May 2013
1 post
1 tag
An Open Letter to Ger Walsh, of the Wexford People
Dear Ger Walsh,
Every year, for the last ten years, more than 4000 Irish women have travelled to the UK for abortions. Some women who became pregnant as a result of rape. Some who had found out the baby they were carrying had a fatal foetal abnormality, and would not live past birth. And, almost certainly, some women who experienced crisis pregnancies, and made the determination that they...
April 2013
2 posts
1 tag
words are insignificant, but all i have
Last night I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe. It was the kind of laughter that can only be shared with someone you’re really comfortable with, someone who doesn’t mind when you careen from infectious to ridiculous, gasping for air, snorting, trying to hold down the stitch in your sides, someone who stays laughing with you, and not at you. When the pain in my ribs subsided, I...
3 tags
'Going Paperless' Or 'How to Document My Life But...
I started to use Foursquare recently, four years later than everybody else. I had been turned off the idea of using it by people obsessively oversharing, checking in at ‘my local shop,’ or ‘my cosy bed.’ But in the past few weeks, I have been trying to remember to check in at restaurants or bars, to write down what I tried, and what I didn’t like about the...
March 2013
2 posts
“I have come to the conclusion that our government should not limit the right to...”
– Sen. Claire McCaskill, becoming the 42nd senator to support marriage equality. Extra points for making the announcement on her Tumblr (via shortformblog)
3 tags
“Generally speaking, the news media don’t lament the theretofore bright...”
– Steubenville and the misplaced sympathy for Jane Doe’s rapists. Megan Carpentier at The Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/18/steubenville-misplaced-sympathy-jane-doe-rapists
February 2013
3 posts
1 tag
2 tags
I think one of the reasons our long-distance relationship worked out is because neither of us were looking for it in the first place. When we met, we were residents of different continents. I was working in Los Angeles for six weeks, and was going back to Ireland to school, and, hopefully, a career. He had just moved out to LA and was excited to start a new life. When our summer fling reached its...
January 2013
4 posts
1 tag
A winding response to "The End of Courtship"
Obviously I have thought a lot since reading the New York Times’ latest disparaging criticism of my generation. I am into responsibility, and so I like to keep track of what the media blames and criticises me for. I am irresponsible with money. I need to be marketed to in 140 characters, or I’ll lose interest. I’m to blame for bookstores closing down. I’ll probably move...
3 tags
Change your language. Instead of saying “I don’t have time” try saying “it’s not a priority,” and see how that feels. Often, that’s a perfectly adequate explanation. I have time to iron my sheets, I just don’t want to. But other things are harder. Try it: “I’m not going to edit your résumé, sweetie, because it’s not a...
December 2012
5 posts
2 tags
Everybody’s always asking me if I’ve seen any famous people in LA, and the answer is always no. But I have seen countless people being arrested, and one time I saw a dead body.
“The issue of how to provide for the X case has been considered by other bodies,...”
– and yet somehow we’re still thrashing out the same old issues, twenty years later
November 2012
11 posts
today in “unique experiences I have had since moving to America” I ate this weird fruit called a ‘persimmon’ which I had previously thought to be a gone-off tomato.
1 tag
Ten women a day leave Ireland for terminations →
1 tag
“Thousands of students were unable to return home to vote owing to the fact that...”
– USI President John Logue’s startling revelation that students are too poor to go home at the weekends. In my five years at UCC I never heard of anybody who couldn’t afford to go home at the weekend. There’s a mass exodus from college cities on Friday evenings. Try ot get on a bus...
1 tag
"Baby I just wanna talk to you that's all?"
On Wednesday evening I got to the metro station after work and realised I had lost my metro card. I pay $20 a week for the card and it’s worth so much more because each day I take six bus/rail journeys on my commute to and from work. I put all my stuff down, crouched and started rummaging through my bag. A man approached me, and gave me a metro card. “Looks like you lost your card. I...
national importance →
hadibutworldenoughandtime:
Or, how not to be a prick on Facebook.
It doesn’t matter how much fun you actually have in real life, as long as there are enough photos online of you looking like you’re having fun. Preferably looking good while doing so.
Be witty at all times. Apt song lyrics, pop culture references, or…
October 2012
4 posts
Vamonos
I’ve always wanted to learn Spanish. So now I am! Using a) people at my office and b) www.duolingo.com until I can find a class that I like. Duolingo is great so far. You practise by reading, learning vocab, writing and speaking.
Most complicated phrase mastered so far: la mujera come una manzana (the woman eats an apple.) Sofia: “That phrase always comes in handy.”
1 tag
Running list of LA 'problems'
Ughhhh my avocado is not ripe enough
it’s cloudy and I really wanted to go to the beach
I keep falling off my skateboard
I don’t want to listen to other people’s music on the Metro (this actually is a problem)
September 2012
1 post
August 2012
3 posts
1 tag
I Asked Her For Some Happy News
I started believing that life would work out because of CTY.
I have always, in some tiny crevice of privatised thought, somewhat regretted staying in Cork for college. I had made the decision based on a completely baseless relationship with a boy I was literally going nowhere with, but I never said this out loud. I didn’t want anybody to think that for longer than I care to admit, I was...
2 tags
If I had to sum it up in one sentence - he knew the names of all my friends. When I was a child, my parents were little more than children themselves, propelled into an impromptu adulthood with the advent of a sick and demanding little girl. I spent much of my childhood at my grandparents’ house while my parents grew up. My grandparents had raised five children in a two-bedroomed house. One...
July 2012
1 post
May 2012
6 posts
2 tags
2 tags
This will be my fifth summer as a camp counselor,... →
1 tag
What is this blog for but to post a list of my...
We Are Young
Rumour Has It/Someone Like You
Teenage Dream
Somewhere Only We Know
I Feel Pretty/Unpretty
Why not require a 72-hour waiting period for every... →
April 2012
4 posts
Sometimes I stop and think...
lowlyartsstudent:
…what would life be like if I couldn’t share the tiniest details of my day with my favourite over BBM?
Thank God for technology.
What a stupid article →
Myself, and most 20-somethings I know are taking, both pre- and post-graduation, unpaid internships, investing in ourselves and others so we can try to find something to do in this world and if I read one more stupid article about how we are risk-averse, lazy and addicted to the internet, I will crack up.
I love my mom because
She comes to pick me up from work when I’m sick, texts me to say she loves me at least once a day, and always tells me when I need to pluck my eyebrows.
Wowww is this real life? Between this and Samantha... →
March 2012
11 posts
Life and tinfoil: part 2
Last night at work, I picked up the tinfoil to cover the lemons and it was in its typical layered mess. I put it down and used the clingfilm instead.
Not sure what this means in my grand life theory.
(Part 1)
the older I get the more accustomed I have to become to meeting / working with / socialising with people who weren’t alive when the Lion King was released
