The time when you blog at 2am and it gets serious

Posted on by sineadmorrissey95

This blog post is kind of difficult and there will be some “I feel so shit” going on here, I really do hate acting like a victim or seeming like I’m feeling sorry for myself but this is my place to vent so here it goes. By far the worst part of lupus is this one singular thing; I could deal with the rash on my face because my mom got me this unbelievable Chanel foundation before my Debs because she is awesome like that, and I could deal with the aches and pains because panodol and massages but a symptom of Lupus is on rare occasion that the patients hair starts to fall out. Back in January of this year my hair was the longest it had ever been, a curly mess of brown glowing locks down to my chest (yes I know I am being arrogant) but it was the first time I had ever really liked my hair. It is safe to say I have gone through a lot of different hairstyles, the bob, the excessive layers that verged on a 1980’s mullet (asking myself now why didn’t my mother stop me and where were all my friends?), the pixie cut, the awkward shoulder length 1960’s flicker, I even shaved the side of my head at one stage which my mother absolutely ADORED!My hair has also been many different colours; red, ginger, black, purple, a bit of blue, blonde and brown. But around January my hair was in its element, I never had to touch it because it had just started to do its own thing in a way that looked ok and everyone who has curly hair knows that having short curly hair is a dangerous place to be because you are unnervingly close to looking like Shirley Temple. Not to say she wasn’t insanely talented and adorable but it doesn’t suit us all.

When I was in hospital my doctor asked me “Has any of your hair fallen out? Or have you noticed any excess hair on your pillow?” in his weirdly monotone voice while he was wearing these stethoscope kind of things over his glasses that magnified his eyes immensely; he reminded me of a mad scientist, but he was in fact an exceptionally kind man.  It was after that when I went back to my room I noticed that my light cream pillow case I had brought from home had long brown hairs on it. When I went for a shower even more came out and when I brushed my hair it really became apparent to me that this was serious. I thought my hair had just gone a bit dull because I was sick because your hair conveys your health. Apparently it happens to a little under half of the people who have been diagnosed with lupus and there isn’t much you can do about it but hope that once you get your medication in order and get your condition under control that it will stop but that’s never a guarantee. Your hair also manifests your health months after you get well again, the amount of women who have told me “Oh after I gave birth I lost a load of hair about three months later” so even though I am doing better now, my condition still isn’t under control so this won’t be going away any time soon, which is obviously not something I am pleased to know. Two days after I got out of hospital my mom brought me to the hair dressers and my then somewhat dull long brown hair was cut into a bob. I couldn’t put any layers into it because it would only make it look thinner. After I left the salon and all of the sympathetic looks I was getting in there I got into the car and cried. Not tearing up a little like an actress who is still trying to look good for the camera,  big fat wet tears slipped down my ugly hot crying face in my moms car in then middle of a car park. Now I didn’t cry because the hair dresser did anything wrong, in fact she was fantastic, kind and helpful and it wasn’t because I was acting like one of those girls on Americas Next Top Model who think that when Tyra decides to cut their hair it is the end of their fucking universe, I mean I have shaved my head before, I cried because it wasn’t my choice. Everything about being sick is bad but the worst thing no matter what you have is that it’s all out of your control. I can’t spontaneously stay in my friend’s house if I don’t have my tablets, I can’t stay up late and go into work the next day and be ok, I can’t have that glass of wine if I am going to a party already that week, I can’t go lie out in the sun if I don’t have a bottle of factor fifty with me, I can’t control anything in my life without consulting with my illness if it is ok first. And I Being a person who has hated not being in control and asking for permission my whole life, can’t do anything without asking my fucking illness for permission first. And it sucks. My hair now is utter shit. Its short and thin and dull and it doesn’t curl properly anymore because it has no life in it. I have tried all the shampoos and lotions and potions but my brush is still covered in hair and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t self-conscious about it. I miss my hair. I miss feeling it down my back, I miss being able to straighten it without being terrified about the amount that would come out, I miss when it shone when the light hit it and how it curled when I let it dry on its own after a shower. It is kind of like a slap in the face every day because you know you have to brush your hair or shower or take it out of a pony tail but you absolutely dread doing it and when you do it you wish you hadn’t. You see all these pictures on Facebook of girls with long hair or even with short hair that looks healthy and that they can style and that they feel comfortable with and your stomach just sinks. You catch a flu or something and for the next few days it gets even worse, exactly one of the reasons why I can’t do things I used to like go drinking outside in the rain for example..

It’s taken me a long time to bring this up on this blog because I like the fact that this blog is funny and takes the piss out of things in a truly Irish self-deprecating way. I like this blog to be a place where I can joke around about things but sometimes I just don’t know how to make a joke about it. At the start I joked about how I looked my Shirley Temple or how I have to use I wide toothed comb and shampoo that’s meant for horses but now that it has hit me that it’s really happening I don’t know what to say about it other than it is shit.

Lupus, the bane of my Existence !

Posted on by sineadmorrissey95

Lupus, ah yes we are here discussing it again. It’s like Lindsey Lohan, a severely annoying thing that just won’t leave it alone and sit down. Well my dear friends Lupus is now actively making it it’s very business to make my life as irritating as possible, at this very moment I am supposed to be out at my very good friend’s goodbye celebration before they head off on a J1 for the summer and broaden their horizons, make memories or bad life choices and I am here, in bed, quite sincerely sore, with this stupid fucking rash on my nose. I am not Rudolph and red is not my colour so it is neither fitting nor pleasing. A quick reminder to all of you lovely people the symptoms of Lupus are as follows;

  • fatigue (or as I like to call it unexplained exhaustion and crankiness),
  • discomfort in the joints and limbs (torture),
  • and a butterfly rash(a big, red, ugly line across my nose and cheeks).

As you can guess Lupus is as we say here in Ireland, great craic.

Now why I am particularly annoyed with lupus on this mediocre evening is not solely because I missed my friends goodbye party, no it is because I may have to change my medication soon. I am currently on this lovely little thing called Plaquenil. It doesn’t really affect me much bar the having to take it twice a day everyday which is a basic nuisance especially when I am out with my comrades and I am pretty sure it is giving me strikingly weird dreams that can be both fantastic and really down right terrifying at times, for example I dreamt one night that I was Denaerys from Game of Thrones but I was also still in college and I owned dragons and the dream itself was immensely cool but then another night I had what could only be described as a nightmare as the Child Snatcher from the movie Herbie held me captive and dissected my brain. This was not as cool as being the mother of dragons.. But anyway Plaquenil apparently simply is not doing its job in regards to my illness, obviously if it was I would be out partying right now and not drinking tea and blogging. It would be amazing if the Plaquenil would do its job because it is a relatively “soft” drug; I can carry on my life as normal with only a few alterations because of the lupus but I have recently been informed that if it continues to not work I will have to change to another drug that I can’t remember the name of because it has a ridiculously long convoluted name that all these drugs have. I know there’s an “Oxy” or a “Tocin” in there somewhere and it might begin with an A? Well this drug, is an absolute asshole. I am sorry but I can’t even think of a way to put it more eloquently because it is that bad because I at almost twenty years old, will not be able to drink while on this drug. And this is not like when you’re on antibiotics and your doctor tells you not to drink but you do anyway because you just get drunker and all is forgiven, no this is straight up if you don’t want to make things 10 times worse, do not drink. Now in Ireland the legal drinking age is 18, so people get going at around 14 to get a feel for it. There will be 14 year olds out there who can drink and I, a wine worshiper who loves nothing more than sitting in Fionn Baras with a glass of sauvignon blanc in the sun will now have to sit there. With water. It is safe to say ladies and gentlemen that I am disgusted. I am disgusted that Lupus would be so cruel as to not only be a general hindrance requiring monthly blood tests and doctor’s appointments ,weekly urine checks (yes I will save you the details) and daily medicating is now taking away my true love. My rock, My true pleasure in life. I as an Irish citizen can now marry a person of any sexuality( WOOO!!), work freely in the EU and receive a decent enough education but I cannot do the one thing all Irish people should do, drink. I am for obvious reasons quite upset about all of this.

I really don’t mean to moan but I think it’s called for in some cases, like in Donnie Darko where Drew Barrymore plays a hip young teacher who tells it as it is and plays the role of the adult who gets what its like to be young, just has enough of everyone’s ridiculous forced attitudes and inability to engage with teenagers and just screams “Fuck” both furiously and distressed at the top of her voice after she gets fired. Well this is my version of screaming “Fuck” at the top of my lungs, blogging about it passive aggressively. I mean when a doctor sits there and tells you “wow most people who get Lupus are in their forties” and you’re just sat there like well that’s fantastic I am half the age of the average person who gets this and it’s not even like I have the kind that is just a nuisance no I have the Systematic one which is like dropping a cinder block on your foot by accident, in other words a general pain. Systematic Lupus is also activated by the sunlight! Can you believe that, I am a fucking vampire, the sunlight actually hurts me! It doesn’t even make me sparkle in a really idiotic way like a topless Robert Pattinson , no it couldn’t just do that, instead I have to wear factor 50 every day. And I live in Ireland for god sakes. I am naturally really quite pale, so much so that I can’t wear light colours like cream or beige without looking like I have disappeared into a dress and now any chance I have of ever getting a tan are out the window. I am a pale person who must try to stay out of the sun at all costs, I am a vampire. But vampires can drink, I imagine the whole blood thing is actually red wine. So maybe I am not a vampire and will stick with being a werewolf.

My not so declassified Freshman year survival guide

Posted on by sineadmorrissey95

]I still remember the day I moved out for college, I know I should say ive never been so scared but I wasn’t. I think I was just ready for a change, I was bored with my everyday life at home and I wanted to start somewhere fresh and experience new things. Over the past year I have indeed had my fair share of new experiences, some amazing, some not so much. And now that the year has come to a close I feel like I’ve learned a lot of both pointless and important knowledge.

Your roommates are going to have their quirks. Now this is not a bad thing, in fact a lot of the time they are absolutely hilarious. After my first year of college I now put butter on my knife differently than I did at the beginning of the year because apparently in the country side it is nearly sacrilegious to just take out a scoop of it so it is now  battered into me to scrape it instead. Another one of my roommates has an intense hatred for grey squirrels and will get very passionate about this when it is brought up. Again this is something I find quite amusing. And another one of my roommates is scarily protective over a star-shaped, red and white Christmas plate that I don’t think I’ve ever even touched out of fear for my safety. I’m pretty sure they have all gotten pretty used to my quirks too. My dislike of the volume being on an uneven number, my hatred for reoccurring noises and of course my almost fear of wrists and throats which one of them constantly uses to their advantage. Yes Kieran that is you.

Don’t involve yourself in your roommates business even if they say it is ok after an excessive amount of alcohol. Just trust me on this one when I say don’t do it. You see them every day and you start to see them like a sibling so you get a bit offended when someone is acting in a not very nice way towards them right? And then after a few drinks you start thinking- “I’m gonna say something and sort all this out for them, they can thank me later.” They won’t. You’re drunk and stupid and they are gown up and capable so just be there to talk to them when needed but for the love of all that is holy stay out of it.

Try to attend your lectures. I am 100% preaching what I don’t practice here. Which is unfortunate because I love my course, I get to watch movies and read books and talk to cool people. But I am the worst timekeeper to ever be put on this earth and it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if on the day of my funeral the hearse turns up late after being stuck in traffic. Your lectures surprisingly do help you out a lot with your course work (I know right who would have guessed such a thing) and you will start to feel the heat at the end of the semester if you don’t.

Play odds at every given opportunity. Odds is a highly strategic game which takes intense concentration and an unbelievable knowledge of your competitor which has been known to tear friendships apart. I’m sorry that was a lie, odds is basically just a version of dares. It basically goes like:

Player 1: “Odds of you going over to that hot guy and just hugging him in front of everyone?”

Player 2: “Oh god I don’t know.. 10? Ya 10.”

The two players then count down from three and say any number between one and ten. Let’s just say if player one said 7 and player 2 said 9 then player 2 would be off the hook BUT if they both said 7 then player 2 would be obligated by law to go over and hug this random attractive stranger in front of a load of other random strangers who I’m going to assume aren’t as good-looking. Odds makes every day a better day and the lower the odds, the more intense the game. Unfortunate souls have had to do things like throw bins over themselves, sing Rhianna’s Rude Boy loudly while dancing in the courtyard and my personal favourite is when my dear and fearless friend Julie had to go up to apartment 48 in her pyjamas where 6 4th year guys live with her face covered, and when I say covered I literally mean like a face mask, in Nutella and ask for toilet paper. We were unaware when we gave her this odds that the boys of 48 were hosting a party and they were all going to take videos of her but that is the risk of playing odds.

Aldi is the best thing that will ever happen to your life. There is nothing else I can say in this part because the 4 euro wine and 14 euro vodka speaks for itself. Along with their great deals on pizzas.

When you end up living with your best friends it turns into a giant sleep over. There will be times when you are tired and cranky and you have 12 assignments to do and you just want everyone to shut up and go to bed. There will be times when you just want to be left alone and there will be times when you’re just happy enough eating your dinner in front of the TV with no conversation. But there will be times when you’d like someone to talk to and its nice knowing you live with people you get along with well enough that you can arrive home from a night out, happy out drunk, make some toast and stroll into someone’s room for a chat knowing they won’t start screaming rape. And sometimes you just need to have a handstand competition at 11 o clock at night or pile into bed with everyone for a chat or a game of would you rather. Honestly that’s my favourite thing about moving away for college. I love when we all come in from a night out and we make food and have a laugh and brutally mock people about anything embarrassing they may have done that night. That is another thing about living with friends, the slagging is relentless. Whether it be your choice in food, TV shows, hobbies or your accent (Sorry Brick) you will be strung up for it. It’s all in good fun though.. most of the time.

College is great, its hard work but even harder play and although it absolutely wipes it out of you there is that Tumblr saying “When you’re old you don’t remember the nights you got plenty of sleep” which is relatively true although I’ve had some pretty epic dreams. So basically just be a nice human, shop at budget stores, accept people for who they are, mind your own business and have fun. Because when you come in from a night out to keep the party going who really cares about your 9 o clock start because platinum weeks are what dreams are made of.

The people i attract on public transport.

Posted on by sineadmorrissey95

I really don’t know if this is just me. It can’t just be me, can it? For one reason or another every sort of lunatic seems to find me on public transport, I don’t know if I have some sort of magnetic weirdo field that they sniff out but like a shark to blood they always find me. This has become such an issue in my life that one of my best friends has dubbed me “Queen Of The Freaks” and he has even gone so far as to bring it up at parties like “No guys seriously I have never heard of anyone having as many strange encounters on busses as Sinead”, and its true I don’t think anyone has! So this is what I would like to call The Sinead Morrissey Bus Chronicles.

The first strange bus encounter I ever had wasn’t actually when I was on a bus, but when I was awaiting its arrival. Busses in Ireland are notoriously late and I had started getting texts off of my friends who I was supposed to be meeting in town by 2 wondering where I was. It was one of those disgusting humid days where a mist kind of hangs in the air and sticks to your skin and me having naturally curly hair was giving me a do that nobody else but Tina Turner could ever hope to sport successfully.  I was sitting on a concrete step next to the bus stop when a short old woman walked towards me in a black, long, heavy coat, navy velvet slacks whilst pulling a wheelie bag behind her.  Her face was wrinkly, pale and round and she reminded me of a snowman who had seen better days. I nodded at her and gave her a polite smile when she looked my way.

“Lovely day isn’t it?” she said matter of factly looking down on me on the step, apparently ignoring the grey sky, uncomfortable temperature and light mist.

“Ya it’s nice enough I wish it wasn’t so humid though,” I replied looking up at her snowman face.

“I wish my neighbour wasn’t such a slag but we can’t all get what we want love,” she sighed. Now as you can imagine this took me aback quite a bit. Had she really just said that? Was she joking? What do I say in response? And me being me I did the only thing I know how to do in an uncomfortable situation and gave a little laugh.

“No really!” she said more forcefully, “this bitch has been flirting with my husband since the 70s. Not that he has any interest in her but still, do you have a boyfriend?”

“I do,” I replied slowly. Keep in mind this was about four years ago and my love life is a lot less intriguing now.

“And would you like some skank to flirt with your boyfriend?”

“I suppose I would not.” I had to give it to her on that one.

“Well I don’t like that skank flirting with my husband. I caught her walking out of my kitchen once while he was upstairs sleeping. She had stolen fifty euro off the counter. When I confronted her the bitch said my husband had given it to her for doing his washing, sure I’m his wife I do his washing!”

Her hands were flailing around now and she knocked over her bag so I went to pick it up for her.

“I think I will throw a brick through her front window,” the woman said suddenly, like she had just had this huge revelation as if the answer had been in front of her for the past forty years. “Nobody would suspect me would they?” She was genuinely asking me, a 16 year old at the bus stop if she, an elderly badly dressed pensioner with a wheelie bag could get away with vandalism.

I didn’t really know what to say, do I encourage her? Do I say I don’t know? Do I laugh? Do I mention how suspicious it is that her husband happened to be asleep in bed after the neighbour who always flirts with him was sneaking out the back door?

“Well I suppose I wouldn’t anyway.” Was all I could come up with. And with a wicked smile she replied “I wouldn’t either, thanks darling!” and just walked away.

My next bus encounter was a man who is known around my area. He walks up and down the street with a serious swagger and a cane and always wears this tattered old fedora hat. While on the bus one day he sat next to me and asked for my hand. I didn’t really know what to do so I held it out to him and he started pointing at the lines on the palm of it.

“This means we’re cousins yano?” he mumbled gruffly through his coarse beard with his cinder tainted breath. “This line here shows that we are both related under the mother Mary and all her divinity. Your name is Mary ya?”

“No sorry my name is Sinead,” I said as I snatched my hand back away from him.

“No I’m pretty sure it’s Mary.” He was quite firm about that.

For the next ten minutes I was lectured about God and how God wanted me to find love and how this man would have my back because I was his cousin. I got off the bus 3 stops early to avoid any further religious preaching.

After finding my long lost family I encountered this man about a year later. The whole bus ride he had been shouting belligerently. Screaming Michael Jackson’s Man In The Mirror so loud I could hear it over my head phones. A few stops before I was due to get off the man stood up and started dancing. He was wearing a denim jacket that had seen better days, his hands were rough and dirty and his boots were about a week away from falling apart. While he danced and sang myself and a very prim and proper elderly woman exchanged glances.

What happened next was the moment I lost a part of my soul and innocence which will never return to me. The man, mid song, decides to undo his pants and whip out his member. I honestly felt my life leave my body as I jumped back in my seat even though I was a good 5 rows away from him. However the prim and proper woman left out an unholy shriek like a cat in the middle of the night. Thankfully this alerted the driver to the problem and he stopped to bus immediately and removed the Michael Jackson fan. This moment is still a hot topic among my friends to this day because in my panicked state I text my friend who has dubbed me “Queen Of The Freaks” and said-

“OMG! A Man just whipped it out I’m getting off!!!”

As you can imagine, this text message could be taken the wrong way.

I have a number of bus tales. Break ups happening behind me ending in physical violence, elderly women sticking their tongues out at me menacingly, other drunk men deciding to not let anybody off until they had checked to make sure nobody had stolen their can (Which they had drank). I also have a number of just plain embarrassing stories. Me deciding I had to go home after a bottle of wine or two on race day and falling down the aisle, falling asleep on strangers shoulders, dropping eggs and breaking them and the list goes on. The Sinead Morrissey Bus Chronicles could be a blog in itself. And I know they are far from over because somewhere out there, there is a freak who I have yet to meet. And it is only a matter of time.

Its all about the little things in life

Posted on by sineadmorrissey95

In life I have a lot of major things to be grateful for. I’m grateful for my Mom, all 5 ft” of her, my little fierce Mama Angie. I’m grateful for my dad, Jim, who’s bountiful knowledge of useless information has kept me entertained for the past 19 years. I’m grateful for my brother who knocks me down a peg when needed but always has my back in a way only an older brother can. I’m grateful for having honestly the funniest, craziest most loyal lunatics for a group of friends. I’m grateful that I am loved, that I’m fed, receiving an education and live in a lovely home in a first world country. I’d love to say I’m grateful for my health but ya the whole Lupus thing. But let us put all that to the side for a moment and talk about the little things, the things that are like the sun on your face on a warm day that isn’t too hot or too cold. I’d like to dedicate this post to those little things, the things that keep you going on a rough day.

Tea. I don’t know if it’s just an Irish thing but tea really is magnificent isn’t it? Whoever decided all those years ago to brew a few leaves in a mug and drink it, I’m going to pretend his name was George, was a bona fide genius. George my dear friend you have brought strength to the weak, quenched the thirsty, given money to the poor.. well not really the last one but all the rest! Tea has a very soothing quality that is very difficult to find in anything else that isn’t illegal. As the old Irish proverb which is thrown around on Facebook a lot says “If a cup of tea and a good sleep can’t fix it you’re fucked”. And you would wonder why we are known as the land of saints and scholars.

Wine. The next thing on my list with very soothing qualities is this magnificent invention. Wine is my favourite pastime, I remember my very first sip when my mom let me have a taste at dinner when I was about 10, it was terrible. My face contorted in disgust and I vowed I would never drink wine again, ah the innocence of the youth. Wine is an amazing concoction, it gives me the ability to believe I am significantly greater than everyone else when I am in fact after spending my week’s money for dinner on a bottle of white but which did I really need more? Coming from a group of up and coming wine connoisseurs I love nothing more than meeting up with my friends on a lazy day, heading to one of our favourite places in town and ordering a glass or five of Sauvignon Blanc and watching the world go by, content with everything. I think once you begin to like the taste of wine you can never go back, you are just hooked and your life will continue to improve from then on in.

Books. Since I can remember I have loved books. Every single kind of book, bound in leather, a paper back, a fairy tale everything. When I was younger my dad would read to me every night before I went to sleep and would get me to read at least one paragraph, we would read anything from The Animals of Farthing Wood by Colin Dann to a huge big encyclopaedia which he made sure we read at least once a week which had everything from why we dream at night to the diet of a stegosaurus in it. I love books so much because nobody can tell you how to see the characters or the world, it’s all in your head and you concoct this image of what this person will look like and what colour their room will be and if their voice will be raspy or soft. I love that, I love opening up an old book and being transported back to that world and seeing it all over again, like Count Olaf’s manor or the mysterious island with the MeerKats in Life Of Pi. Books are brilliant because you can just devour them and they affect you in a way nothing else can, they can make you laugh and cry in equal hysteria and you can just leave this world and step into another one for a while and meet all of these new people and learn all of these amazing life lessons by the hands of a paper back.

Movies. I am a movie buff. I watch trailer upon trailer on YouTube and make lists of all the movies I have to see. My best friend Niamh purchased a book of 500 Movies You Have to See Before You Die and I had seen precisely 304 of them. Movies don’t do the same thing that books do, they show you what they show you and this can back fire easily but when they get it right? Oh they get it right. When Harry first saw Hogwarts was it not spectacular? When Andy Dufresne escaped from Shawshank were you not exhilarated? When Forrest said goodbye to Jenny by her grave did your heart not ache? When Sheriff Brody said “We’re Gonna need a bigger boat” did you not squeal at the nail-biting tension? Movies are beautiful and fantastic. Like books they transport you to a different world. Through the acting, the cinematography, the music it all creates this undeniable atmosphere. When Peter and Wendy dance with the fairies J.M. Barrie’s book it is beautiful but when they dance in the movie with that gentle waltz playing in the background it is magical. I don’t know if I’m just crazy about escapism but I love them, I love absolutely everything about them to a crazy degree that I get excited just talking about them so much so that my head starts to spin. They are so inspiring and beautiful that I feel like I could be here for hours writing about how much I adore them but I won’t because I must go on.

Humour/Sarcasm. I honestly don’t know where I would be without humour. This whole blog wouldn’t exist for sure anyway. I try to keep things light and I do this through humour, I am a number one culprit of cracking a joke when things get to serious, or brushing things off with a little comment and I know that’s probably not the best thing but it is the truth I’m afraid. The idea of going a whole day without laughing seems so morbid to me that I don’t even like thinking about it. I am extremely fortunate however to have found some of the strangest wise cracking assholes the world has to offer to spend my days with so that happens very rarely. Humour is so brilliant because it takes many different forms, I for example am extremely if not excessively sarcastic so much so that when I moved into my apartment for college one of my roommates recently told me “I actually just thought you were kind of rude on the first week because you don’t change your tone of voice when you make a joke, I’m still not really sure sometimes”.  Now I know this isn’t the nicest thing to be told but it’s true, I can see how someone would think I’m just being snarky. But I think sarcasm and wit are beautiful things, nothing will get me to erupt into laughter quite like a well-placed dry comment. However I do like a bit of blatant humour also. Bringing it back to movies for a moment I don’t think I will ever not laugh at the moment in James Franco and Seth Rogan’s Pineapple Express when Red hits his head off that sink. Humour is brilliant in all its glory because it brings an air of fun to every situation and when you find your humorous soul mate your life will never be the same again.

New Socks. Honestly if I had the money to I would wear a new pair of socks every day for the rest of my life. There is simply no kind of comfort quite like coming out of the shower and opening up a packet of brand new, soft, sparkling new socks and putting them on your feet.

Music. Music is amazing. Music really does make you feel electric, it awakens every nerve ending and courses through your veins and gives the physical reaction which is scientifically (and I have googled this) known as goose bumps. Acoustic versions of songs are released just to make people cry and studio productions are released for blaring in your car and screaming along nonsensically. It just makes you feel like you’re alive and you’re young and you’re invincible. Music has a funny way however of imprinting itself on memories like hearing a song from the past will transport you right back to that moment, this has both its graces and its flaws. For example when I listen to Kid Rocks All Summer Long I’m brought back to a time of being fifteen, lying out in the sun drinking cider in the park with my friends without a care in the world but I still can’t listen to Lyyke Li’s Deep Sea Baby without feeling nauseous after hearing that on the day of the funeral of a loved one. But music really does keep you going, singing is such a release even if you sound terrible and finding a person with the same music taste as you is just perfection. Listening to that song over and over and over again until you play it to absolute extinction and then finding it again a few months later and falling for it all over again is a fundamental rule of life. Music is beautiful and funny and heart breaking but it really does remind you that you’re alive and you’re not alone because someone has obviously felt how you feel if they wrote that melancholy little ballad and someone has obviously been in love if the used all major chords and danced over all those notes. Gene Kelly was obviously smitten when he sang in the rain so music does speak to everyone (I’m nearly ill over how cringey that post just got).

I’m happy about a lot of things and these are just a few of them. These are some of the things that make my heart flutter, make my toes tingle or just make me content with my everyday life.

Surviving Clubbing when you’re not a clubbing person

Posted on by sineadmorrissey95

Avicii/ David Guetta mashup pounds into every nook, cranny and crevice of the room. People jump around in a questionable fashion stepping on each other. Some couple on even more questionable substances are about five seconds away from doing something highly illegal on the couches. Drunk girls are falling over in dresses that could actually be tops stretched to their very limit and boys are wearing chinos and tops that show off their “pecks” sweat perspiring off of them all.

*Extremely drunk buffoon* “Hey ju have a spare fag?” as he tries with all his might to remain standing.

*Unimpressed fantastic girl* “No sorry I don’t smoke” as she tries to back away slowly so not to startle the foreign creature.

*Extremely drunk buffoon* “Ah girl you’re shit crack!” Drunk buffoon can then no longer sum up the strength to remain in an up-right position and falls to the rubbish and chewing gum littered floor with an unexceptional flop.

 

The clubbing life most certainly isn’t for everyone. Some people do love raving to their hearts content, drinking overpriced and watered down shots of tequila, picking up random members of the opposite or same sex without having to say very much in the corner of a badly lit room and ending the night covered in sweat, ears ringing and head pounding but others just aren’t cut out for it and that’s the truth. I openly admit I am not a clubbing person. I enjoy sitting down with my friends in a house or a pub listening to music that doesn’t sound like someone is smashing a few bins together repeatedly and didn’t cost me five or ten euro to get in, after all I’m a college student and that could easily have bought me my dinner. Now I’m not saying I’m totally opposed to it all, I can see the appeal in going out and dancing with your friends and I’m not going to sit here and say I don’t enjoy drinking because I 100% do but its more just the culture (that’s right it is literally like a different world) of the people who are avid club goers.

First of all there’s the majority of guys that are in there and everyone knows who I am on about. In and around 5 ft 10, is wearing a River Island t-shirt with a naked woman on it, a pair of beige chinos, white runners and has THAT haircut. You all know what I mean when I say it, it looks a little bit like the comb over Adolf Hitler had but they have put so much product in it even if they were to make a speech as passionately as he would have their hair would remain perfectly still. These boys are the reason bad things happen to good people. Essentially they act like they are on Geordie Shore, they are the guys who take their tops off in public the second the temperature rises above 9 degrees and think all gay guys are attracted to them. And in my opinion they are the absolute bane of clubbing. They pinch your ass and shout things at you and they dance up behind you when you’re just trying to get your Beyoncé on and when they make a move on you and you refuse them they get all offended because they are apparently the most beautiful creature since Sean Connery. Well I would like to inform them that you are not and pinching my ass however fabulous it is, is just downright annoying and sexist and if you go off with all that “I’m a Menininist” shit which is basically another way of saying “I’m a complete douchebag with a lack of an education” please feel free to tie a cinder block to your feet and go for a swim. What I’ve personally noticed about these kind of people is that they are CONSTANTLY looking to pick a fight, I don’t know if it’s some kind of masculinity complex or just a lack of evolution over the past few thousand years but a club is for having fun, not an opportunity for you to smack into people and hit the first person who says anything.

Next there’s the music. I’m open to all different types of music, I love music I mean who doesn’t? Didn’t Bono say it was like an international language or something? I totally agree. But when you get home from a night out and your ears are still ringing so much that you mistake it for your phone you know David Guetta and Flo Rida have taken it too far this time. And what is DJs absolute hatred for just playing a song that someone requests I mean just click on it! We can see it on your overpriced laptop screen, we know you have that Gwen Stefani song!

Along with the music is drunk girls dancing to the music which is the best thing I have ever seen. You have the girls who gave up probably before they entered the club, their hair is in one of those buns that defies the laws of gravity, their heels are in their hands and they are wearing a pair of slip on canvas shoes and they are just going for it kind of like the end dance in every single one of the Step Up movies but they are not nearly as well co-ordinated, choreographed or just not nearly as good dancers. Next you have the girls who will just never give up. Their hair and makeup is done to perfection and they last the whole night in their heels because they apparently feel no pain or else they say “Oh I’m just really good at walking in heels”. You’re heels are higher than I have ever been, don’t lie. Now these girls are not nearly as impressive on the dance floor, they more just kind of sway around a bit and look around to see who is looking at them and you can see their feet are destroying them by the look on their face when someone bumps into them and they have to move. But honestly who is having more fun?

Now, I could be here forever and a day explaining why I dislike clubbing but I wouldn’t be being totally honest. Some of the funniest and most memorable nights out I have ever had have been in a club. Getting into a club with a fake ID at 17 was one of those exhilarating moments that everyone still looks back on and laughs, and everyone has that story from that club when that friend did something so brilliantly legendary or embarrassing that it will be a tale passed on for years to come with tears of laughter streaming down their face. I think I’ve found that so long as you have no intention of looking cool and you are just there to have fun you’ll be ok because then you can laugh at the guys who think they’re Sean Connery and you can make fun of the music and be one of the girls who thinks they’re in Step Up. You’ll need a bit of liquid courage to get through the night but that is completely acceptable.  The Bouncers are assholes, the drinks are expensive the boys are a different species and the music is terrible. But so long as you can find that one girl on the dance floor or that other one in the bathroom who will compliment your shoes you are going  to be fine.

May 22nd.

Posted on by sineadmorrissey95

In Ireland there is currently a debate which is heating up the country to boiling point, so much so that I myself have found myself to be growing apart from people I was previously quite friendly with over different views on this debate. The equal marriage referendum. Where gay and lesbian couples can marry the same way that a heterosexual couple can and don’t have to settle for a civil partnership. This would bring further equality to our country and this is why I feel like this is so important;

 When I was in fourth class our teacher got us to make puppets for art out of  toilet rolls, scraps of material and a bit of paint. I made Elvis, another girl made Avril Lavigne and another girl made a very blond and very pink Reese Witherspoon as her Character from the movie Legally Blond. When we made these characters we had to write up a little paragraph to go with them. The usual stuff like who they are, what they do and what they like to eat or some other little bit of trivia. We then had to present these in front of our class. When I got up I talked about how I  (speaking in the first person as my somewhat unimpressive Elvis puppet) was the king of rock and roll and how I loved my signature hair do, when the girl who made a significantly more impressive Avril Lavigne got up she talked about how she liked wearing ties and she was from Canada and loved skater boys and then the girl who made Legally Blond’s naïve but fashionable sorority girl Elle Woods got up to speak. She spoke about how she was a lawyer and her favourite colour was pink and how she got into Harvard and how she had a dog, a Chihuahua named Bruiser. Then the girl stopped talking and looked at the teacher sheepishly and asked

“Is it ok if I say this next bit?” 

The teacher looked at what the girl had written, smiled and nodded her head. The girl then giggled and with a big grin on her face like any child who felt like they were getting to do something bold would have she said

 “Bruiser is gay.” 

And the room of ten year old girls erupted into squeals and laughter, myself included in this because “gay” was a bad word. A naughty word. A word you wouldn’t say in front of a teacher. How was that ok? How did a child of ten think that it wasn’t ok to say that a fictional Chihuahua was gay because it was so scandalous that she felt the need to ask the teacher. Of course I’m not saying that girl was wrong, she was ten. To her Santa was alive and well and babies walked out through a door that appeared in their moms belly button. But that’s the way Ireland was and that was only 9 years ago.

The next time I encountered the G word was in 5th class. I was that girl in the class who had short hair, hated dresses, watched Pokemon and loved nothing more than getting straight up filthy in mud after playing outside. And when you’re 11 the awkward phase begins, you start feeling things you didn’t before, and comments about your looks offend you and you might try on some of your moms lipstick and topics like Bras and periods and sex come up in conversation in the corner of the school yard because someone read something somewhere or someone’s mom was particularly open about it all. And during this awkward phase, because of my short hair and my tom boyish attitude someone turned around one day and said “Sinead is a Lesbian” to which I replied “No I’m Not!” absolutely horrified that someone would suggest this. For the next 2 years it was constantly whispered that Sinead was gay or Sinead is a lesbian and if I went to hug someone suddenly I had a crush on them. I went home at night and cried, not because I felt like I was being bullied but because I was absolutely terrified.

“What if I am gay?” I used to think to myself. “What if they are all right about me?”

It was then that my 11 year old brain started thinking well I love sports, I think range rovers are cool, I wear tracksuits and runners all the time, I hate Barbie’s and Bratz dolls and I don’t own any clothes with frills or any pink on them. All of these things I felt gave everyone the impression that I liked girls so I decided to act, I wore my friends skirt to appear girly just to be mocked because it was so out of character for me, I got my mom to buy me some dresses which she was thrilled about and I started putting on some make up. Not a single one of these things made me feel comfortable and I at 11 years old sacrificed my comfort. All of this to prove that I wasn’t gay.

Now that I’m older and quite comfortable with my sexuality I can honestly say I am quite fond of boys. Although I can’t say that I 100% know that a woman won’t come along in the future and make me feel like I’m walking on stars at this moment I’m pretty heterosexual so people are going to ask why am I getting so worked up about all of this? I’m getting worked up because that girl had to ask the teacher could she say gay, I’m getting worked up because we all laughed, I’m getting worked up because I at 11 years old changed my appearance, my actions and even the shows I watched because society said it was wrong. I’m getting worked up because I at 11 years old went to bed at night terrified that there was something wrong with me. That my friends and family wouldn’t like me if there was something wrong with me, something that I was so young that I didn’t even understand enough to assure myself that there wasn’t. I am getting worked up because no 10 year old should feel like they can’t say the word gay, I am getting worked up because no 11 year old should be scared of who they are or who they might be.

This referendum won’t fix everything but it will be a step in the right direction, it will show that people of all genders and sexualities in Ireland are equal, that children don’t have to be scared to be who they are or love who they want to. So please vote yes. Vote yes for your son or your daughter or your grandchildren who shouldn’t be brought into a culture that appreciates one person’s love more than another’s. Love is an emotion, not political statement, not scripture, it is a feeling that Is necessary in every humans life. Children should be able to feel how they want to feel and have crushes on who they want to have crushes on and not be afraid that they are wrong because they are not. Nobody should have to feel like they can’t hold their lovers hand in public or bring them home to meet their family and friends and out of fear.

I know that legalising marriage for couples of all sexualities wont immediately eradicate these fears, but to improve the world we live in we need to do so one step at a time or else will be forever standing still and it is time to walk. Everyone should be allowed to experience love and everyone should be viewed as equal so that we can hand a better world down to our children and they in turn will hand an even better one down to theirs.

 

“To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity”-Nelson Mandela

Life as professor Lupin

Posted on by sineadmorrissey95

“I believe we have an intruder,” whispers Bert, ” That guy over there looks like he could do some damage.”

“Too right you are Bert! That guy simply doesn’t belong with us. What should we do?” Frank strokes his beard as he ponders his options for a moment while keeping an eye on the unknown trespasser, unsure of how to continue he thinks of his father (God rest his soul)  and what he would have done if he were in this predicament. Bert, his trusty companion stares at Frank, his eyes brimming with admiration and wonder and Frank knows he can’t appear weak in front of the boy, what would he have left? Some fool who enabled some infiltrator to cause harm to them all? No. He had to act!

“Bert, we are going to attack that fool before he can do any harm! It is my sworn duty to protect our home!” Bert wells up with emotion and claps his scrawny hands with excitement. “God bless you sir! God bless you and your heroism!” Bert blubber through his tears.

” All in a days work my boy”. Frank pulls at his expensive, leather, muffin top giving belt before he starts towards this unknown degenerate. “WHO ARE YOU?! HOW DARE YOU EXPECT TO BE LEFT ALIVE!”

The unknown degenerate looks up from its shopping bag with a panicked expression, “I-I’m one of ye Frank?” they stammer, “I have lived here my whole life?”

“LIAR! BERT, ATTACK!”

Now, before we continue, I would just like to let it be known that Bert and Frank will play a part in this blog post at a later stage but now I feel like a little background information is necessary. My name is Sinead. I am a 19 year old green tea enthusiast, a lover of fantasy novels, movies and a range of musical genres, a true believer that Edna Mode should rule the world and a passionate wine drinker. And I have recently been diagnosed with systematic lupus (hence the reference to professor Lupin, (yes I also enjoy puns and wordplay) Now although Professor R.J. Lupin’s name makes reference to his disease, mine does not and my disease is not nearly as bad ass or as compromising on a night out.  J.K. Rowling really is a clever bean when it comes to her character names and wordplay, Voldemort means Flight Of Death in Latin, and the spell Accio which summons an object means I summon in Latin. See? Rather Clever. Well Remus Lupin is no different, Lupin is a play on the Latin word Lupine which means Of a Wolf which I suppose was a bit of a hint to all of us when we started The Prizoner Of Azkaban, and I’m not even going to go into how his first name was a hint because we are starting to veer off topic.  As you can guess I don’t turn into a were wolf every full moon nor am I an exceptional Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. I am a student, and my second name is Morrissey which has no hidden meaning but is the name of an excellent, brooding English rock singer who came to fame in the 80’s but I suppose we can’t all be so lucky.

Lupus is an auto-immune disorder, now this is where our babes Frank and Bert come into things, Frank and Bert represent my immune system. I am pretty sure my immune system or the cells within it don’t have a beard, role models, scrawny hands or do any kind of shopping but you get the point. The immune system is there to keep you safe from infection yada yada yada Etc. But, did Bert and Frank seem like the brightest crayons Crayola have to offer? No. And this is precisely why at the end of that not so epic tale they go and attack the character who goes by the name Unknown Degenerate, their stupidity however does not stop with the fact that they rushed straight into violence (Flower Power kids) but it continues onto the fact that Unknown Degenerate was in fact, not an unknown degenerate… *Shocked gasps* *Woman in Victorian ball gown Faints as her maid fans her*. Yes they did in fact attack one of their own. This is exactly what Lupus does, basically healthy cells are attacking healthy cells which obviously weakens the defence line. For example do you think if when Gondor was attacked in the Return of The King Gandalf just started taking out his own men while a fucking troll tried to bust through the gate it’d give Gondor a better chance, no? I didn’t think so either. ( I also can’t promise that that will be my last fictional reference because it wont be.)  Here is a snazzy little cartoon drawing that basically sums up the whole thing.auto

Now the first sign I had that I had this strangely named disease was that I had an extremely red face, and I being a naturally pasty white beauty from Ireland noticed this pretty much straight away. It was like my own personal Oscar red carpet across my nose and cheeks just without the glamour, the celebrities, my dream dress and I didn’t win anything.. it was nothing like the Oscars.. it was a rash. I constantly looked like I’d just come back from a really long run in the freezing cold which isn’t a great look to be frank.

The next symptom to make its debut is described as being “aches and pains in the joints and limbs”. Whoever came up with that description needs to walk across a floor of lego barefoot and let me know if they had some aches and pains in their feet, this was agonizing, a constant dull ache 24/7 requiring constant bone cracking met with intervals of sharp, slicing pain which appeared due to the slightest movement. Turning off the light before bed almost had me in tears on a few occasions, lifting my arms above my head was a huge no go zone and I can tell you now that putting on a bra was near to impossible without shouting belligerently through gritted teeth which anyone would agree is pretty weird. I was woken from my slumber on at least several occasions just due to the pain of rolling over, this would cause me to jolt upright which would cause significantly more pain. My hands were also pretty badly affected because my once very flexible hand (Can you use the word flexible to describe a hand?) turned into a weird claw thing that reminded me of velociraptors in Jurassic Park, so waving was pretty much out of the picture. So Lupus has so far given me:

  •  A physical hindrance to my natural beauty which is in turn a hindrance in my quest for beautiful men.
  •  Misery inducing agonizing pain which did somewhat also affect my quest for beautiful men.

Next up to join the club was the exhaustion. Now I do not claim to be a morning person, the concept is both alien and unnatural to me, no I prefer to wake up naturally in the early hours of the afternoon to a beautiful noon sky as birds sing outside or rain dances on my window and mosey on down to the kitchen for a bit of brunch after having a bit of a read in bed. But this kind of weariness was like I was constantly just after being chloroformed. People would be sitting in front of me chatting away about extremely important things like what sauce should they put on their chicken? or what they should wear to Angel Lane that night? and I would literally be dozing off as they spoke. Now when I do eventually get out of bed I am quite an active person, I do enjoy doing things but at this point walking to and from college, simply a ten minute walk would wipe me out, going to the gym would have me in a comatose state and it would take me even longer to recover from a night out. So I was in pain, not at my most attractive looking and a possible narcoleptic. And all of this flared up to an unbearable point on the one week it shouldn’t have.

This week is the week all college student whisper about for the other 51 weeks of the year, this week has inspired myths and given people the title of legend, this week is both terrifying and beautiful and nearly paralyzes anyone who hears its name being uttered. RAG week. RAG week is a week of charity, giving, generosity, events, parties, binge drinking and bad life choices. RAG week is a week of royalty and I as a freshman in college was absolutely buzzing for the chance to go out and experience it all first hand. But no, Lupus had a different idea to myself..

DAY 1. I arrived to college three hours early, I had my drink ( a bottle of Smirnoff vodka) bought before I arrived, I had my outfit for the night planned and I and all the rest of my friends were rearing to go. It was a fabulous night, Ashleigh almost got us kicked out of the local chipper due to throwing chips at a guy’s face as she tried to get one in his mouth ( he was unaware of this), we made random friends, Brick spent more of the night on the floor from falling over than she did standing and Julie and I tore up the dance floor in a way that only white drunk girls can. A success all round.

DAY 2. I decided to get in on the festivities, went down to the college bar at around 2pm, my comrades were already there leading the way with pints of cider. There was music, shouting, a mechanical bull and a lack of dignity in that bar, it was a thing of beauty. Then that night came which will fondly be remembered as the night that Podge got brilliantly drunk, broke a pipe in the boys house in 41 and didn’t make it to town however I did make it to town. And by the time the clock stroke midnight I was exhausted, cranky, and drunk and my shoes were beginning to hurt. So I gathered up the troops and as soon as I could funnel them all into a taxi I went home..

DAY 3. I woke up that morning in searing pain, my face a shade of scarlet I had never seen and barely able to keep myself awake. My roommate Kieran’s good friends were coming up that night for the festivities and everyone was excited but all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and disappear. Long story short I didn’t make it out, I got too drunk, couldn’t stop shivering and couldn’t keep my eyes open. But when my darling roommates retuned they made sure I knew they had. Screaming, shouting, doors slamming, laughing and some wrestling all while I slowly died in my bedroom wrapped up in a ridiculous amount of clothing.

DAY 4. The acceptance of defeat. I rang my mom and told her I needed to come home, teary eyed and tired I knew I just needed my mom. I told everyone my granddad was sick so I was going home to help my mom but the truth was I was just miserable and I just wanted to go to sleep and drink some tea. My mom told me to come home and she’s take care of me and that’s all I wanted really so I threw in the towel, jumped off the band wagon and whatever other sayings you can think of.

Within the next week I was admitted to hospital, poked and prodded by doctors, gave blood 7 times, watched every Disney movie on Netflix and was diagnosed with Systematic Lupus.

Since then I’ve been put on this lovely stuff called Plaquenil which I will have to take twice a day every day forever and I’ve also been put on a small dose of steroids because I wasn’t enough of a tank already. So ya that’s it, as I said it isn’t as cool as becoming a werewolf and it has absolutely no perks and a significant amount of flaws but I suppose that’s life, que cera cera and all those sayings.

S.M.