All Good Things Must Come to an End

I know this post is after the deadline for this assignment, but I guess I just wanted to post a goodbye.

I finished all my assignments with time to spare, and to be honest, I’m really proud of my English assignment. I think all of it is really good – bar the conclusion, but I just ran out of steam and submitted it. I really put a lot of effort into it, and I just hope that’s reflected in it. I think it was the first time I actually enjoyed writing an essay and enjoyed finding sources for it. I found an article by Cristina Alfar, “Blood Will Have Blood: Power, Performance, and Lady Macbeth’s Gender Trouble,” and it was so beautifully written, that it inspired me to start reading for pleasure again.

So, mildly influenced by my boyfriends obsession with Lord of the Rings, I started reading the trilogy, and am now also close to obsessed with it. I had read the first one and half of the second one years ago but never finished them, so I started from the beginning and am, once again, halfway through the second one (but I won’t give up this time.)

I also took advantage of the free counselling service provided by UL, and although I only got 4 or 5 sessions, I found it really helpful. I always had this weird fear that I didn’t actually have anxiety, and that it was all in my head, so it was oddly validating when my therapist conformed that I do indeed have anxiety, so… hooray? I’ve also been rewatching BoJack Horseman for the umpteenth time, and it’s really interesting to see the characters display symptoms of mental illness, and see how they deal with it. While it does get extremely dark after season 3, I would highly recommend watching it if you haven’t. As I said, it deals with mental illness, but also addiction, loss, grieving, acceptance, and growth.

It’s sad that my first year of college ended with us all being in our respective homes so we couldn’t go and celebrate together, but I guess that just means we’ll all have to go out and celebrate when we’re back next semester! I’ve been getting my workplace ready for the past few days (cleaning, stocking shelves, etc) and it’s been really nice to talk to people other than my family. I’ll be getting my rota tonight, and I’m interested to see how the gradual lifting of restrictions will affect the number of COVID-19 cases. As you know, I’ve been keeping up with the pandemic religiously, and we now have a daily death rate of ~16, and between 100-200 cases a day. There’s obviously gonna be a rise in cases as restrictions lift, but it seems as though we have a hold on it? At least I hope we do, because I’m honestly dying to go to Charlie Byrnes in Galway and Chapters in Dublin to stock up on books.

Well, that’s all from me, I think. Whoever is reading this, I hope you and your family are keeping well.

Good luck and god bless lads.