The Good and The Bad

It seems that recently, most my posts have been apologies about not posting that often. Sorry about that. I don’t know what it is, I’ve lost my mojo or something! I’ll try and try again to get back in the swing though.

This time of the year is probably my favourite and also least favourite months. I have the bad things:

-It was around this time that my Nana died. I was very close to her and it still upsets me.

-It’s also coming up to the anniversary of my friend Mags.

-The weather getting worse and the days shorter don’t help with my mood really, it really brings me down.

-All this is made worse by not having a job.

Though on the flip side, there’s generally lots of good too! Like:

-It’s my birthday soon!

-The weather is great snuggling and cosy weather.

-Halloween! (my favourite holiday but I’m not sure what my plans are this year *sadface*)

-Christmas is just around the corner.

-I love autumn and winter foods!

So I’ll try and buck up a bit more. I still have a backlog of stuff to right about. And please, if you have ANY Halloween costume ideas, let me know in a comment below!

Ireland: Should I stay or should I go?

Australia. There’s probably more Irish there at the moment than Australians. It seems to be the place for Irish people to emigrate to and yet, despite the fact that several of my friends are over there right now, I have zero interest. Sure, I would like to visit Australia at some stage, but I don’t want to move there. Though when I say this to people, even close friends, they look at me like I have two heads or something. When my boyfriend returned after spending 4 months there, one of the most common questions he got was ‘Would you go back?’. And most times he answers ‘No, not without Breige’. Cue people turning to me with an inquisitive look on their face. Which quickly turned to shock when I said I had no intention of heading out there anytime soon.

Why is this so shocking? Why is it such a bad thing to want to be close to home? Don’t get me wrong, I love to travel and can’t wait until I can jet off somewhere again. I’m not one of those people who never wants to leave their county, let alone the country. But Australia isn’t a priority right now. If someone handed me a wad of money and said ‘Here, go travel!’. Europe would be first on my list. Which apparently is ‘boring’ as it’s on the doorstep and I can go there anytime. But it’s what I want! And people seem to sneer at this for some reason.

I don’t want to leave Ireland like my grandparents had to. I’ve lived here most of my life, it’s my home and I’m damn proud of it. Especially after the international spotlight has shone so brightly on us recently, I can’t tell you how happy I was that the Queen of England and Barack Obama’s visits went smoothly. The atmosphere here after that was amazing, a mix of hope, pride and happiness. There was no talk of IMFs, recessions or bankers, just the sheer pride of being Irish.

As much as I want to stay home and help rebuild the economy, it’s looking worse as the days go by. The timing for my college graduating year couldn’t have been worse. We went into college during a boom, when jobs were plentiful. One of the first things that was said to us in college was that everyone in the course who had graduated that year either went into a job or into further studies. 4 years later and it’s a different story. Even after a year, there’s still so many of us unemployed. It is disheartening and at the same time frustrating, because my generation didn’t cause this recession and yet we’re suffering for it. Suffering for something we had no control over.

It’s no wonder that so many people I know are now living abroad. And it’s in my mind more and more everyday. Should I stay or should I go? By the end of this year, unless things pick up, I might just have to go. Where to? I don’t really know. London maybe, or perhaps Canada. Australia? I might not want to go there, but the way things are, I might not have a choice.

Things to Do Before You Die

 

There was an interesting post on Beaut.ie a couple of weeks ago about Ten Things to Do Before You Die. And it got me thinking. Not just about all the things I want to do and places I want to see. But also about the list I made when I was 11/12. I went rooting around my room and sure enough, I found the list! So here it is, all spelling mistakes corrected, all the things I have so far achieved bolded and comments in italics!

1. Learn languages (French, German & Spanish). I’ve bolded French as I studied it in school but it’s certainly rusty!

2. Pass my exams (Junior Cert and Leaving Cert). You can tell I wrote this as a young un as college exams never crossed my mind! But I am pleased to say I passed those too!

3. Travel the world. A work in progress

4. Dye Hair (Normal colour and wild colour). I’ve never had the balls to put a fun colour like blue or purple into my hair, though I really want to try it

5. Get a small tattoo. Not sure if I want to do this still

6. Stay in touch with all my friends. I wrote this list after moving after 5th class. And no, it didn’t happen then to be honest, except for a handful of people.

7. Get a good job. Again, work in progress

8. Bungee jump. I was certainly a more fearless back then, I’m now afraid of heights but it’s something I’d still half consider maybe possibly doing.

9. Parachute. Again, heights. Again, maybe.

10. Zorb

11. Swim with dolphins. Not so keen on this, but I would still do it if I had the chance

12. Learn to drive and pass exam. Not only both of these but I now have my very first car!

13. Try to beat a World Record. Ambitious wasn’t I?!

14. Learn to fly an aeroplane. See the above comment

15. Design clothes and make them

16. Learn to use a sewing machine

17. Stay fit and healthy. Nope, can’t say this one has worked out but it can still be achieved!

18. Go to a concert. My first one being Justin Timberlake!

19. Be in a movie or TV show

20. Scuba dive

21. Go to the Ice Hotel. Still REALLY want to do this one!

22. Have a weird pet. Umm, no thanks!

23. Appear in a magazine

24. Become a vegetarian for a month. Something I often think about doing, just for the experience

25. Learn a martial art. I once won a free karate term, went to one and decided it most definitely wasn’t for me!

26. Go to a health farm/spa. Anyone want to treat me?!

27. Stop biting my nails and grow them. After years of trying, I have succeeded!

28. Go to a yoga course

29. Learn 1st aid. I’ve learnt basic 1st aid in TY, I would love to do a more in depth one though

30. Learn to belly dance

31. Adopt an animal. I think I meant more sponsor an animal, like in a zoo, but now if I was going to get a pet, I think I would adopt one from an animal shelter

32. Kiss the Blarney Stone. I’d forgotten this was on the list! I did it earlier this year on 2nd January

33. Learn to ski. Nowhere close to learning!

34. Go on a rollercoaster

It’s funny how your ambitions and goals change as you get older. Looking at this list, I see I was definitely more ambitious and more confident in myself. And a bit in vague (like travel the world, I only mentioned one place I specifically wanted to go to and that was the bloody Blarney Stone!).

I say my list has changed considerably. There’s still things on here I would like to do, but I know there’s so much more I want to do and more importantly, so much more I want to see in the world. I think I’ll make an updated list some time soon and post it here!

New Year’s Resolutions!

So until last year, I never really ‘did’ New Year’s Resolutions. I thought they were lame. Why promise to change something just at the being of the year? Why not make resolutions throughout the year, try better yourself all the time? I used to bite my fingernails and one day just decided to stop. And it worked. I think if I had made it a resolution though, I would have failed.

I don’t know what changed last year, but I decided to make some resolutions. I supposed I needed some focus, something to work towards. And that’s important more this year than ever before. I suppose they were more goals that resolutions, I was trying to achieve something instead of just change something. These are the ones I did manage to achieve:

1. Cook 12 new meal dishes

2. Make 12 new dessert dishes

3. Watch 50 films I’ve never seen before

4. Start a blog!

The other stuff I didn’t get around to completing, like read 50 books (I got as far as finishing 14, plus starting another 10. I like to have several books on the go), my weight loss goal (though I gave it a good try) and visit 3 new countries (money restrictions prevented this unfortunately, otherwise I would have).

For this year, I think I’ll stick to similar enough goals, but I might modify them a bit. So here they are!

1. Cook 12 new savoury/dinner dishes

2. Make 12 new sweet dishes

3. Read 25 books

4. Watch 50 films I’ve never seen before

5. Eat more fruit and veg

6. Lose weight and exercise more (I do have a more specific goal than this, but I don’t want to talk about it just yet)

7. Write more on the blog

8. Get a job

I also want to learn a new skill, I haven’t decided what yet but I might start that a few months later, I don’t want to load too much on at one time.

Hope 2011 and is going well for all of you so far. What are your resolutions? Do you make them? Do you stick to them? Let me know!