Tommy Collison

Well, actually, my uniform’s not black, it’s blue-turquoise, but I think we can all agree that “Back in Blue-Turquoise” doesn’t sound half as good.

So, that’s week one of school done and dusted. It’s funny how quickly you fall back into a comfortable routine after two months of relatively-unstructured work.

I’m enjoying fifth year a lot more than I enjoyed third year. It’s because I’m only doing the subjects I really enjoy, or because there’s less of an age-gap between me and everyone else, or maybe it’s just because it’s September and we’ve just started.

Speaking of subjects – I picked Economics, Physics & History on top of Spanish, Irish & English to make up my seven subjects. History was a definite choice because I really enjoyed it from Junior Cycle. Physics was the only Science subject I liked, because I felt it dealt with everyday science much more than Biology or Chemistry. Having a Science subject is never harmful in either case.

I was stuck for what to pick for a third option though. I’d done Music for the Junior Cert. and while I adored the performance side of things (singing Losing My Religion was one of the high-lights of third year, I just love that song), the theory didn’t interest me all that much, so I was slow to continue it this year. I briefly considered doing Home Ec or French, but decided not to since I hadn’t done them before, and that’d probably work against me getting a decent grade. I settled on Economics in the end after talking it over with John, and so far I’ve really enjoyed it.

The school-routine isn’t too bad either, getting up at 7.30am is a bit of a bummer but it’s not so bad once you get it.

I know I said this at the start of August, but how is it September already? Can’t believe a year’s gone by so fast. Around this time last year, I was heading to Minnesota, USA, for three months to get surgery done. I’ll always have fond memories of the snow, the apartment and basically self-teaching myself the Junior Cert. History and Science courses in Starbucks, over mint hot-chocolate, while Girl Talk played through headphones. Pro-tip: Girl Talk’s “All Day” is the best music to do anything to, ever.