I’d like to point out first of all that the house I’m currently leaving is approximately seventyfivebillion times the size of the apartment I was living in in France, so the cleaning is manifold times more difficult. But then, there are two of us.

You see, the problem is, and I had this problem when I was in France as well, I forget to eat. It gets to about eight or nine at night, and I suddenly look at the clock, and think perhaps I should eat. It’s not any real sort of hunger which is driving me to eat, but more the thought that I should eat.

At home when my parents are around, this doesn’t really matter, because they’ll make dinner, and I will eat dinner, and all will be fine. But then when they’re away, as they are now, I forget to eat, or I only think to eat when it’s late.

Again, it’s fine when Alex is around, because he will demand food, and I’ll cook for both of us, if we’re together, and Sinéad too, if she’s there as well.

But, ah, Sinéad. This is the problem. When it’s just us at home together, we get to a certain stage of the evening where we both know we should eat, but we’re struck by a combination of boredom, non-hunger and laziness which secures us to the couches.

We then tend to spend anywhere from ten minutes to two hours glancing at each other and debating whether or not we’re hungry, whether we want food, whether it’s worth getting off the couch to start cooking, and so on and so forth.
If one of us had a more pressing desire for food, we’d probably bully the other one into actually cooking, but when we’re home together, we just sort of stare at each other and mention that we’re not that hungry.

Now, to be fair, it’s not like we’re too lazy to eat when we’re starving. It’s just that the thought of eating doesn’t tend to occur, and when it does occur, it’s tough to actually get to the stage where we’re hungry enough to do something about it.

In any case, my parents are only away for a week, so myself and Sinéad are unlikely to starve. We even managed to have a proper dinner today, without needing a third person complaining of being hungry. Go us!

But in conclusion, when I eventually move out of home, I’ll have to live with someone who has very rigid mealtimes, otherwise I’ll forget to eat.

I wasn’t sad to be back. In fact, I missed work more than I ever thought I would. But now that I’ve been back a whole week (because my contract started on Friday the 13th) (and expires on my birthday, boo), I’ve realised a few things about my job, my old job, and working in the supermarket.

The first thing I realised was how easy it was to slot back into work. I have the same staff number and the same till number as I had for the three years I was there first, so it’s not a whole lot of new things to remember. I don’t, however, have the same job. I was a price clerk when I was there last, and now I’m a checkout operator. Although I could and did work checkouts when needed, it’s been a very, very long time (three and a half years) since I was a full-on till girl, and it’s very strange to be back there. It’s not a bad thing, though. I like working tills, because you get to meet a lot, and I mean a whole lot, of people, and you’re forced to interact with them and ask them inane questions.

I was unsurprised by the fact that I can still recite the first eight to ten digits of most barcodes of products in the store, because I typed them so many times I don’t think I’ll ever forget them. I was also unsurprised that I remembered the clubcard numbers (well, the first thirteen digits) because, well, it was imprinted into my memory.

What I was surprised though, however, is that my knowledge of products has gone way downhill. The other day I spent a good thirty to forty seconds staring alternately at an avocado and at the vegetable page of my till, wondering “what the hell are you?”. It wasn’t until the customer prompted me with “it’s an avocado…” that I went OH YEAH! It’s a fruit! and realised that I had been looking at the wrong page of pictures.

I’ve also forgotten most types of bread, meaning I stare confusedly at the bread until I eventually associate it with a picture on the till in front of me. The only bread I was able to identify without any trouble was fancy bread, because, well, it’s called fancy bread, and that’s just a cool name.
Today I realised I was talking to a loaf of bread when the customer told me it was tiger bread (which I should have realised, it’s pretty distinctive) and then proceeded to give me funny looks. I don’t know why I was talking to the bread anyways, because it’s not like it could respond to me.

Besides the minor things I’ve forgotten, going back to work has been a very smooth transition. The first few days were full of “you’re back! How was France?”, which was unusual, but now it’s back to “how’s Aoife? How’s Alex?” which is the standard repertoire for all the staff who used to work with the two of them.

I’m glad to be back, I will admit that, and in a lot of ways it’s like I never left. Not least for the manager who turned around to me today and asked where I had been hiding, as she hadn’t seen me in a while. When I told her that I had quit four months ago, she just shrugged and said it was a big shop. Clearly I might just as well have just been hiding in the stockroom as living in France.

ULTRAVIOLET by RJ AndersonThis is a book which Sinéad picked up because Easons were running a 3for2 offer and she was buying the second and third Hunger Games books and she liked the look of this one. SO! I picked it up, as she was happily reading Mockingjay, and got stuck into Ultraviolet. Now, for the nitty gritty.

The Good: The cover. You can see it above, but what you can’t see is that it’s metallic and shiny and eye-catching and quite appealing.
The blurb. In its entirety:
Once upon a time there was a girl who was special.
This is not her story.
Unless you count the part where I killed her.
It does draw you in, I’ll admit that. I liked it a lot, and it was pretty much the entire reason why Sinéad bought the book so kudos to the publishers on the combination of those two things.
Third good point is the synaesthesia of the protagonist. It’s unusual, and it adds a new dimension to the book which moves it beyond your general “supernatural teen fiction” (a genre with which I am all too enamoured) because it is an actual condition, and therefore this could totally happen in real life.
Well…

The Bad: The main character is, well… She’s sort of a Mary-Sue. Not only does she have synaesthesia which, to the best of my knowledge, generally presents in one condition (i.e. seeing numbers with colours, seeing sounds, tasting emotions), but she has ALL the synaesthesia. Seriously. Everything you could think of, she has. And then some.

Secondly, the blurb of the book made me think I was gonna get some sort of psychological thriller in which we get deep insight into the mind of a maniac, a remorseless killer who knows exactly what she did, and the book explores her motivations for such a heinous crime. But instead what we got was a sort of a wishy-washy main character who isn’t sure what happened, or why, and is definitely not the sort of homicidal maniac the blurb suggests.

My last point as to why I didn’t like the book is a masso spoiler, but part of why I didn’t like it was that it was, well, kind of obvious. I had it figured out as soon as the “mysterious” whatshisface appeared. Faraday.
That’s another point, actually. It really wasn’t captivating. I forgot the names of half the characters by the time I was finished it a day or two.

Overall opinion? It started out promisingly but deteriorated, sadly. It wasn’t what I thought it would be, and sadly didn’t live up to the excitement the blurb promised.

The Ugly: 3 Stars out of 5

In any case, I’m not talking about ALL the books in my house, but specifically my books. And, actually, my sisters’ books as well.

I have too many books to fit in my bookcase. Those that will fit in my bookcase are organised alphabetically, but when I tried to fit them all into the bookcase, I was sadly deterred by the fact that, well, I have too many books.
So I’ve separated out those series of books which can reasonably be displayed on the top of my bookcase, leaving space for single books, etc.

Some of the series are easy to display – the Chronicles of Narnia, which I got in a box-set, are seven perfectly matched books which sit, all at the same height and roughly the same width, looking perfect, as they should. As well as that, I have the full Keys to the Kingdom series, all seven of which are the same height, roughly the same width and the same edition for all seven.
Similarly, I have the first 43 Animorphs books piled up on top of my bookcase. This annoys me a little bit, because numbers 1 and 2-17 are a different edition to number 2, 3 and 18-43. BUT, luckily, they are hidden by the fact that the Chronicles of Narnia are displayed in front of them, so you can’t see the non-matching books. It’s all good. Besides which, they’re all the same size, so that’s some consolation. It means they stack nicely, so that’s okay.
And furthermore, as my beloved baby sister has pointed out to me, I was actually given a present of all the animorphs books (bar numbers 2-5) by my cousin, so I can’t actually take any responsibility for them. Thank you, cousin.

Similarly, my copy of the Guardians of Time Trilogy doesn’t match perfectly. When I first bought The Named, I didn’t realise that it was a part of a trilogy. It wasn’t until a few years later that I found The Dark and The Key. Unfortunately, by the time I got around to finding and buying them, the editions had changed.
This bugs me to no end. I don’t know why. They just don’t match. It’s actually so annoying I’m struck occasionally to go out and buy a matching edition of the named. In any case, I prefer the later editions. Check them out! I have the Named from this set:
And then I have the Dark and the Key from the following set of covers. I think they’re prettier, so sometimes I think I want to change my edition of the Named!The whole thing that they’re not matching is sort of my fault, so it’s not like I can complain that much about it. If I really wanted to, I could find and buy a copy of the Named with the red cover, so that it would match the Dark and the Key, and everything would be all fine and dandy. So although it annoys me, I can cope with it.
HOWEVER! There are certain other things about my books, along the same vein, which similarly bug me. Take, for example, my collection (combined with Sinéad) of A Series of Unfortunate Events. The collection as a whole makes me really happy, because there are thirteen novels, plus horseradish, which match PERFECTLY. And this just makes me smile. We also have the Lemony Snicket, the Unauthorised Autobiography, which, although it doesn’t have the same design (i.e. the coloured spine, picture in an tombstone shape on the front, relevant motif along the coloured spine, and the blurb which looks like parchment and so on and so forth) but it’s the same size and whatever, so that’s cool. And that makes me happy too. BUT, we also have the Beatrice Letters. And that’s just off the wall in its different-ness. It’s like, twice as tall and as wide as the other books. It doesn’t match in any way whatsoever! This frustrates me hugely. What’s up with that? They’re all published by the same people! Why would they do that?
You can see here that ASOUE novels reside on the bottom row, whereas the Beatrice Letters is on top, and is markedly different!

In the same vein, I (and by I, I mean Aoife, because it actually belongs to her) have the original British cover of Twilight, with the stupid girl on it.Then I have the matching Atom editions of New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn (seen in the image above) as well as The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner and Twilight, The Official Illustrated Guide (don’t judge me, okay, I don’t even like them). And while it annoys me that the Twilight cover doesn’t match, naturally, same as the Named, it annoys me even more that the New Moon edition is like, an inch shorter than the others. What is up with that? They’re all published by the same crowd! They’re all paperback! Why don’t they match???
This, too, bugs me.

Furthermore, my Harry Potter collection, also seen in the image above, bugs me for two reasons. The first is that I have an adult edition of the Order of the Phoenix. As you can see, it doesn’t match at all, and sticks out like a sore thumb when you put them all together. Then I also have paperback editions of The Philosopher’s Stone and the Chamber of Secrets (although it was missing when I took that picture). The whole hardback/paperback thing bugs me as well, because it means that the series/trilogy/whatever ends up being a mishmash of different sizes. This upsets me greatly.

The next picture is rather more fuzzy (shaky hands) but you can see roughly what the series on the top of my bookcase are. The one I’m talking about now is the Old Kingdom series, by Garth Nix. You can see that it’s a black and a red hardback next to each other (Lirael and Abhorsen) with a white paperback on the left and a tiny black and a purple one on the right.
This series drives me insane. It was actually so bad that I demoted it from the top of the bookcase, because it was bugging me. The deal is that I bought Sabriel first, and a while after it was published, so that was in paperback. Lirael and Abhorsen, then, I was super excited about, so I bought them as soon as they came out, meaning that they’re hardback. Then Nix released a short story for World Book Day, which I also picked out, because I really like the Old Kingdom series. Lastly, he re-released the World Book Day book in a collection with a few others – that’s Across the Wall, which is the purple one. The hardback/paperback differences between series/trilogies/whatever really annoys me. I don’t know why. I think there’s something wrong with me, in that this kind of thing actually bothers me to the extent that I had to take the Old Kingdom series off the top of my bookcase. I replaced it with the first three of the Fallen Quadrilogy (the last one isn’t out yet) (don’t judge me, I know they’re really bad). I also refuse to put Cornelia Funke’s Ink trilogy on the top of the bookcase because Inkheart is hardback and Inkspell and Inkdeath are paperback. I’m not entirely sure how I managed to get that one the wrong way around. You would think that I’d have a paperback edition of the first in the trilogy, but no, I have the first in hardback and the second and third in paperback.

In any case, matching up series of books makes me incredibly happy, and mismatched series actually frustrate me to no end. It’s some sort of weird foible of mine. But sometimes I wish I was French, then all the books I bought could be livre de poche, and they’d all be the same size and I’d NEVER HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THIS SORT OF THING AGAIN.

I suppose you could always try a #postaday or whatever, but it doesn’t have the same ring as a post365 or a photo365 or whatever you feel like talking about.

Clearly, in any case, I’m not trying one, as I’ve already missed a day this year. Even Sinéad is doing better than me, and she only posted 20 times in 2011!

This is the kind of thing I wonder about. I really need to find something to occupy my time, because I’m getting terribly bored. Already.

Who wants to employ me?

I’d do it month by month, but I don’t think I have an interesting enough life for that, so I’ll just take a general look at things.
In 2011 I…

• Earned a bachelors degree. The same degree I started way back in 2008 finally came to fruition and I am the proud owner of a 2nd Class Honours Grade I Bachelor of Civil Law (Law and French). I’m not gonna lie and say I slogged my butt off to earn my degree, but I did work for it, and I’m proud of what I got. Especially considering how much I struggled through the middle of the degree, I’m proud to be able to say that I got there, and in the recommended amount of time.
• Started a Masters degree. The LLM (International) International Business Law offered by NUI Maynooth and the Catholic University of Lyon. This was, perhaps, not my smartest move. I’m not saying I’m not enjoying the degree (I’m only halfway through it) (and I am enjoying it) but choosing this particular degree, given that it’s an LLM (International) meant that
• I moved to France and lived there for three months. I’m not gonna lie. It was tough. I struggled with language barriers, loneliness, motivation, grocery shopping, paying bills and occasionally just getting out of bed in the mornings. But I did the whole three months, I didn’t go bankrupt, I went to every single class, I travelled around the South of France and saw lots of it, I went to Geneva to visit my dad, I sat all seven exams and (hopefully) did pretty well in them, and in all, I think I pretty much kicked France’s butt.
• I struggled with a long-distance relationship. Alex was in Limerick for six months (March-September) and I was in France for three months (September-December). It wasn’t fun. We made it, but not without a lot of tears, a lot of fights and a lot of struggles. Still, we’re back in the same place now. He’s sitting next to me now, and the sheer fact of being able to see him whenever I want makes me way happier than it should.
• I reviewed a few books. Not as many as I’d like to, though. We shall see if it continues into next year. I’ve read a couple of books over the course of the holidays, so I might review them if I think about it
• I missed the crap out of music. Having quit both the band and the orchestra, I needed some sort of outlet for musical creativity, so I joined the Gospel Choir in the college, as treasurer, and sang my heart out. I couldn’t, obviously, go back to band and orchestra when I was in France, but I went to the first orchestra rehearsal back in September and I played the carol service with the band on Christmas Eve, so come the second half of the year, I’ll be back in the swing of things. Now I just need to work out how to improve my embouchre, which has become beyond terrible.
• I quit my job. I had to, because I moved to France, but I regret it. I miss my job, I miss the people in my job and I definitely miss the money. I need a job, so from next week I’ll be looking for someone to employ me. I’m friendly and hard-working, do you want to give me a job??
• I ran for Students’ Union Vice-President – but failed miserably. The less said about that the better
• I beat depression. After several years of misery, tears and general low mood, I’m finally able to say that I am 100% depression free, with no pills, no nothing to help me.
• In conclusion, I had a good year. Bits of it were sad, bits were brilliant, but looking back, I’m pretty pleased with it. So I’m looking forward to a 2012 which is as good as, if not better than, 2011.
• Screw Flanders

I will admit that I hate getting smelly things (bath soaps, shower gels, lotions and potions) and make-up, from someone I know, because anyone who knows me will know I’m not that kind of girl, but from someone who’s only a secondary connection (although why would they be getting me a present?) I’m not so bothered.

But what really means a lot to me is a card. I like cards, I like getting cards, I like reading cards, I like keeping the cards and re-reading them a few years later because it conjures up all sorts of memories of when I got that card.

The thing about getting a card is that someone has to take the time to pick the card out, think about the card itself, the message it has, then hand-write it and put a message inside (even if that message is only dear x, from x). It’s a keepsake and a reminder and a sample of that person’s handwriting as well as being a gesture at the time of the fact that they care.

I like presents. I really do, who doesn’t like getting stuff? Except Sheldon, that is.
But in any case, I like getting a card as much as, if not more than, getting the present itself. So if I get a present and no card, while I will appreciate it and whatnot, I will appreciate a present AND a card much more.

In my family, one of the few things which is pretty much set in stone is where people sit at the dinner table. I don’t remember how it actually came about, but when there are six of us sitting at the table (parents, two sisters, Shane and me), we have our own assigned places. My dad sits at the head, Aoife at the foot, my mum sits on my dad’s right and I sit on my dad’s left. Sinéad sits to my left, between me and Aoife, and Shane sits facing her.

Nobody questions it. There has never been any discussion of it. That’s just the way it works. Those are our places, and we sit there automatically. I don’t know how, I don’t know why this came into being, but it is just the way things are.

There are certain cirucmstances where this changes, though. In the event of my gran visiting, she sits in Aoife’s spot, and Aoife sits in Shane’s spot. This, obviously, is only relevant if there are six of us there (i.e. no Shane) because if Shane is there, the rules change again.

If there are seven of us for dinner (or it’s a special occasion) then we eat in the dining room (because the table is bigger, and it extends). The rules here are different to in the kitchen. Aoife and my dad sit in the same spots, the head and the foot, but Shane and my mum swap places with myself and Sinéad, so we’re now on my dad’s right and Shane and my mum are on my dad’s left.
I equally don’t know why the rules changed for the dining room, but they did. This is the way things are, and nobody messes with it.

Then if my gran AND Shane are both there for dinner, my gran again takes Aoife’s space, and she moves the same way as in the kitchen. But because we’re now in the dining room, Aoife doesn’t take Shane’s space, she takes Sinéad’s space, and myself and Sinéad both move up slightly so there are three of us on one side of the table. This (Aoife’s spot) is the prime spot, because Sinéad and I are between Aoife and escape, so when it comes to clearing up, she’s the last person who’s able to get up. That means that usually she sits and talks to my gran while the rest of us do the clearing up. It’s not that she’s lazy, it’s just the way things work. Again, there was nothing explicit stated about this, it’s just the way things are.

It was only when I was talking to some friends a few days ago that I realised this was odd. Other families don’t appear to have the same rules about it. One of my friends said it was just plain weird.

BUT! Then I asked some more friends (Gary and Dave) and they BOTH said their families have seating arrangements.

Again, I’m not entirely sure how it happened. I don’t know why the rules are so complex, or rigid. I also don’t think I’m fully aware of all the intricacies of table-seating, but at least I know my family’s not alone in having such arrangements.
There’s a relief.

Therefore I think I’ve done pretty well.

I am so unimaginably glad to be home. It helps that the Christmas atmosphere is all around the place, so everyone seems excited and cheerful, but it’s just amazing to be back.

It’s weird, though, to see how things have subtly changed since I left in September.
There are little things, like the fact that they’ve renovated my train station (and put in new seats) and changed the name of Phoenix Park train station (although I realised that when I came home for a week in November), and big things, like the fact that my sister doesn’t live at home any more.

It’s different, being home. Being away has changed things, because I’m totally out of the rhythm of my family – when I came in from town today with Sinéad my dad was heading out to darts – like he does every Monday, but I had totally forgotten.

There are loads of differences which I’ll pick up on as I go along, but the most important thing is that I’m home, and happy being back where I belong.

I didn’t hate my time in Lyon. I quite enjoyed it. It was very lonely, at times, but it was also really fun. I lived on my own for the first time ever, and was responsible for everything in my apartment from cooking to cleaning, rent to electricity bills… It was weird. I’ve never done it before.

I think it was a learning experience, though. After several issues with banks and with bills and with rent and with a broken plug, I’ve (sort-of) learned how to look after myself without needing to run to my parents for everything.

The college itself was nice, I will admit that, but it wasn’t Maynooth. I think I was spoiled in starting off with Maynooth. It is genuinely the friendliest campus I’ve ever been on and, well, the Lyonnais students aren’t as nice.

The course was great, I don’t regret doing it for a minute. The staff were great, the mix of lecturers was great and the other students in my class were a lot of fun. I’m glad the majority of them will be coming to Ireland next semester, and I’ll miss the ones who don’t.

But it was tough. I didn’t like living on my own, I struggled with the language barrier, I missed him like god only knows what. I missed my family and my friends, I missed real food (the French love cheese, but try to find cheddar and you’ll be sadly disappointed). I HATED not having a toaster, a kettle, an oven, a dishwasher (but to a lesser degree than the first three). I lived on pasta for three months because my range of cooking skills and budget were both limited.

It wasn’t an easy three months. I’m not even sure if it was an enjoyable three months. But I’m also not entirely sure that I actually want to leave.