After the stress of the last couple of months and the last two weeks in particular, I've decided to take a day off today.

This semester at college has almost come to a close and I have only a couple of assignments to complete before the exams begin next week. Having my time eaten up by rehearsals for The Crucible and a full day with the Civil Defence (competitions) yesterday, only added to the stress that I was already feeling, and I know that I have been unbearable to live with recently.



On Saturday night, immediately after the play finished, I 'skipped' the traditional last night drinks and sing-song with the rest of the cast, drove straight home, plonked myself on the couch, opened the laptop to write a piece for college that had to be in by Sunday morning, and promptly began to bawl my eyes out. Oh, I suppose I was being childish, but my head was such a jumbled mish mash of tiredness, stress and confusedness that I could no longer keep my emotions in check.

When I moved to Clonmel, originally, I knew no one, so I became involved in things in order to meet people. Now, here I was, four years later, involved in so much that I didn't have time to socialise with the people I'd met. And, for the last couple of months, not only have I not had the time to socialise but I haven't been spending any quality time with the girls or Jay either. Every moment of every day is spent rushing from one thing to the other and I felt on Saturday that I was going to go mad from being on overdrive all the time.

For too long I've felt the need to make up for time lost and opportunities missed over the years by trying to do everything and experience as much as possible. Even on holidays I allow for very little time to relax and insist on dashing around visiting every site in the Lonely Planet guide book because " you never know, we may never get the opportunity to be here again". By the time we get home from being on holiday we need another holiday to recover from the exhaustion.

So I've made the decision to take a step back from everything I'm involved in. Although I only had a small part in this Guild production the rehearsals still took up a lot of time - time that I could have used to study or finish tasks for college, or time that I could have spent with Ally and Bee. And it's unfair of me to commit to a part if I can't, or if I resent dedicating the time to it.

Today I'm going to use my time to get my notes together for study and catch up on paperwork (bills and stuff). I'll take Bee to her optician's appointment later on and we might eat out. Then I'll have an early night tonight and be ready to start studying tomorrow. At this stage I'll live with being able to answer enough in the exams to pass. Other things are more important in life!

Following the purchase of my new camera I'm taking a real interest in photos that other people are taking. This is one of my faves that I spotted when I did a search for "Fethard" on Flickr recently. Fethard is not a million miles away from where I live and it's a beautiful town. I hope to take a few photos of the walls, myself, over the next couple of weeks.

I took out the new camera during the week to get a few snaps of Roxy - who is now, probably, the most photographed animal on the planet. Since the camera arrived, there is not one of us who hasn't bribed the poor mutt with biscuits to make her sit, stand, stay, or otherwise perform for the lens. At this stage, she has taken to letting out an almighty sigh of boredom every time she sees one of us approaching.

I got what I thought were a couple of nice shots. At least, I thought they were nice until Ally pointed out to me that the mop and bucket were in the background of the one taken in the kitchen, and the toilet and cistern in the bathroom were clearly visible in the other that had been snapped in the hallway. "Do you not take note of what's in the background, mammy?" she asked me, shaking her head as if there was no hope for me. Maybe there isn't. Maybe I'm doomed to spend the rest of my life unable to take a decent photograph. "You should Photoshop it....make it black and white....and blur the background" she told me.

Sigh! It's as simple as that really. :)

....and I wish they'd stop!

Cycling on the Convent Bridge

That's what was written on my grant form that was returned to me this week (although, admittedly, without all the exclamation marks after it).

I'm disappointed, but I'm not going to throw a tantrum, as much as I'd like to. I've paid the college fee and I'm in....that's the important bit. I can cope with tightening the purse strings for a while (although they're pretty damn tight as it is). I'll wait till next year when Ally decides she'll go to college too, and I'll have my panic attack then when we're trying to pull money out of turnips to get us both through the college doors. Hmmm.........turnip growing......there's an idea......

For now I'm going to go to bed and get a good night's rest and play catch up with all my assignments over Saturday and Sunday. I'll also be attempting to fit in a Christmas cake tomorrow.

No, I don't mean I'll be trying to perform an awesome stunt by squishing myself into the mixing bowl; I mean I'll be trying to fit it into my 'schedule'.

This is the first free weekend that I've had in a long time. Who knows.....with a good night's sleep I might even throw up an 'interesting' blog post tomorrow for a change.

Remember that 'To Do' list? Well, I'm convinced it's called the 'To Do' list because the stuff on it never gets done! I need a new name for it....and then I need to sticky tape it to my forehead or somewhere where I'm liable to see it every morning.

I wrote it on the 30th September (if you scroll down or click next page or something you'll see it). And it stands like this at the moment:-

1. Lose weight
Let's face it - it just isn't going to happen this side of Christmas. I am resigned to looking like the Michelin Man's mother for at least another month or two. I have the best of intentions. I buy fruit.... I buy crisps....I eat the crisps.....I chuck the fruit out. It doesn't get any better.

2. Do something about the General
If my brother reads my blog he'll be on the next flight over here from Oregon to kick my ass! The mini is sitting outside the back door, half of a floor has been put into the shed, it's been PIDDLING rain for the last few days, and I'm fairly sure I can see another rust spot appearing on the bonnet. The dog jumps up on the mini constantly because she's chasing bees or wasps or butterflies and one day she's going to land on her rear end when the mini crashes to the ground beneath her. And then I'm going to flee the country so my brother can't find me.

3. Finish floor of shed
See number 2 above.

4. Start organising the house for Allie's debs
Allie is not going to her debs. She told me she doesn't want to go. So that has put the kaibosh on plans for a party.

5. Finish the plans for the extension and submit them.
They're finished. I don't know where they are but they're finished.

6. Sit down with my parents and see what they think of the preliminary sketches.
Following many requests for changes (by me), Jay eventually got the sketch printed out. When I saw it I told him the sitting room was too small. It was too narrow. I told him my mother wasn't going to be happy. I e-mailed it to her. She e-mailed me back. She was delighted with it.

7. Invest in a radio fence
Apparently radio fences are better at keeping dogs out than in because once the feckers experience the pain of running through them the first time they then refuse to come back. The radio fence is a non runner.

8. Catch up with college assignments
*Laughs insanely, crawls into corner of sitting room and sucks thumb while staring into space*

9. Give up one thing
I give up trying to catch up on college assignments.

10. Watch 'Gone with the wind'. Read the book
I watched it. The dog ate the book.....*cough*....

11. Buy a decent laptop
Once I get the €100 million into my pocket on Monday morning I will.

12. Buy a decent camera
My mother has gone to the States to see my brother. She's going to keep a look out for a decent camera for me. God only knows what she'll come back with. She told me she'll get my brother to pick something out. God only knows what she'll come back with. If he gets word of the mini he'll probably come back with her in her suitcase.

13. Buy some decent clothes
It's not like I haven't tried, but even the new clothes shop in Clonmel (Menarys) doesn't do 'Mother of Michelin Man' sizes.

14. Book a holiday
Probably the most sensible thing I could possibly do right now what with the possible visit from my brother looming on the horizon.

Feckin' 'To do' lists!!!

I shouldn't be blogging. I should be finishing a piece of writing (a class assignment) that I started this morning and should have been submitted earlier on today, but I'm having great difficulty in trying to end it. Ah well.....everyone needs a break....

On Wednesday evening I took the girls to see This Is It, partly because I wanted to see it, and partly because I thought I'd BETTER see it as it's going to crop up somewhere at some stage in a media writing exam.

The girls had seen the film at the weekend, in Kildare, with their dad, and had come home on Sunday talking ninety to the dozen about it and how terrific it was and how they had cried at parts of it and laughed at others.

"You WILL cry mam", my older daughter assured me as we got ready.
"Nah", I replied, "my days of getting emotional over Michael Jackson are long gone." (I used to be a big Michael Jackson fan during the '80s and early '90s and I'm not referring to my size.)
" I cried", she continued. "So did Bee and Josie".
"And I should cry BECAUSE you and Bee and Josie cried, right?"
"Yep!"
I laughed. "Come on, we'll be late".

Ten minutes later we were in the cinema in Clonmel. Being a Wednesday night there was a very small crowd there, and only a small number of these were queueing to see This Is It. I got the tickets (Screen 1), and we were delighted to be able to get seats right at the back.....or at least, I was. Maybe I'm getting old but I always prefer the seats at the back of the cinema as then nobody can talk behind you, drop their popcorn over you, or kick the back of your chair. If there's one thing that annoys me at the cinema it's chair kickers!

The film began with brief clips of dancers who were speaking about the auditions for the show. I asked Ally if they'd all been hired to which she replied that they had. "What are they crying for then" I asked. The look on her face was priceless.

Michael Jackson appeared on the screen "beatboxing", or at least that's what Ally said he was doing. I never actually knew that those noises he made had a specific name. I was extremely impressed at his "beatboxing" with no background music - he was amazing - even better than the time he was on the Oprah show. (I have a copy of that interview on video tape.)

The film progressed through the rehearsals of songs such as Annie, are you ok, The way you make me feel, Thriller, Billie Jean, and others. Watching Michael Jackson on screen brought back memories of his Dangerous concert in '92 in Lansdowne Road. He was such a magical performer, such a stickler for having things right!



I would wonder though if he would have been able to deliver fifty nights in a row of such an energetic concert. Several times during the rehearsals he made reference to the fact that he was 'saving his voice'. At one stage he asked for the sound to be turned down saying that it was like fists driving into his ears. I thought his dance moves seemed to be a little slower. Don't get me wrong - the moves were still there (I still marvel at the moonwalk) but they just didn't seem to have the same 'sharpness' about them. Understandable given the fact that he was 50 years old but that in itself is surely a reason that 50 consecutive concerts would have been very hard on him.

From watching the film there's no doubt that, even if his performance was effected slightly by age or health problems, the overall concert would still have been amazing. I don't want to spoil any of the film for anyone who might be reading and hasn't watched it so I'm not going to go into the special effects or 'props'. Go see the film if you don't believe me! :)

Ok, at long last.....I've uploaded that assignment - five hours late. I wish I could write.....and write faster!

P.S. I did cry. The 'Man in the Mirror' did it!