Aaron Donohoe

Today was my first day back after a week or so off dying with a chest infection, and man flu. Had to go in today to pay off the first installment for Debs tickets (not for another year though!), and I thought I had missed way too much, plus I’m nearly recovered - I’m rarely coughing up my lungs now!

Anyway, morning was okayish. Had an early lunch due to last class before lunch being a free and the year head turning a blind eye to going home. Returned well fueled in the afternoon, which was when things started to really piss me off.

English, as I was absent and out of contact due to being bedridden I couldn’t get the previous nights homework. I usually would in other circumstances, but in this case I hadn’t. The teacher also kept badgering on, trying to make a show of me and others. By the end of the class I went from being quite happy and jolly to wanting to stick a screwdriver into the side of the old bags head.

Rest of classes weren’t great, but weren’t too bad - I would have settled with just jumping on the bonnet of their cars as revenge. Accounting was poxy though, it was last class, a free as teacher was away with the GAA team and just as we were to leave BIFF* walks in forces us to do work we had done previous. He fucks off after five minutes…we leave anyway.

Wasn’t the first day back I imagined. I was irritable, still sick, and had a throbbing headache. But tomorrow I’ve a day off to spend at the FÁS Higher Opportunities thingy in the RDS. Dunno why they gave us the day off, but who’s to complain?

Also, I’ll be changing the theme once more, the present one was uploaded by mistake so the intended one will go online whenever.

*BIFF - Vice Principal, stands for Big Ignorant Fat Fuck.

The great thing about being the Senior, is the Juniors in some way idolise you. Now I’m not talking about worship, I’m talking about respect - something which is lacking between peers in Dublin Secondary Schools to be frank. Although this years batch of First years seem to be more tame then last years, whom I had the misfortune of having to take charge of on more than one occasion - lets just say it turned me to drink!

One thing is though, they are lippy little fucks! When I was a first year, I used to be quiet, reserved, and didn’t give any lip. These, as soon as you try to restore some order they give you a mouthful of abuse! Of course it’s usually resolved with lifting one off the ground and putting him into a bin ‘carefully placing him elsewhere’. Not that I condone bullying, or violence!

But it’s good to be back I must admit. It’s nice to restore some order and routine back into my life, which during the summer involved lots of staying up until the wee hours, sleeping late, and just being a waste of space in town, or at a friends house (I tried to get a summer job - to no avail).

Going back felt like nothing changed, there was some surrealism as when we goto class we sit in the same places we always sit, the teachers continue from exactly the point from where we left off, but there has been some changes such as classes starting and finishing 5 minutes early, some new teachers (new English, religion, careers & French teachers for my subjects).

Also, to my surprise, the teachers haven’t been badgering on constantly about the Leaving Cert - Study Study Study - your life ends here and so on. They’ve been acknowledging it, saying what we’ve to expect on the paper but nothing yet about study structure or anything. But I suppose we haven’t yet started anything. The first week is more to orientate and to get yourself sorted out.

I’ve also learned that some teachers read this blog on a regular basis - so I’ll have to be on my best behaviour and keep my tongue in my cheek

Yes the rat race has begun - officially! Today was my first day back as a 6th year, the final rum in my publically funded education - following this we’re released into the real world to fend for ourselves - be it in work, college or being on of those free loaders who want to go travelling for a year! Despite the occasion it was a normal day - albeit a half one!

The first official day back was last Tuesday, although it was just to get timetables and the ’speech’ - basically it’s the most predictable talk about how important this year is and so on…like everyone hasn’t been saying that to us already!

Anyway, it’s good to be back - into some routine! The only downside is having to get up early in the morning…

It’s the Irish Syndrome to complain about a holiday when you get back to head straight for the nearest bar for ‘proper’ pint of Guinness - no more of that limp wristed fairy juice they pump you with over in Spain! But I will deviate slightly from expectations! So why am I showboating so much about the holiday well - forseeable this will be my last holiday away with the family and my last abroad holiday for atleast a year! So I’m savouring it!

Anyway, had a great flight over - Airline food was actually edible, got in on time and got bags nice and early before catching a coach to the appartment. Checked in and by that time it was 10 o’clock so went for Italian meal at a nearby restaurant.

The next few days were a blur of monotonus relaxation poolside of trapsing through the array of shops - all selling the same cheap tat. Although the only places where you could get quality goods was on the Spanish equivilant of Grafton Street. The only splurges which I had were on my obligatory Hugo Boss and a fancy Casio watch which set me back €130 - but as the sales woman said ‘you pay for quality’, to my response was I don’t want to pay that much! But she twisted my arm and I endulged!

Another source of tat is the numerous illegitimate stalls, which if you show any sign of interest will not let up until they part you with your money - I learned that hard way with a stall owner, when returning to the apartment I glanced at a stall with fake-poorly imitated watches and handbags. I displayed a morsel of interest in a watch to which the guy wanted €45, to which I responded I wasn’t interested. A mini-arguement ensued when I wanted to leave and he kept throwing prices at me for this watch. Eventually I gave him €20 for the watch - just to get him out of my face! And don’t just think this is an isolated business tactic, it’s plagued all around Spain - just bear in mind none of them are there to serve you, they’re there to rip you off!

Another thing which ripped me off was the amusement machines, such as grabbers, and various other point and shoot thingys. There was one which was a 3 pixel ’snake’ going across a line of 7 pixels. You initially stopped it and then another ’snake’ started above the one you just stopped and you had to match them. This went on until before the marker for ‘minimum prize’ when the snake reduced to 2 pixels and speeds increased. When you reached the mimimum prize mark you had the option of taking it or continueing for a maximum prize which was a Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, or iPod Touch. So I treid this 5 times and got to just before the maximum marker where just after the mimimum marker the snake reduced to 1 pixel. On the last line on many attempts when I hit the stop button the snake would stop momentarilty on the point (where I would have won a DS, PSP or iPod) but would suddenly skip so I would leave empty handed. I noticed this on the first attempt and four more later backed this up!

But aside from the local ‘Del Boy’ ripping you off, Spain is a great country - which I really enjoyed. The locals are warm and welcoming - it’s just a little intimidating when you’ve a guy screaming at you and you haven’t a fiddlers about what he’s talking about! We even met a few Irish & English people who we got on exceptionally well with. We even had a pet in the apartment - a Gecko I named Eddy!

All in all it was a fantastic holiday, it’s nice to get away, but it’s even better to be back home - with proper food, drink, a proper bed and more imporantly a propwer QWERTY keyboard!

The only downside was the fact I had to go in for a meeting in school on Tuesday morning, but I didn’t get back until 1am this morning which made me a day late! So I’m taking today to relax, recouperate and get some supplies before heading back to the grind on Thursday morning!

Well after thousands of leaving cert students have been gnawing in anticipation at the bit in anticipation over getting their results all come to end this morning when the results were handed out. Some were ecstatic with their overly joyous outcome and I’m sure some slipped away quietly having not achieved what they wanted.

Although luckily everyone I know who patiently awaiting their results did exceptionally well. Some got way better results then they thought, especially Mark Walsh who got an astounding 510 points out of a maximum 600! Congrats Mark!

So I’ll expect to be invited into town this evening to share in the celebratory occasion - and rightly so, they should get absolutely ‘Gee-Eyed‘ (excuse the expression) as the stress in the run upto the exams as well as during them I’m sure is immense.

Unfortunately, I won’t be celebrating this year. I’ve to wait for another year before I can truly celebrate. Come September my epic journey to ‘The Leaving’ will begin - I’m not nervous, more eager. I kind of do and don’t want to leave school - I do want to get into college/work to start my life as I want, doing something I enjoy, I don’t want to leave so many friends (although remaining in contact and going for the obligatory pint in Doyles will suffice!), I like the childish, immature craic we have in class and I’ll really miss the teachers and tutors who have been great craic over the years - so come August 28th I’ll be savouring everything and anything!

Have a drink from me guys

It is with great relief that I can say that I’m a free man for three months! I finished up for the last time on Thursday with Business - both History & Business exams went very well in my opinion, came out of both of them after an hour and a bit really happy with what I submitted.

Of course, here I am whining about a few summer assessment exams, while there are Leaving Cert students nationwide who are pulling their hair out and cramming those last bits in! I have a few friends who are doing the Leaving Cert this year, although they are grand on the facade, they are pretty stressed and worried. I’ve only done my Junior Cert a few years ago, and found you calm down after the first exam - although it could be a different story with the Leaving Cert, as unlike the Junior Cert you’ve to study for it!

As soon as I was finished, I was ushered into work by ‘the boss‘. He had bought two new coaches and had no one to help move them, although I haven’t a license for a bus, I have got one for a car. So my job was to drop him to the dealer to pick up the first bus, and follow him to our depot, then do the same for the second one. I felt very honoured, as not everyone is allowed to drive Steve’s classic S-Class Merc!

I’m presently waiting for a few call backs on job applications, I’ve put a few fingers in some pies, as I want to make some money this summer. I now own more vehicles then I did last summer, so that means more expense. I also have the burden of Car Insurance, increases in Petrol prices (although I’m considering getting a Diesel) and I’ve to pay more for my hosting as I’m presently moving all my websites onto a new hosting account - a master reseller account.

Also, you may note I’m somewhat getting into this Twitter thing. I’m presently experimenting on some services and plugins for Twitter, such as Twitterfone and Twitterfox. There are more, but I’ve either dumped them or haven’t yet tried them, I have intentions on doing a review on them shortly.

In the past I had a Twitter account, but I never seen the usefulness of it and thought that it was one of those fly-by-night setups, like most of the blog addons these days! Although, with myself planning to be away alot during the coming summer I would like to keep you updated on what I’m doing and when.

So the thought arose of Twitter as a quick update system, with mobile blogging in the process - although I wouldn’t really fancy seeing my phone bill afterwards… Email blogging perhaps? This may be the only solution, as I don’t want to log into my ACP on a strange computer - I’ve had a forum hacked from some dodgy fecker getting into the ACP from a strange computer which I was using.

Anyways, feel free to join me on Twitter - add me, respond, do whatever. I’m new to it, so I haven’t picked up anything more than posting using a Firefox plugin and from SMS message on my phone… :ponder:

On a final note, I’m nearly finished my exams. All has gone fairly well until today, had Irish and Accounting on Tuesday - both fairly easy exams, although the higher level Trading, Profit and Loss account tripped me up a bit. Irish went okay, I have some Irish anyway so it made it that bit easier. And then the dreaded higher level French - Did ‘okay’ in the verbs (all tenses), crap in Diary Entry, not great in Letter, and ‘okay’ on two Reading comprehensions.

But I’m putting all that behind me for History and Business tomorrow - my final two exams, and probably my two best subjects. All that’s on the History is two essays out of seven choices and Business is mainly communication and trade disputes/laws :thumbsup:

The next few days I anticipate my online activities to be pretty quiet, as like every other secondary level student I’ve exams all this week. So I’m forwarding my focus onto them for the next couple of days, once they’re over I’m a free man for three whole months - who knows what I’ll do with myself!

I may throw the odd progress report online, after all there are quite a few students from my school and other schools that read the blog - so I’m sure they’d be interested to know how I’m getting on in comparison to them.

Anyway, today was Maths (morning) and English (afternoon), both didn’t go perfectly unfortunatly. Maths was going okay, I thought I had two and half hours - the teacher said so, and so did the exam paper. But after two hours they collected them, so I didn’t finish the entire paper although I got what I did know and could do done at the beginning. I suppose I was clutching at straws for invisible numbers…

And English in the afternoon was okay. 2 hours, three essays so wasn’t too bad. First was a personal writing question, I had to write a prose composition on Ambition - although I did it to more of a speech context, as there was no real formula to the style in which we had to write it. Next was Macbeth - I honestly haven’t a clue in fairness. It was about Macbeth’s fatal flaw of Ambition, which I haven’t a clue about. I did study, but for some reason I just cannot get my head around this lark of Ye Olde Englishe! And finally then there was an essay on Comparative texts - I chose “The Plough and the Stars” by O’Casey and “The Third Man” by Carol Reed, with the theme of humanity within war.

Other than that, I think I got a good start on the exams, I’ve Irish (morning) and Accounting(afternoon) tomorrow, both subjects I’m fairly good at. For Irish we expect to get two, maybe three stories, a comhrá, and poetry.

I finish up on Thursday, so normal services will resume then!

Well as of tomorrow, I will officially be a senior, as the school year draws to a close this evening with the 6th Year graduation, we will officially be the seniors of the school - somewhat daunting, as I now know that this time next year it will be me pulling my hair out cramming, and studying.

This week has been fairly handy, Monday and Tuesday were normal days. With Wednesday being more of a doss day, today being a halfday with no classes (except French!), and tomorrow will be the same, as it will mark the school year to a close.

I’ve only a few days of exams starting Monday with Maths and English, and I finish up on Thursday - they want us to come in on Friday for an LCVP exam, but there’s no teacher at the moment as the previous one until last week had a baby. So there’s no one to set an exam, and they’re damned if they think I’m getting out of my bed for no reason!

The theme for this years graduation is aptly - “Don’t Stop Believing”, which I think was inspired from the rejuvenated Journey hit - Don’t Stop Believing it…hazard a guess to what the graduation song is? No, it’s not Lady in Red by Chris De Burgh!

And best of luck to Mark Walsh, Kevin Holler, and anyone else who will be sitting the Leaving Cert this coming June. If you’re reading this, you should be studying!

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m no longer going to say “I’ll be back shortly” and so on, as frankly, these days I don’t know what I’ll be doing and when. I’ve been offline the past few days, as I’ve been doing proper work - more info here. Myself and ‘Payne in the Arse‘ have been tackling the arduous task of replacing the head gasket in a 1979 Leyland Leopard - hardest work I’ve done in a long time!

Don’t get me wrong, I love doing work like that, it’s challenging, but it’s a trade that I’m learning. I don’t know many people who would give up their weekends to strip down a huge lump of an engine, to replace basically a piece of re-enforced cardboard, and then rebuild the engine - would you do it?

I could have easily stayed in bed on that cold Saturday morning, gotten up at 2pm, and lazed around for the day, maybe going out or maybe working online. But, instead I was up and ready at 8am, in Wicklow for 9:30, and had no feeling in my fingers by 10:00!

Before retiring for the day at 11pm, and going home to get the metal shavings from my hair, and trying to get the smell of semi-synthetic oil and diesel from my hands.

Up the following morning and out the door at 9am (a lie on ), to do the same thing again! What those people have been saying is true… I am mad! . But I love it, for some sick twisted reason. You have fun, gain a skill, get free lunch, and get whacked out with the fumes - and in my case set myself on fire…twice .

So, I’ve decided to focus on career prospects - instead of the blogs, websites, and other dealings I’m involved with. I’ll keep the websites open, just I doubt they’ll have many updates over the next few months. School is major reason to why I’m cutting down severely on the making money side of the web - I made good money while I was focused, but once I didn’t get as good results as I had wished, a decision was made on my part to sever my online activities. It won’t benefit me in the long term aspect of things.

Don’t get me wrong, this blog will be fairly active. But from a personal aspect only. Very few business and blogging articles will be written in the foreseeable future. I’d like to thank everyone for their support in the past few months, but I’m retiring from the exciting world of blog entrepreneurship for now.

Aaron Donohoe