Pay Attention

I sat tersely cramming the law of succession at my desk the other day and my mind began to wander to more pleasurable thoughts, as it often does. As I mused idly, a vivid, years-old memory popped into my mind. I remembered the first time I was ever told to pay attention.

It was at playschool, and I was about three or four years old. The playschool I attended was about a ten-minute walk from my house, housed in a separate wing of a big family home with a wonderful leafy garden surrounding it. The children were confined to one part of the lovely garden when we went outside to play, and I remember looking wistfully over at the far corner in the part of the garden that we weren't allowed in. There was a bench, and the beginning of a path, but you couldn't see where it led because of the bushes and trees blocking the view. It piqued my curiosity and imagination, and I always wished I could go over and explore. Despite the somewhat defiant streak in little me, I always knew better than to try to make a run for it. I'd only get put sitting on the "bold chair", and that was boring. I knew, I'd sat on it once or twice.

My favourite things to do in playschool were sitting cross legged in the library corner, where there was a book I particularly liked about a boy who broke his arm. I'm sure to an extent I felt that this boy and I were kindred spirits, as I'd also broken my arm around that time, but I think the real reason that this book took my fancy was because it involved a hospital and I had developed this somewhat morbid fascination with hospitals and doctors and nurses. I used to make my mum tape "Children's Hospital" because it was on at 10.10pm on BBC2 and that was long past my bedtime. I also liked painting and drawing, and I remember being absolutely enthralled when someone showed me how to make pink-coloured paint by mixing red and white paint together. We also used to leap around and dance to classic ditties such as "If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands" and "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" and my best friend Nicole and I would join in with gusto. Fairly standard playschool stuff.

Sometimes though, we'd be roped into doing activities in small groups of four or five with one of the teachers. I hated getting involved, preferring instead to potter around doing my own thing and choosing my own activities as I happened upon them. Once we did a worksheet with a picture of a balloon on it, and the instructions read, "Here is a picture of balloon. Colour in the balloon. Count the balloon". I was having none of it. It's a balloon, I thought. One balloon. It doesn't need to be counted. There's only one balloon there.

One day, I'd been cajoled into doing a jigsaw puzzle with a teacher called Suzanne who had fuzzy dark hair and always wore jumpers, and another little girl. The jigsaw was terribly boring and I looked from the group of little boys playing over at the nature table to the clock, wondering how long it was until Mammy came to collect me.

Suddenly, a voice filtered through my thoughts. "Aisling!", it said. "Aisling! Pay attention!" Four year old me must have been tuned out for a while, because the teacher's brow was furrowed and she looked irked and the other little girl was muttering something about she how she was going to get to take all the turns I'd missed.

I remember feeling startled. Attention, I'd never heard that word before. It sounded kind of ominous. I'd never heard it said before, but its meaning was implicit. Attention. I repeated it to myself. I had to pay attention. When Mum finally came to collect me, I told her I'd learned this new word and of how I'd come to learn it. For some reason, the incident had really struck me as something significant.

Maybe because, I thought as I drew spirals up and down the margins of my land law notes, the phrase was to become a regular fixture during the next sixteen years of my life and four year old me was somehow subconsciously aware of this. Pay attention, Aisling; you're drifting off into space again. Aisling, you're daydreaming. Aisling, wake up and concentrate! Penny for your thoughts, Aisling! (My nana used to often say this to me, and I'd sometimes take her up on her offer of the penny.) Most authority figures, including teachers, parents, grandparents, and even a priest, have told me to pay attention or some variant thereof throughout the course of my school days.

Sometimes, a bit of extra attention paid would have seriously benefited me, such as during every school biology experiment gone wrong or any time I've gotten the wrong end of the stick ever. But mostly I'm glad that while my playschool teacher's words resonated with me, they didn't spook me into becoming a conscientious listener/attention payer. All those wonderful daydreams I've had instead that I would've missed out on.

Hallowe'en dress up day in playschool. Most of the other girls went as witches but I thought it was the ideal occasion to debut the nurse's costume I'd gotten for my fourth birthday a few weeks beforehand. Happy as Larry, so I was.

Women's Parking

Last year in Germany, I took a lift with a friend. She drove up and down the car park, desperately hunting for a parking space.

"Hmm, are there any Frauenparkplätze (women's parking spaces) here?", she wondered aloud.

"Excuse me? Frauenparkplätze? What, because they think women can't park very well and need a special space to enable them to do so?", I enquired, baffled that such lazy sexism could exist so institutionally in such a progressive modern nation. 

My friend chuckled.

"Nein nein", she replied. "They're the closest spaces to the building; it's safer for women."

Oh, that's okay! I thought, for a split second. Nobody's needlessly reinforcing stupid gender stereotypes, it's just a safety thing!

Then the bleak fact that it had been deemed necessary to install especially-for-women car parking spaces closer to whatever the carpark was there to facilitate (in this instance, a train station) to help prevent them from falling victim to a mugging, an assault, or rape, dawned on me.

How naïve I was for that split second. 

Photo credit: Wikimedia

My Lucky Trousers

I lack poise, grace and allure. I'm not the kind of person who turns heads in the street, with possible exception for when I'm tussling with a suitcase and a load of bags and fighting my way across College Green on a Friday morning, and only then because I'm getting in everyone's way and making a bit of a nuisance of myself. I'm a clumsy and nondescript person, and the best I hope for is that this will occasionally manifest itself in a sort of awkward charm. I assume that most of the time I go unnoticed in a crowd unless I've tripped over my own feet and fallen down or dropped something or whatever which is fine because I also assume being very striking and Vogue model-esque would be both time consuming and burdensome. Last Wednesday though, as I battled my way towards college hoping the five-minute walk would today go minor incident-free, someone actually noticed me when I wasn't embroiled in some sort of awkward scene. Like, I was just standing there. Waiting for the lights to change. Unprecedented. 

This well-dressed man standing beside me at the crossing turns to me and says, "I love your trousers, they are very chic" and I was all like, "oh, why thank you! That's so nice of you!" I was genuinely flattered. I do actually really like the trousers I was wearing that day, they're my third favourite pair. They've got a kind of ombré effect going on, brown turning into blue down the calf, and they cinch in at the waist and widen at the hips. They were also only a tenner and have not yet fallen apart. 

He continued, "can you tell me how to get to Ballsbridge?"

"Yes, of course! Take the 4 or the 7 bus from that stop over there, it takes about ten minutes."

"Are you studying in Trinity?"

"Yes, I am indeed! Law and German!"

"Ah! Beauty and brains!" (I thought I'd reached my maximum capacity of flatteredness when he complimented my trousers but now I was positively beaming) 

"Oh stop, you're far too kind!" 

By now, we'd crossed the street and were waiting for the second set of lights to change. I was running quite late for my lecture so this charming stranger's timing was a little inconvenient and also I was kind of sweaty and some of my hair was stuck to my face so I had to question his genuineness but was thoroughly enjoying this unexpected onslaught of compliments so I resisted the urge to run into traffic and away from him. 

"Where are you from?", he asked.

"I'm from Louth, it's about an hour north of Dublin." (It's not that I'm patronising, he was foreign and obviously here on business)

"You're kidding! You're Irish? Irish people are never usually so stylish or beautiful!"

"Oh hahaha!" (My actual reaction, very high pitched and embarrassing)

"Listen, take care of yourself, won't you? You're all you have. Have a good day!"

And so the kind stranger ran off to catch the 4 or the 7 bus to Ballsbridge, as per my instruction. I made my way to my lecture, feeling extremely taken aback but also very pleased with myself. The kind stranger is right, I thought to myself. I am beautiful! I am all I have, and need, in this dog eat dog world! I will look after myself! I'm every woman, it's all in me! Anything you want done baby, I'll do it naturally! Maybe I'll wear these trousers more often!

The next time I wore these trousers, which was yesterday, a woman at the bus stop told me she thought they were "just gawwjusss!" (I live in Inchicore) and asked where they were from. I was just AMAZED. Who knew a pair of ten euro H&M trousers could inspire such great vibes, and good feeling? My mood was buoyed by her kind words for the rest of the day and I feel all happy and fuzzy just now as I type about it.

I always notice things I like about people as I'm pottering about Dublin, but I so rarely tell them unless I actually know them. I always thought they'd find it creepy or think I was distracting them as my accomplice went through their pockets or handbag. In light of my two recent experiences with compliments from total strangers (after which I'm still in possession of my both wallet and phone) however, I've decided to start complimenting others more often. I mean, my day was absolutely made by what those two people said to me about what I now consider my lucky trousers, and if I could make someone else feel even half as touched and made up as I did I think that'd be really nice. I don't mean to get all soppy, but lately especially I've really learned that almost everyone you meet is going through something or other, big or small. A nicely thought-out and genuine compliment could go a long way. 

That said, me being plagued with social awkwardness and discomfort has thwarted my half-hearted attempts to live up to my new resolution thus far. Yesterday evening, there was a couple sitting at the table next to us in the café I was in with a beautiful newborn baby. She really was a dote, sleeping peacefully on her dad's shoulder with little tufts of dark hair on her tiny head. When I was getting my coat and bag together on my way out, I caught the dad's eye and smiled and my brain was egging me on to ask "how old is she?" and tell them how sweet she was. Alas, the "complimenting strangers is possibly a bit creepy never mind complimenting strangers' babies" worry started to creep in so I left without saying anything. I'll try again another time, honestly. Compliments are excellent. And I'm kind of convinced my trousers actually hold magical lucky powers. 

I'm going to Berlin on Erasmus in September

On Thursday, a very exciting email landed in my inbox.

"Dear Aisling", it said. "We are pleased to officially offer you a place in Berlin for the Erasmus programme 2014-2015".

A wide grin crept across my face, which did not falter for the next four hours. A place at the Humboldt University of Berlin for the coming year was mine, and once I replied to confirm the offer (which I did almost immediately, the Enlightenment essay I'd been working on abandoned) nobody was taking it away from me. 

Spending third year studying German law at a German university is a compulsory part of the degree for which I'm studying so although I knew I'd definitely be spending next year somewhere in Deutschland, the exact city in which I'd spend the year was not yet definite. We have ten universities across the country to choose from. Having spent three months in Wiesbaden, a small city of about 280,000 people, I ruled out the possibility of going somewhere similar like Marburg or Erlangen. The application process is far less formal than it is for other courses, and done primarily through our course coordinator, whom we all know very well. In general, we're free to choose where we go ourselves. Our course coordinator offers her opinion and makes suggestions but the decision is ours for the most part and she does work hard to ensure everyone is happy with where they end up (and who they end up going with - some of us go alone and others in pairs). However, she tends to be tougher on who goes to Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, and it took some convincing before she agreed to me going to Berlin. She suggested Hamburg, which I considered, but I couldn't let go of Berlin. Berlin was the first place in Germany I ever visited, aged thirteen, and I've always loved it. In transition year, we had to research college courses and universities, and even then I knew I'd love to go to Berlin to study for a year.  The fact that Berlin was a study abroad option for Law and German was a major factor in my decision to include Law and German in second place on my CAO form. When I narrowly missed out on my first choice of European Studies back in August 2012 and was offered Law and German instead, it was with the possibility of a Berlin Erasmus that I consoled myself. Berlin was always something I'd wanted. 

Now I have it. My course coordinator can't change her mind and strongly suggest I go to Hamburg instead. It can't be taken away from me if I don't get a certain grade in a certain module (although I obviously still have to pass my exams in May). I'm going to Berlin in September, to study German law through German in quite possibly the most exciting city in the world. Although I've been to Berlin seven times before, I see it in a new light each time and there's always something to be discovered there. Sometimes I think I might be better off somewhere smaller and friendlier, a place where I might find it easier to make friends and get to know people. Sometimes I think I'm not cool enough for Berlin and its reputation as a city of hipsters and trendsetters. Despite these niggling doubts, I know Berlin was the right choice. Berlin is amazing, and despite my awkwardness, uncoolness and occasional reluctance to step outside my comfort zone socially-speaking, I know I'm going to make the most of it. 

Funnily enough, the day I officially accepted my place in Berlin turned out to be very Berlin-themed in general. Each February reading week, the junior freshman Law and German students go to Berlin on a study trip with our German law lecturer. Last year, our lecturer was accompanied by a teaching assistant, but this year there's no such assistant. To my surprise, I received a phonecall that same morning from the course coordinator asking if I'd be interested in going along to help out - all expenses paid, except for the flights. Because she openly refers to me as ditsy and thinks I'm a bit of an airhead and I wouldn't have thought she'd have considered me for any task requiring any degree of responsibility or competency, I was taken aback. Nevertheless, I jumped at the chance to go and although I've yet to book my flights I'm very much looking forward to it. It's not going to be a week of lounging about Kreuzberg or Prenzlauer Berg people watching and mooching about quirky shops and cafes, but a week filled with visits to houses of parliament and official buildings, however Berlin is Berlin and a week spent there is never a week wasted. Fortunately, my lovely classmate Karen (has her shit together a whole lot more than I do) was also asked to go so I won't have to spend the week making tedious conversation in German with my German civil law lecturer. 

This year is looking promising, and I'm very excited. Sixteen year old me, to whom Erasmus seemed a very distant concept, wouldn't know what to make of all this. September still seems ages away, and the whole thing is still extremely surreal. But brng it onnn guna b class xxxxx

 This was just another landmark to me when I took this photo back in June 2011. Now I'm off to study there! Yippee!