Goodbye Childhood

For those of you who are already 18, you may laugh at this, or perhaps even think; 'God, get over it.', if you're the sort who 'doesn't suffer fools' then I suggest closing this tab/window right now, because what you're going to read in this blog post will be nothing short of nostalgic and unapologetically over-the-top mush.

Tomorrow, I'll turn 18. The world will continue to turn, there will be no marching bands, no applause, no 'formal announcement'. I myself will be the same person I was when I woke up this morning. I will not miraculously grow a few inches overnight, my years of abusing food, particularly chocolate, will not catch up to me overnight and leave me incapable of rolling out of bed (as I've joked before) and I won't have the perfect hair/skin/figure etc I imagined I'd have by now. Nothing will change. My 'childhood' will end, and that's that.

A part of me imagines that becoming an adult is impossible for someone with the mental maturity of a ten-year-old such as myself. Perhaps Peter Pan will appear tonight, apologize for being eight years late and send me on my merry way to Neverland to replace Wendy. Perhaps Edward Cullen will stop staring at me sleep (creeper) and decide to turn me finally turn me. I pray that if the latter occurs, you'll take pity on me and chop me up as soon as you see even a hint of sparkly skin in the sunlight. Check if it's glitter first though, yeah?

Today, for the first time, I thought about the things I've learned in my 18 years of life. I thought about my achievements, my friends, my goals, everything that made me..well, me. Perhaps I'll describe my reasoning behind these to you in more detail in another blog, but for now you'll get the short and sweet summation of my life and what I've learned.

1. You're gonna lose and make a lot of friends in your life. People change and outgrow each other.
2. Being 'Different' doesn't necessarily mean being yourself.
3. Caring about what people think about you is literally the biggest time waster.
4. Putting up with shit from someone you like/are in a relationship with is never worth it.
5. You're probably not gonna marry the person you like/are dating right now.
6. Appreciate what you have in life, there are people who are so much happier with a lot less.
7. Stop worrying about being forgotten, the people that matter will never forget you.
8. Getting up at 5AM for an interview for a Travel Award in Dublin is absolutely, 100% worth it.
9. Just accept it, you're always gonna start writing a project/extended essay the day before it's due.
10. Every action has a consequence. If you can't handle that then you seriously need to thinking about the way you're acting.
11. Treating people like shit gets you nowhere.
12. For God Sake, smile once in a while.
13. Nothing lasts forever, learn to say goodbye.
14. My heart will always belong to Vermont.
15. If you want something, you have to go out and get it/do it/make it. Nobody is going to do it for you.
16. Happiness is not a circumstance, it's a frame of mind.
17. If you can stand in front of a crowd and speak without feeling even the slightest hint of butterflies in your tummy, you're doing something wrong.
18. Life moves on. There's no stopping it.

And that's it. There's so much more to learn, so much more to see and do, but for now I'm happy. I thought writing this blog post would terrify me even more about becoming an adult, that I'd cry and beg to go back to the days when Santa was real, the Tooth Fairy was my only source of income and when being 'like, twelve' was a compliment cause it meant I looked older than I actually was.

If you found this a waste of time, if this little blog post frustrated you with it's idealistic, overly positive and perhaps clichéd views, then suck it up. I did warn you.

PS. I'll leave my window open a crack for you tonight, Peter. :')

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I would like to make it clear now, rather than later, that my recent blog post 'I'll wear my crest with pride' is in no way a dig at 96FM or Neil Prendeville. It was retaliation to comments that had circulated recently and were made known on the show. I'll admit that prior to writing my last post that I have been told, by countless sources that Prendeville had made harsh comments, and so used them as a way to reminisce and defend our school's reputation.

It is in no way a scathing retort to Prendeville or 96FM's views, it is simply me commenting on current opinions of our school.

I'll Wear My Crest with Pride.

"Reputation takes years to build, and only seconds to destroy."

Perhaps this was something the students at Christ King Secondary School have only just learned now that their school has been so harshly branded as the ‘Knacker School of Cork’ by 96fm DJ Neil Prendeville, a man who should know better than anyone how badly one sensationalized  not to mention isolated case can affect a reputation in the long run.

If I hated my school, perhaps I would agree with Prendeville.

Our school is extremely large and so to keep numbers up accept quite a few questionable characters. These are not people who are influenced by the school however, teachers don’t walk into classrooms with a guide on ‘how to pull hair’. At 12:20 every afternoon we recite the Angelus, not the rules of Fight Club. Yes, these girls behaved in an appalling manner, and yes, we are ashamed to admit that they were once (or perhaps still are) a part of our school. That does not make our school a ‘Knacker Hole’, such a thing does not exist, and to even call a collective group of people knackers is extremely offensive, not to mention small minded. Do not tar us all with the same brush. It's like blaming a Tabby for a lion attack, simply because they're both classified as 'cats'.

I do not hate my school, in fact, coming to Christ King has perhaps been one of the best decisions of my life.

In 2007, I came to this school as a chubby 12 year old girl with terrible roots and an ego that a fly could easily outsize. In 2013, I will leave Christ King as an accomplished young woman, comfortable and happy in my own skin, ready to face the big bad world after 6 years of preparation and guidance from the staff and students of Christ King. I owe more to Christ King than I’m even aware of. It’s a school that provides more services to students than other school in Cork, I myself study Japanese as a Leaving Cert Subject during school hours free of charge. I have quite a few friends who study Applied Maths for free not to mention the Agricultural Science class who are offered discounted prices for classes after school on a Wednesday. Never before have I seen a school so accommodating towards Students with all kinds of interests, point me towards a school that offers such high, affordable standards and I’ll point towards the pigs flying above your head.

It’s not only the classes that provide students with the best opportunities to excel, but the staff’s interest in students activities outside of school is a kind that I had never experienced before Christ King. I've participated in debating and public speaking competitions, admittedly I've never won, but my participation and enthusiasm alone was enough to have teachers asking me how I was getting on, this participation led to a friendly relationship with my debating teacher, who later became my reference for a Travel Award to The Governors Institute of Vermont 2012 and who I believe, ultimately helped me to win the trip of a lifetime which I had the pleasure to go on last summer.

It is because of these reasons, and so many more that I cannot in good conscience say that ‘Christ King is the knacker school of Cork’. I am not the rare success story, those two girls are the rare failure.

For the last 5-6 years I have worn my CKSS crest with pride and I have no intention of stopping now. 

In the Beginning...

Writing the first post is always a daunting task.

While a part of you wonders; 'Am I being funny enough?' 'Am I being serious enough?' 'Do I even make sense?!' the other part of you is so uncertain as to what to write about that after writing, deleting and rewriting various intros, you eventually end up writing about how you're currently writing your first blog post. 

Not only that, but beginning a new blog causes all sorts of ideas to come to mind as to what to use this blog for, you become so excited that if you don't spend all day writing blog entries, you end up forgetting them, then leaving the blog to collect dust for a few months and much like that 'fitness regime' you planned a few months ago, you look back and simply shrug. No point in starting now.

I'm going to keep this short and sweet, because honestly, who reads those mega-long posts anyway? I am an overly opinionated (almost) 18 year old student with much too much time on my hands. Welcome to the dumping ground for my random mind clutter.