I know, Gerry likes to get his researchers to look into somewhat bizarre things, particularly shite and shite related topics. But at least he's a northsider. According to statistics in the Irish Independent, Gerry Ryan and 2FM in general, are loosing ratings. And their solution: sack Marty Whelan. He's a nice auld fella but apparently he's had his day. Awh for Marty, and slán leat! Bom bom bom, another one bites the dust, RTÉ dust that is. And so, the old are thrown aside and left all alone. Well, I suppose he's got one incredible pension!

Contemplations on the mocks.

Now lads, the mocks are only an indictaion of how you're doing now. Don't worry they're only the mocks. They mark the mocks harder to make you work more. We hear all these shite comments about these blasted exams. My da keeps spewing out these ridiculous statements about them and it doing my head in. The only proper advantage of the mis timing. It's useful to see how much time is given overall and how much time is to be allocated for each question. After that, they're time consumming. That sounds very contradictory but what the heck!

At this stage in the year, I can see myself dong very badly in the maths papers, one and two. I mightn't fail, but I certainly won't do very well. I don't particularly want to drop to gnáthleibheil but...well, let the results decide. Those not nice people who write the papers! They sit on their big chairs in the Education & Science Department offices and drink really posh coffee with Mary Hanafin. Who do they think they are ey? And what the hell is that hand yolk facing on to Malborough Street? If it was standing up and looking for a high five that'd be cool, but it's not. Ridiculous, bluntly ridiculous.

Oh yeah, mocks. thank the Lord above all the crap tests area after mid-term! The two literature papers (Gaeilge II & Béearla II) and the bloody maths will drain the very life source out of all present in that hall. Some people just don't give a proverbial...but I suppose I have to. That's what you get for wanting to do half good!

Places in Dublin that I like Part One (O'Connell Street)

For this I think I'm going to have to take out a map and look around for that I get ideas and so on. Thanks to Dave I have a nice touristy sort of map with lotsa nice pictures on it. I like pictures.

I don't think anyone can say that they don't like Dublin's main thoroughfare, O'Connell Street, formally Sackville Street. It's a fantastic street, so wide and majestic. There are so many reasons why it's deadly. One simple simple reason is because the G.P.O is there. It is possibly the strongest symbol of Irish republicanism in Dublin, in Ireland.
So much has happened on one street, that is impossible to ignore the list. Key events occured there during the strike and lockout in 1913. James the Bollix Larkin was determined to speak to his union members from O'Connell Street. Of course, during the Rising the Irish Republic set up HQ in the G.P.O building and the majority of the War Council members were stationed there beside their leader Padraig Pearse. During the Civil War, a dark time in Ireland, the Anti-Treaty forces occupied the street to support those in the Four Courts. It was there that Cathal Brugha was fatally wounded and died.

Various other strikes and protests and that sort of thing have happened on O'Connell Street. And who will forget the riots that disrupted the "Love Ulster" loyalist marches in 2006? Not me for one. I was in Swords thinking of going into town that morning and bus services just stopped. We scored an own goal that day.

Anyway, O'Connell Street is deadly for other reasons too. Firstly, the O'Connell statue at the Liffey end is cool. The spike is...ok. It was a waste of money, it cost something like €3million. But, it's there to stay and on a nice day it's somewhat nice. Good nicknames, I might come back to that! Eason on O'Connell Street is great too and Tower Records is deadly upstairs. The Savoy is good too, good cinema with deadly big screens. There's this really nice place where you can buy doughnuts on the west side of the street and they're delicious. I had one of Finn's once!
So there's some reasons why O'Connell Street is deadly. There are probably many more but they're not coming to me. I'll think of them some time. Maybe I'll be given ideas. Anyway, they're endless.

Places in Dublin that I like Part 2 (Westmoreland Street)

This only seems fair: the best thing about the south side is leaving it. If you stand on Westmoreland Street facing onto O'Connell Bridge, the view is fantastic. And of course, it's all the north side. The Customs House of on the right in all its glory. O'Connell Street lies in front of you with Daniel standing there watching the goings-on. It's even better when they have the flags of the four provinces up on the corners of the bridge. Then to the left, the view extends up the Liffey and the Four Courts can be seen. The boardwalk, although attracting drug dealers, it adds to the scene of the Liffey. Anyway, I love the view that can be seen from that corner of Westmoreland Street. I makes me want to give the south side the finger and happily stride back to where I live.

Places in Dublin That I like Part 3 (Merrion Square)

Merrion Square is wonderful little safe haven away from the bustle of the shopping district of the south side. It's been there since 1752 and it's maintained it's period look. The square itself contains houses in a Georgian style. The gardens in the centre are beautiful. Firstly, there is often a display of paintings (some of which are modern and odd) along the gates surrounding the gardens. I'm obsessed with monuments and statues, and that's one reason why I like it in there. Of course there's the Oscar Wilde Memorial Statue. He's kicking it back, relaxing as the Yanks go by and take pictures of him. He's probably keeping an eye out for young male passers-by also, the dirty prick. But even better, there's a bust of Michael Collins there too. Micheál ÓCoileán, I'm almost sure it says under it.
Anyway, it's a great little place for a sit down and a chat. And although I've never played anything there, I'd say it's great for a kick-a-round of a football in the central green, or an auld throw of a frisbee or a batter of a sliotar etc. etc. But when the Summer comes around again, that might be a great activity for all the family on a clear day. Finn, fancy a puck around some day? Ha!
There's lovely trees and plants and shrubs etc. in the gardens. It's kept very well. I seems that the birds (not the girls, the things that fly about) love the gardens. It's full of thrushes and blackbirds and the occasional robin hops along too. Overall, 'tis a grand nice place to visit on a lazy day in Dublin.