Ms. Brick and her annoying antics.

I first heard that I'd have Ms. Brick for English from Niamh, who told me near the end of third year. I hardly knew Bricky, thankfully, how happy I was then, and I didn't know it. We had her for Religion class maybe twice when Holy Healy was out, probably at a funeral. I knew she didn't like bold word and always shouted big words at the class. Mr. Halpin was out one day for woodwork, which happened regularly in third year now that I think about it. Anyway, Ms. Brick took the class in the TG room, room twenty something, down by Garro's room. I was curious about the potential leaving cert teacher sitting in front of me. I asked her was she going to be our new English teacher. I'm not sure if we knew that Scano was retiring at that stage. Bricky got very worked up about this. Not Scano retiring, her teaching my class! I was later to learn that she gets easily worked up over everything. But, she kept asking me where I had heard about it, which I didn't disclose to her. I keep my sources to myself. Bricky if you're reading this, Niamh is an alias. This seemed to point towards the truth in Niamh's prophecy. It came true and the gates of hell in English opened and the newly formed 5A1 were dragged through.

We had numerous problems in English almost right from the start. Some cannot be blamed on Bricky. The English course for Leaving is very long and tough, and that's not her fault. But it is her fault for telling us that fact 20,000 times every week! "I don't write the course." Or, the famous, "the bar is set, I didn't set the standard," or something to that effect. We started with the poetry of Yeats, I think. BuuhhhUuHHH! That fella is annoying. We started with "The Lake Isle of Inishfree." Nice poem I think many people will agree. Bricky covered Yeats in a decent manner. Patrick Kavanagh was done over a shorter time and possibly effort! At least back then we read through the notes in class. Those notes were good-ish. They were funny because they had so many mistakes, including spelling mistakes, punctuation and general sentence structure. All we did was have them read out, but it was better than what we did in sixth year. At least we didn't have to take notes and cover the pages with scribbles. "This is important," she'd say, "take this down," and then she'd call out about 10 lines of text, which we were to fit into 2cm X 2cm of space. After Kavanagh, poetry went downhill and a hell of a lot faster. Two poems in one class became the norm. "Ok, today we're going to do Prufrock and The Great Hunger all in 26 minutes." Exaggeration may have featured there just a little bit. But she certainly pushed the accelerator hard with both feet/ Maybe, that's what was needed, I don't know, but compared to other classed, we did almost twice as many poets. In Dominican's, they're studying five poets, while we did seven. Niamh's class, again the alias, did four. Why did we do seven? The milk is spilt now, no point in complaining.

Bricky has completely lost the head a few times. It's quite funny sometimes. There yesterday, she pulled a mickey-fit, big-time. Most people hadn't got the work done. It was the first bit of work after the mocks and nobody bothered to do it, apart from Zidalee, Louise and Yombo. As I like to put that, because the people she banks on didn't have the works done, she pulls a fit. As far as I can remember, it's happened before. If twenty people have no work, but either David or I have work in, it's ok. It's a strange way she works. Anyway, the fits are really all the same, they all include threats of dropping to the ordinary class and doing "ordinary level English"!! Nothing new ever comes out. Do ordinary level, I didn't write the course, I didn't set the standard. That sounds familiar? It should, it's stuck in all of our minds.

At some stage in fifth year, we had had enough. After tension building up, and THAT Macbeth test on "themes" that happened to be about something else, can't remember now. Adam kicked up a fuss over that, fair play dó. Anyway, eventually, we got sick of it really. So, we tried to sort it out a bit. Classes had a heavy, uncomfortable atmospere for about a week, and it was only worsened when things got nasty. An open floored debate, aka a riot, broke out one day which most people talking, but, unfortunately, no real points were being made and no solutions or alternatives were being suggested. At one stage, Dave and I decided we'd try to give the debate/riot some shape. But, she went ballistic at us, so I said, "Fuck da anyway."

We thought we were making a first step at fixing Bricky in life skills with Garrigan one day. Pointless class really, but it proved useful that day. He was asking us the usual, "how are things going?" sort of stuff. I can't remember who started it, but somebody said that English was particularly difficult. Then the ball started rollin', and it kept rollin'. Garrigan listened, as he does, and fair play to him, he had a meeting with Dave and meself after school one of the days. Apparently, life skills class wasn't the proper stage on which we should have aired our views, but, that was irrelevant now. He asked us what was going on in that we found annoying. As far as I remember, he then went and spoke to his superior, Derek McGarrigle, about the situation. Obviously, it wasn't going to go any further after that, we knew that. Bricky already had Derek in to the class and he waffled on about work and how Bricky was wonderful. So, it was end of the line really. Garrigan, the voice of the students, came back to us with no results. But we respect him for giving us the time. Derek talked ot us one of the days too. He waffled on again, saying how Bricky has seventy-four master degrees and is aiming to beat the record of phDs achieved in twenty minutes. (It's set at 5 by some Chinese fella.) End of the road for the revolutionary 5A1 class. Or so it seemed.

Bricky then took a turn. Now whether it was a good turn or a bad turn, I can't say. She seemed to think it was great altogether. But, our opinion didn't quite match that. I thought it wasn't any better but it could have worse. But I'd imagine the rest of the class thought that she'd got completely to hell, with no chance of return. She changed the class, so that she read notes aloud, and we wrote down what she was dictating. So, I suppose in a way, chance of discussion fell to zero and the Mussolini like dictatorship stood firm once again. The power of students was trampled. We showed disapproval, and nothing was done to improve our situation. If Derek was running for Leinster House, his student constituents would think twice about giving him their number one.

Teachers teach us, as it says in their job description. But they also give us work, collect it, correct it and give it back to us. Ms. Brick has done all of these (she's especially good at the first one) but, this process is very slow with the Leaving Certs. Let me give you an example. In mid January, Ms. Brick gave back a Macbeth test from...wait for it...mid October! Yes, three months later, I get a "corrected" test handed back to me. That's probably the worst example of material not returned that I have, but the others aren't far behind. On the side of correcting, we don't think her correcting is particularly precise or good either. Recently, she has found a great way to get out of correcting essays. For the last week, we've been writing two paragraphs of an essay a night. This part of the method I like, it's not all dumped on us in last class on Friday. But, about three people read out their paragraphs on Monday and Tuesday. She read sample essays yesterday (Wednesday) and today (Thursday), this is the best, we had our essays completed. We read each others essays. We read each others essays, what a way of dodging correcting them. Wow. One could almost congratulate her on that idea. We'll learn from one and other. That's a load of bollocks, well, in my own humble opinion. Our mock papers were sent out to be corrected, at a price of €7.50 for each of the two papers. Why? We want an outside viewer to correct our work? Not likely. Who suggested that they be corrected outside? Ehh, oh yeah, Bricky. Couldn't be arsed, don't know how? You choose.

I started this post back in March sometime. I added bits to it since then too. It's now 1 May. Although all this shit is very funny, ridiculous and even monstrous at times, recently I've came to the conclusion that I must let it go. At this late stage in the year, I really, nobody really has the time to complain very much. Especially about the state of teachers. Unless there's something very wrong. Bricky is re-reading her notes again for the last time. And instead of moaning, I think the attitude that should be adopted should be "right, I'm gonna listen and get the most out of this, even if it's not perfect." Many I've been enlightened by some divine force that decided that we should give her a break, that she's trying. But, in any case that's how it's worked out. I don't expect Bricky to do anything else mad or even slightly cuckoo after this time. I think I can finally call this the end paragraph. It's surely been a roller coaster ride of a two year course of English classes with Ms. Brick. Some classes descended into absurdity. But on the other hand, I wrote some interesting essays during some of the English classes. All of my essays somehow ended up to be Ireland-glorifying propaganda that dismissed any ideas that modern Ireland was good thing. Strange, but let's you see how I was thinking during the year. Well, that's it really. Goodbye now, take care, and in the words of herself, "BWWOOOOOOOHH!!!" (1,771 words in total)

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.