Progress report

So it has been two months since I posted something, oops. I did not realise it had been that long. I fell behind when it came time to study for my end of year exams and then I was working after that and other stuff came up and I just stopped writing. I have failed my new years resolution to do something new ever week for the year, but I still have other ones to do and I will think of other things to write about. I just thought I should post something on here to get myself back into the swing of things. Thank you to all the people that have contacted me to make sure i was ok since I have been gone for so long. I will catch up on what I have missed and get back to writing ASAP. But for now I am just going to post a song that I recently discovered that I think is excellent. It is about not letting people push you around and always standing up for yourself. Really made me think about my past and how I used to be and how I have changed since then. Still some changes to make but I am getting there :)

Stardansheill o7

New things week 18

Ok so I am like a week late with this because of exams and stress and just blah, but trust me when I say that I did this on time. I am still doing one new thing every week and for week 18 I decided to work on some self improvement. I started a swear jar to help me stop swearing because I felt the amount I swore was getting out of hand. I don't want to stop swearing totally, but I want to get a grasp on how often I swear because there are things I do in my life where I am in situations that it is totally inappropriate to swear. So every time I caught myself swear I would put 10c in my swear jar that I am going to donate to charity. Over the week I ended up putting nearly €10 in the jar. I found that the idea of having to put money in the jar helped me swear less.

I decided to be less critical of things around me. I tend to judge to quickly sometimes and don't like that about myself. You never know what something or someone is like until you give it/them a chance. I also decided to just do things instead of arguing with my mother. It saves on so much time and it makes life in general a lot easier. I used to argue with her a lot because I am the eldest and my brother always manages to weasel his way out of jobs and I end up having to do them. But now I realise that I am better off because of all the things I learned to do growing up because of my Mother asking me to do them and my brother wont be as able to fend for himself when he moves out. I know that is a small thing, but it can make a big difference in overall household mood.

I decided to start reading more and watching less television because I used to read a lot and miss doing it. It is also better for my brain. Your brain is a muscle as well and if you don't use it, it will become weak. I always say that I never have the time to do it anymore, but if I watched less tv I would have loads of time. I love to read because it teaches you about loads of things and it expands your imagination, vocabulary and writing ability.


I have an awful habit of not getting up early. I could stay in my bed forever if it were possible. I really love it. So I decided to get up at 8 every morning for the next week at least, and we will see how I get on. I actually got a lot done. All be it I didn't become functional until about 9 when I had breakfast and tea in me. But after that I got a lot of things done. I got all lot more reading done and I also got a lot of the things I needed to do that day done.

Stardansheill o7

New Thing Week 17

New things week 17: Visit new places in Ireland.

So for week 17 of my new things to do I got stuck for ideas and time. I was working nights and in college during the day. I barely got time to see my bed, but then a friend gave me a great idea for a new thing to do. Since I was going to be traveling around the country for work I could write about all the new places in Ireland I got to visit. Some people I mentioned this to said it could be counted as cheating. I see where they are coming from since I didn't really go out of my way to visit these places, I was going to be going there anyway. But I also think that work was a great opportunity for me to get to see places in Ireland that I have never seen before. I have lived here 21 years and there is so much of the Country that I haven't seen yet. But with my job I get to travel to places I would never have thought of going before. So I don't think it's cheating.

I would have loved to have done something more exciting, but I literally went to work after college, got home and went to bed for a couple of hours and did it all again the next day. So anyway I am going to tell you all about the lovely scenery you will notice on the way to these remote locations. I will break it down day by day. I new about all the towns I visited, but I had never been near them until I traveled there with work.

Never Let Anyone Tell You What To DO

New things week 16: Cinnamon Challenge. 

Last week while in college someone was talking about the Cinnamon Challenge. For those who do not know what the cinnamon challenge is, here is a short video to show you what it is. Basically you have to put a tablespoon of cinnamon powder in your mouth and try and swallow it. Much harder than you would think.

Hard work

Week 15 Day 7

I know it's been a few days since I posted and this is the last story of my new thing week 15. But I have decided that I will probably start posting more than once a week. If I have something to talk about. What do people think? I'm late with this post because I have been going to college all day and then to work straight after. Then practically straight to bed after work. I may get a few minutes on the internet before I fall asleep. So apologies for my absence.

Today I am going to talk to you about hard work and money. As we all know and are told on a regular basis the world is in a horrible state of affairs economically and we all need to tighten our belts. I am from Ireland where it seems that the only people who are having their belts tightened are the regular joes like me, my family, and my friends. I say having out belts tightened because we don't have much of a choice. A lot of people in our Government are earning huge salaries that they don't need, or deserve. Anyway I am going to veer miles away from this because I will only start to rant and nobody wants that, trust me. Since I turned 16 I have been working to earn money when I can. I learned from an early age that money is earned through a hard days work. That's how we earn an honest living.

Earth Day

Week 15 Day 6:

So yesterday (22nd of April) was Earth day. For those who do not know what Earth Day is, it is an annual day on which events are held worldwide to increase awareness and appreciation of the Earth's natural environment. It is organised globally by the Earth Day Network and more than 175 Countries celebrate it every year. There were events organised all over the world, but unfortunately I have no idea if there was one organised in Ireland anywhere. I for one am very fond of our Earth and its Environment and want to see it continue forever, so I am totally in favour of Earth Day and think everyone should make an effort to be more green in their lives. We all get so used to taking things for granted in our lives that we forget it could be causing catastrophic damage to the Earth. It is really easy to make small changes that can make a big difference.

Change

Day 5 of Week 15.

Note: Officially hit 1000 views on this post :) Thank you to everyone who has read my blog and is reading this now :) Hope you enjoy this post.  


Change.

I apologise in advance if this blog seems very sporadic to anyone. I am just going to write it down and don't want to read over it because I know I will make changes to it and I don't want to do that, because I know my first draft will be exactly what I wanted to say from me.

Change happens around us everyday, not always in ways we can see or feel though. We can see the weather change and feel the wind direction change, but we can't see the change that is happening inside a person. These changes can affect a persons mood or what they decide to like. People believe they cannot control the things that are changing around them. This is partly correct, we cannot change what other people think or how things happen around us. But we can change how we react to them and what we do to make changes in ourselves. To quote the famous ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky, "You miss 100 percent of shots you never take." This can be used in all walks of life, not just sports. If we do not take risks we will never know what could have happened and we wont move forward in life. If you think you deserve a raise, but are afraid to talk to your boss about it, you may never get one unless you work up the nerve to ask for one.

Random Things I Have Learned Recently

Day 4 of a week I have been enjoying.

So I learned something very interesting today. Not to sure anyone really want to hear it, but oh well. Apparently if you drink blue food colouring and get sick you will puke blue, but if you digest it and pee it will be green. When I was told this I was intrigued and disgusted at the same time. Also the person was just sitting there and suddenly this was the random thought that came out of their mouths. It's one of those things you could have done without hearing, but after you have heard it you are kind of interested.

Anybody got any weird or strange fears? I was talking to someone about my fear of heights and they told me about a few weird fears that they learned about recently. These are just a couple that I can remember:

• Anatidaephobia: The fear, that some time, somewhere, some how, a duck is watching you.

I don't even know what to say about this. Why is this a fear? Are ducks really scary? This is just one of those things that does not make any sense at all in my mind. 

• Paraskavedekatriaphobia: The fear of Friday the 13th.

In one sense I can actually understand this fear. I personally believe in a lot of supernatural things and don't care if people ridicule me for this. But I honestly do not believe that anything extra weird happens on Friday the 13th. It is simply another Friday in the year. 

I also learned a new fact about the Titanic that I never new. I have always been interested in everything about the Titanic. But the one thing I never knew in all my years about the Titanic was that it made 3 stops instead of only the 2 I thought it made. I always thought it went from Southampton to Cobh and left for New York. But today I learned that it left Southampton, went to Cherbourg in France next and then on to it's stop in Cobh before finally departing on its voyage. My mother and I always shared the knowledge we gathered on the Titanic and neither of us knew this fact until she told me after hearing it at a table quiz.

Well that's all the random I have to share today. I realise it is short, but sometimes short is good. Hope this is interesting to someone out there. Oh and always remember to be on the look out for ducks.

Stardansheill o7

One Mans Angry Rant

Week 15. Day 3.

So I am a bit behind on my stories. So I may or not upload two today. This one is going to be a rant. Not about anything specific and it may ramble after awhile so please forgive me. I just feel like ranting lol. 

Just look at his face. Enough said. What kind of emotion
is that?

This rant was brought on by the cinema last night. I went to see the Cold light of day. It was supposed to be a dramatic movie that kept your attention the whole time. It was supposed to build tension so the watcher couldn't actually stop watching. But unfortunately this movie was pretty terrible from the very beginning. The camera work was full of off angle shots, unnecessary over the shoulder work and really annoying rotate around the scene shots. The script seemed to be lacking something and the lead actor acted as if he was on shot poorly written half arsed soap. Me and the people I saw it with spent most of the time laughing at the whole thing. They made the trailer look amazing, but that is the only good part about the whole movie. I hate when they do that, they put all the best parts in the trailer and then the movie sucks.

This got me thinking about the future generations on the way home. When I was growing up reading was one of my favourite things to do and I nearly always had a book in my hands. But when my brother got to the age where I started reading technology had become better and he preferred his gameboy to a good book. There is only four years between us.

Firefly Review. Week 15 Day 2.

Ok so in my last post I said that for this week I was going to a new story everyday for the week and upload them. I know that technically a review of a show isn't a story, but in all honesty I couldn't come up with a new story for yesterday. I had a few ideas, but couldn't flesh them out and kind of gave up. It was also my brothers 18th birthday so when I got home from college all the family were over for dinner so I had to mingle lol. So instead I wrote a review of the tv series firefly. I am sci-fi nerd and will watch anything no matter how bad people say it is.

For those of you who have not watched firefly it is a show based in 2517 when humans have reached and inhabited a new star system. It is basically a futuristic western movie where you have the outlaws on the run from the law, taking jobs where ever they can get them. I really liked that about the show, because to me it showed that no matter how advanced we get there will always be the cowboy element of human life.

Week 15 Day 1

So for week 15 I have decided to do something I have always enjoyed doing, which is write. So I am going to write a new story everyday for the week. I will be uploading them all individually and will probably do a summary post at the end of the week with all the links.

Todays story is going to be about a man by the name of Liam and his hearts desire. Lets begin when Liam was 8 and his teacher asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. Liam replied that he wanted to be a time agent. All the students in his class laughed at him and he saw the teacher give a little snicker and a grin before telling him that he had a very vivid imagination, but that time travel isn't real. Little Liam did his best to hold back the tears. Liam loved to read and he had read about time agents loads of times. But what he didn't understand at that age was these books were fiction.

When he got home from school he went to his room and was throwing his books around because he hated them and didn't want to read about time agents or time traveling anymore. While throwing his books around, one of them hit his wall and he looked over and saw a poster he had gotten from his parents for Christmas. He stared at it for what seemed like hours, but was only a matter of seconds.

He decided then and there to never give up on his dream of becoming a time agent, even if he had to invent time travel himself. He placed all his books back on his shelf neatly and started reading a new one. From then on whenever a new teacher or any person asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up he would just tell them he wanted to be a lawyer or a doctor or something. He new though that he always would want to be a time agent, no matter what he had to do.

Weeks 13 & 14

I really have to stop falling behind on these blogs. Had a few assignments over the last couple of weeks and my Aunt got married in Donegal and there is no such thing as the internet where my Aunt lives lol.

For weeks 13 and 14 we were on Easter break from College, but I had study, assignments and work to do around the house. So for week 13 my father and I painted the inside of the house. This is the first time I have ever done this and I really don't recommend working with your parents lol. It can get frustrating and you will always get stuck with the horrible jobs. At times I felt like Mr Bean the time he painted. I got stuck with all the trimmings which was a pain in the ass and very time consuming. We eventually got a good bit of the house painted in the week. There was so much more to be done that we thought. I also had a project due this week that I spent a lot of time on and my usb managed to change the file type to an unreadable type just as I was going to upload it. Totally frustrating and have no way to get it back. GONE forever. It was a total WTF! moment. All in all, a very productive or unproductive week depending on how you look at it.

New Things Week 11 & 12

So my weeks have started overlapping and it's getting confusing for me. I feel like I am missing a week, but since I put them up here every week I clearly amn't lol. But I have gotten the overlapping under control and all will return to normal with this entry. To get it back to normal I am doing a blog with two weeks in it rather than one.

So for this week I decided to become a vegetarian for the week. I have absolutely no idea why I decided to do this. I swore that I would never give up meat. It's not very often I would have a meal that doesn't include some form of meat. Mainly just breakfast, pizzas and the odd pasta dish. But since this is all about doing things I said I would never do I decided to try it and see how I got on. It was definitely one of the hardest weeks so far, if not the hardest one. I started on Tuesday and I found the first few days handy enough and the food was pretty good. But then I started to notice that I needed to eat more during the day because my appetite had increased. By Friday whenever I smelled meat it made me miss it. I also noticed that every time I was making my dinner I was thinking about what meat I could add to the dish to make it complete. It was a really interesting week and I enjoyed all the meals I made.

Tuesday: I made vegetable stir fry with noodles in Chinese Hoisin and Garlic sauce. I used baby corn, carrots, onions, courgette, broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, mangetout, and cashew nuts. It was lovely and all the vegetables in the pan created a lovely smell before I even added the sauce. The sauce was a nice, but I wouldn't buy it again. It wasn't exactly a taste that would appeal to me too much. I thought it smelt like ginger and had a strange after taste. I just couldn't put my finger on what exactly it tasted like, but it was still really nice. I'd never really had courgette and never really new what it tasted like and was wary to eating it because I didn't know whether I would like it or not. But after trying it, it was nice, when stir-fried anyway.

Wednesday: I made Pasta Provencial. I made the sauce on Sunday though, as it can be frozen and heated up straight out of the freezer and added to pasta. The sauce takes a couple of hours to make, so it is easier to make it in multiple batches. 1 batch can be used in one spaghetti bolognase to feed four and it's delicious. I much prefer it to jars of sauce and actually don't eat the jars anymore.

Lent

Well since we are a fair bit into the lenten season I thought I would write something about it. I for one am not a religious person in any way at all. I haven't been for a long time. I have no problem with other peoples beliefs though. But I also do not believe in giving up something for 40 days just because Jesus Christ went into the desert for 40 days with nothing. But I do give something up every year because I was raised a God fearing Catholic and took part in Lent every year until I gave up religion. 

I give something up every year to see if I can do it. I do it for myself and no one else. This year I gave up all sweets, chocolate and crisps. I was going really well and hadn't broken it, that was until Paddy's weekend came along. Not only did I break it, I destroyed it. Since Mothers day was the day after Paddy's day, there was cake and chocolate everywhere. Since I didn't manage to last 40 days, I have decided to see how ling exactly I can go without eating any sweets, crisps or chocolate. I have set myself 20 day intervals to make it shorter and hopefully easier to manage. I wonder how long I can last? Anybody care to hazard a guess. I think this will be rather interesting. Do you guys think Easter Sunday counts when i get an Easter egg, or would that be breaking it?

I may put a post up here from time to time to say how I am getting on and how difficult, or easy it is. I know it will be hard at the start, but hopefully it will get easier as time goes on.

More than likely I will be posting updates on my Facebook and Twitter. Go like and follow me on those if you want to. 

Stardansheill o7

New Things Week 10

So I have completed 10 new things to do each week this year. Only 42 to go, woo. Man, that's a lot of weeks left. I don't think I'll be able to think of 42 more things to do.

To be honest, I made this resolution and didn't think I would last this long, thought I would do one or two weeks and give up. I can't remember any year where I have managed to stick to a new years resolution. I usually last until the end of January and give up. I always used to make the same resolutions and end up putting them off until the following year. That picture is just one I found on the internet, not actually my resolutions. Just a bit of emphasis. As they say, a picture paints a thousand words. I firmly believe that having a set deadline for my resolution idea has really helped me stick to doing it. Also writing these entries and having my friends help me really has helped.

So, my advice to anyone having difficulty keeping their New years resolutions is:

• Have a friend doing the same kind of resolution do it with you and encourage each other to keep it up. 
• Break it up into easily managed goals and set yourself a reasonable deadline for these goals. It really helps and I hope it helps someone who reads this. 

Anywho, for week 10 I completed a Golden Week in College. Nearly 2 years in college and I have never managed this :/ For those people out there who are unaware as to what exactly a golden week is. It's basically a term used by Irish students. Refers to a week where you manage to make it to every lecture, on time. No skiving off. Seems simple enough ya? Would expect that to be what happens anyway. Well, it doesn't... There is usually one or two lectures one might find that attendance isn't mandatory and the lecturer puts the notes up online and therefore takes it upon oneself to not bother attending. Especially 9am lectures. In second year of my course there aren't really all that many mandatory lectures, so a lot of people skip a lot of them.

New Things Week 8

Sorry for the long delay on this entry, there were a few technical hiccups over the last couple of weeks. So for week 8 I managed to combine two of my New Years Resolutions by doing something new and raising money for charity. I hope to do this a lot more during the year.  I took part in Shave or Dye in the college. It was an interesting one to do.

New Things for Week 9

So this week was a tough week to come up with something to do. I decided that since I have never made it in for a nine o'clock morning class after a night out that I would go out and now matter how tired/hungover I was the next morning, I would get out of bed and be in at nine am lol. I realise that this is kind of crapy, but it is something new that I have never done before and I learned from it :)

So on Monday I went down to Bodkins Library Bar as they were having IT factor and raising money for the make a wish foundation. The IT factor is basically like xfactor. A few people I knew were participating so I was also supporting them. It was a brilliant night and all the acts were fantastic. It was a really close contest and the acts that got through to the National Final on Tuesday really deserved it. I was home by 1 am, but was exhausted and new it was going to be a tough morning ahead.

I woke up when my alarm went off at 8 o'clock and the only thing I wanted to do was go back to sleep, because I felt like I wasn't even going to be able to move if I tried. But I persisted and dragged myself out of bed and got the bus at 8.45 and was sitting in my lecture at 9 am. Unfortunately, I have no idea what happened in the lecture as my brain was still at home in my bed. But after that class I started to wake up and by the afternoon I actually didn't even feel that hungover. So maybe I have figured out how to cure my hangovers and don't have to worry about them anymore.


Stardansheill o7

New Things week 7

This week I was supposed to try Japanese cuisine at an event a friend organised in the NUIG anime society, but unfortunately I arrived late due to bus timetabling issues. God damn Irish transport system. But that's an issue for another day. Unfortunately all of the Sushi was gone, but there was rice balls left and I had never tried them either and they are technically Japanese.

New Things Week 6

So for my 6th week on my new things to do every week resolution I went to footpool located in the Eyre Square Shopping Centre. Only 46 weeks to go. The rest of this year shall be fun. It's basically a place where you stick your feet in a pool of water full of fish that eat all the dead skin off your feet and make it smooth. I was always hesitant about having this done because I never fully understood it, also I was a bit sceptical about it actually working and was worried about the hygiene side of things. But then I heard from loads of people that it worked wonders on their feet and felt awesome after it was done. So I was in town with my brother and we decided to get it done for the laugh. I asked the man about the hygiene side of things and he said that the fish couldn't transfer diseases and you were required to pre rinse your feet before using your own dedicated water pod with the fish in it. 

New Things Week 5

As part of my new years resolutions I decided to do something new every week that I would never have done before. 5 weeks down and 47 weeks to go and it's going well. A couple of weeks got off to a shaky start because of difficulty coming up with something, but all weeks ended successfully :) 

Attempting to get the needle through

So for the 5th week I decided to see how I look with my ear pierced. Since it may only be temporary I didn't want to pay to have it done so I got my brother to do it for me lol. He has done it to a few people before and never messed it up before. But when he went to do mine he couldn't get the needle to go out the back of my ear so he ended up pushing it through hard and it went in at a weird angle. So when he went to put in the earring itself it wouldn't go through the other side. Between himself, myself and my Mother we spent about twenty minutes trying to get the earring in with absolutely no success and a lot of pain.