I thought I'd start a mini series about women and what it's like to be one. I will try not to get on my feminist high horse but if I do, don't worry, I'm not one of those hysterical women who gets offended if a man holds a door open. I think it's healthy to accept that men and women ARE different, and yes we do tend to fall into certain roles which are always good to challenge, but the sexism comes from assuming that the woman is not capable of opening the door, not from a man showing simple old-fashioned chivalry. Hell we need a bit more Pride and Prejudice style behaviour. (Oh and any surly Darcy types feel free to contact me. NOW)
Anyway, I thought I'd start with a few of the most cliched questions. If any men have questions they'd like to see in the mini series (that phrase makes it sound much grander than it is!), then feel free to comment, or if any women disagree with my explanations, or wish to add to them, then please comment also.
Also, gender related topics can get people's dander up (or as I used to think - dandruff), so please remember this is just a bit of fun!

- When we go to the toilet in groups it is for the following reasons.

*We are shy walking past a whole bar/pub/restaurant full of people.
*We feel like Bambi in our heels and need subtle support disguised as arm linking.
*We need to ask an urgent question such as "Are there herbs in my teeth? Cos I haven't smiled in an hour", "Do I look fat? Honestly? No HONESTLY!!!" or "Do you have a spare pad" Sorry if that last one is too much info boys but it's true.
*We just feel like having a girly giggle and comparing our control pants.
*If social situation is tedious/tense/awkward, then it is to discuss best tactics for dealing with said situation.
*But usually it's the first reason - we're just a little shy and want our girlies, that's all.

- Why do women say "If you don't know what's wrong, then there's no point me telling you"?
Well to be fair, I don't ever say this and my friends don't seem to either, they're fairly straight up and don't expect boyfriends to be psychic (except about chocolate truffle needs.) But here is the logic behind it never the less. If you sense you have done something wrong then you should realise what it is you have done wrong, because you should be 1.sensitive enough to understand how something could have hurt them before you did it in the first place but as we all make mistakes you should 2. be intuitive and know your partner's character enough to at least make a good guess at what the general area is from which their upset is arising. The fact that you can't (or appear not to be able to) makes some women feel like you don't really know them deeply. It's just based on an insecurity. Though sometimes it might be due to genuine insensitivity on the man's part.

That'll do for today, I need some testosterone in my evening after that, so I'm off to drool over pictures of Alan Rickman
Tomorrow: PMS *all male readers suddenly run for cover* - get back here you cowards!

In my last post, I spoke about how little Irish most people have in Ireland. I had been hoping to show this by posting a video of a Carlsberg ad currently playing here that everyone finds hilarious, mostly because of the familiarity of the words the man uses - you could say they are 'default' words and phrases, learned off in order to scrape a pass in an exam. Finally, someone posted it on YouTube. Look out for the word 'cáca milis', a favourite of mine! Watch the video first before reading the translation in order to get the full effect of its funniness.

Here's what he says in order of when he says them.

An bhfuil cead agam go dtí an leithreas? - Can I go out to the toilet?
Agus madra rua, is maith liom. - And a fox, I like.
Cáca milis - Cake
Agus Sharon Ní Bheoláin - And Sharon Ní Bheoláin (an Irish news presenter, popular with the men!)
Tá geansaí orm - I am a jumper.
Tá scamaill sa spéir! - The clouds are in the sky.
Tabhair dom an cáca milis! - Give me the cake!
Ciúnas bóthar cailín bainne - Listen road girl milk

Classic ad!

Inspired by a post on bloglikeit's blog (not real name obviously). I thought I might start a post on the Irish language. In Ireland, all students, except those who are exempt due to either being from somewhere outside the country or issues like dyslexia, learn Irish from Junior Infants right through to their final year of secondary school. That's 14 years. Yet the majority of students leave not even near fluent, save for those with a talent for languages, those who attended an Irish speaking school, or those who live in the Gaeltacht areas. The way it is taught turns students off. We don't use it in general conversation, though it is on all roadsigns and the news is given in Irish after the usual edition etc., yet it is given huge priority in our exams over languages we would use like French. The pressure caused by insisting on it being one of the core subjects we are examined on for our finals means we get no enjoyment, especially as they force the culture of it into the lessons, which, being Irish anyway, we don't need. However, having been out of school a good number of years now, I have noticed myself feeling more of a need to be even semi-fluent and a lot of my friends feel similar. It is no longer just a boring school subject, now it is a part of my heritage.
I think a lot of people feel let down when they get older by the way it is treated in schools.
Most people probably know more than they realise but just haven't enough practice using it to feel competent. There are several phrases which are almost like running jokes because they are pretty much guaranteed to turn up in any student's essay whether in first year or you final Leaving Cert exams. These include the use of phrases such as "I like...", "I prefer...", "I hate...", "I was sad" or "I was very sad" if you're feeling particularly clever. Then you will find some contrived way to include phrases such as "He ran like the wind" or "The clouds were in the sky". The majority of essays will be written in the past tense because that's the easiest one to remember, and at all costs students will avoid having a character say that they "would do" something.

Here are some of the standard phrases we learn when little.

“Rith mé ar nós na gaoithe” - I ran like the wind.
“Ta scamallach sa spéir” - The clouds are in the sky.
“Is maith liom cáca milis” - I like cake.
“Is fearr liom an sceallóga prátaí” - I prefer chips.
“Bhi an fearg orm” - I was very angry. Most essays end this way.

Most essays end up being about someone who went to school, saw clouds in the sky, liked cake all day, went home, had chips for dinner and then went to bed angry for no apparent reason.

It’s hard to explain how to pronounce Irish words. An important thing to understand is the ‘fada’. This is similar to the accents and graves in French. The word ‘fada’ means long, and it is a dash found over vowels, indicating that you should draw out the sound of the vowel. So the word ‘cáca’ without the fada would be pronounced “cah-cah” but as it does have a fada it is pronounced “cawcaw”. Sounds like a mad bird screaming basically.

Pronunciation also depends on the dialect (Munster, Ulster, Connacht, Leinster). Prepositional pronouns come at the end. This is the sort of thing that makes people completely unfamiliar with the language so confused - most of the sentences are constructed with the words out of order, by English standards anyway. For instance, if you want to say that someone possesses something you use one of the following - agam, agat, aige, aici, againn, agaibh, acu - I, you, he, she, we, you, they. To say "I have a book", you say "Tá leabhar agam" which translates directly as "There is a book at me". Now you know where people get that idea of the Irish being poetic. None of our sentences are constructed logically! A 'h' is also added after the first letter of many words if it's plural, or else there is an 'í' or and 'aí' at the end of the word.

Now for some basic phrases and that's the end of todays (and probably any other) lesson!

MoonBunny is ainm dom - MoonBunny is my name - MB is (hiss the 's', don't pronounce it like a 'z') annum dumb.

Dia duit - Hello (literally God be with you) - Dee-ah gwit (slur the t at the end of a word by pushing your tongue gently at the bottom of your front teeth)

Conas atá tú? - How are you? - Cun-us ataw too

Tá mé go maith - I am fine (literally I am doing well) - Taw may guh moh (or 'my' depending on dialect)

Go raibh maith agat - Thank you (literally Thanks be with you) - Guh rev moh a-gut (remember to slur the t!!)

Tá failte romhat - You are welcome - Taw faultcha row-at (slur the 'at')

Slan leat - Goodbye - slawn lat

Is breá leat - I love you - Is (hiss the s) braw lat

Maith thú - Well done - Mah who

Sláinte - Cheers - Slawncha

Sin sin - That's it - Shin shin

Le do thoile - Please - Leh duh hullay

Gabh mo leithscéal - Excuse me - Gah muh lehsch-gale

Más é do thoil é - Please - Maws (remember the s is always quite clipped)ay duh hull ay

Actually the last phrase reminds me of the most commonly used phrase by students - "Lig amach mé, más é do thoil é?" - "Can I go out please?" which means can you leave the classroom to go to the loo please!!! If it's urgent you will need to be able to call 'Múinteoir!!Múinteoir!!" - Mween-ture Mweenture - "Teacher, teacher!!"

I am writing a post on the Irish language and happened to come across this as I looked for something in relation to it on YouTube. I simply had to share. You will see why, it needs no introduction

Overindulgence does NOT feel good.
I have been a bit of a spendthrift lately as a way of making myself feel better when feeling beyond stressed and exhausted with college work etc. but today was ridiculously wasteful. How haveth I byn wastefule (I'm making up my own medieval spellings now after all this bloody English work). Let me count the ways.

1. Accepted a lift from the matriarch to college when I could have caught the bus (well two buses actually).
2. Bought small bottle Diet Coke from a vending machine, after having to spend 6 quid on articles from the student copy centre.
3. Got two buses home instead of taking one and walking half way.
4. Bought LARGE bag of Minstrels and another small bottle Diet Coke (needed caffeine after uber heavy week)
5. Needed to get money out of ATM to give tenner to matriarch that I owed, but ATM not working so my only option was to get cashback in the supermarket where to make it acceptable to ask for cashback I bought a large bottle of Diet Coke (!!!!!!!) and a packet of Walkers Sensations and a box of straws.
6. Got home to find -much to my surprise - two long-awaited parcels from a Japanese import site, including sibling's birthday present, but mostly Japanese snacks for...guess who? Yes me. Suffered extreme guilt attack as am expecting several other packages next week from EBay (including those rather spiffing heart-shaped sunglasses)and because I had already bought the crisps and Minstrels.
7. As had house to self for first time in months, decided to get a take away as that is the only time I ever get one. Spend a further 13 quid on that.
8. Ate far too much. (Why is there no vomit emoticon?) And didn't even eat 1/4 of the free bag of prawn crackers, and didn't even touch the prawn toast I decided to try because as far as I could see there was no evidence of PRAWN on it So I wasted perfectly good food too.

However I did get a B+ on my Dickens essay!!!

I am never going to get through this college year. There is literally no way to get through all the work. I expected there to be more work this year but no one is able to get all the books finished let alone the essays, the presentations and the exams. They've put them all so close together and assigned too many books. Things are changing in the college and we are their guinea pigs. This always happens when I start a course or diploma or something, and even in secondary school. They always just happened to be changing things and then my education and grades suffer as a result. Before my final secondary school exams, I think we were given a total of 7 different French teachers that year alone. No wonder I'm not fluent. I mean I'm barely fluent in English. Once I finish this degree, I'm done with education. That is IT. And I didn't sleep for a single minute last night, my head is hammering and I feel like Phineas Gage. Well at least he got a free tamping iron. I got a free lollipop.