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!

Reeling in the Year - Autumn/Winter

September

In September I moved into my new student abode in Inchicore, where Fitzy, Sam, Sean and I continue to live in domestic bliss. I was tickled pink by the old fashioned fireplace in my bedroom. After a year in grey, impersonal student halls, this was a serious improvement. Prior to this, Shannon, Sorcha and I made the trip down to Wexford to stay at Shannon’s family holiday home on the beach. We even went for a swim and nearly got hypothermia and died. I also had to learn to cope with two 9am land law lectures, and knuckle down (or at least appear to be knuckling down) in order to give my request to be sent to Berlin on Erasmus more weight.

Freshers' week

On the beach in Wexford

Party over here

October

I turned twenty, threw my first house party with my new housemates, and found out that I would in fact be going to Berlin on Erasmus in September 2014! James Vincent McMorrow played a gig in the chapel in Trinity in aid of mental health week, a gig which Ruairí and I were lucky enough to attend. Words always fail me when attempting to describe it; it was really something special. Charles, our French friend from Berlin paid Dublin a visit and stayed Chez Moi. On Halloween, I dressed up as an asparagus by painting myself green and wearing green clothing, and saw a rat in my local Tesco in Inchicore.

Gorilla, Asparagus and Someone Famous

November

Absolutely nothing comes to mind when I think of November, which is worrying as it was just last month. I mostly remember feeling frazzled, exhausted, and emotionally drained, but a German class trip to Belfast offered a brief reprieve from all that. Belfast is a fun city.

Law n German on tour

Belfast City Hall and me

December

Christmas jumpers and an endless stream of “Twelve Pubs of Christmas” pub crawl invitations on Facebook. Nuff said. London Grammar with Kieran and Thomas in the Academy, Law and German’s Christmas dinner spearheaded by the wonderful Annie for which I made pavlova, a lovely quiet Christmas with family, and a visit from Sorcha and Shannon whom I eagerly await as I type this. 

Melon starter

Reeling in the Year - Summer

May

Exams began, and they weren’t nearly as impossible to get through as I had thought. The work was back-breaking and because my four law exams (constitutional, Irish legal systems, criminal and contract) were scheduled the same week I was left exhausted, emotionally unstable, and with a chronic hand cramp. But they were over soon enough, along with my three German exams, and I was free to look forward to the summer ahead of me. I started moving my things out of my room in Halls and bid Dublin farewell, because I was off to Wiesbaden for the next three months!

Law and German finished exams at last

The warehouse party that never was

Last day in Dublin

 June

In June, I started my job in the supply chain department of a large company based in Wiesbaden, Germany, having spent the last week of May getting used to my new surroundings. This was also the month I got locked into my new apartment, freed by the fire brigade, and evicted the next day. I also received my exam results after a nervous wait and to my utter relief I passed first year with a nifty two-two. Not bad for someone who slept through a lot of lectures, partied hard, and procrastinated.

In Wiesbaden

 July

The beginning of July was tough. I had been in Germany for just over a month, and the novelty was starting to wear off. Worryingly, Nana had taken ill back in Ireland and although Dad did his best to keep me up to date over the phone and via email it just wasn’t the same. I was tired, lonely, and missing home and friends. Fortunately, I finally had the opportunity to visit Sorcha, Shannon and Ruairí in Berlin, enduring a fifteen hour round bus trip to do so. I met Sorcha and Shannon’s thirty-five year old roommate, skinny dipped, stayed up all night swapping stories, ate döner and had an altogether pleasant forty-eight hours in the Hauptstadt. The following weekend, my chum Maria visited me in Wiesbaden. Selfies, twapes, Malibu rum, crepes, ice cream and sightseeing were the order of the day, and I was very sad to see her leave.

Reunited with Shannon

Apres midnight swim

Crepes at the La La Land Cafe, Wiesbaden

Maria's visit. My decision to wear shorts in public was a big one.

Frankfurt am Main

Apple ice cream

August

August was great! Nana started to show signs of recovery, I had built up a great rapport with everyone at work and I was really enjoying my job even though the 6am starts were crippling. I finished work on the 15^th of August and my colleagues presented me with a card and gift and showered me with praise and applause. There was a lot of awkward hugging (I am the least tactile person in the world and Germans love hugging and cheek-kissing) and promises to keep in touch. I lapped up the attention. After saying my last goodbyes to Wiesbaden, I headed to the airport on the 19^th to fly to Berlin. The ten days ahead of me looked rosy and I felt content. I spent two days with Sorcha and Shannon in their apartment in Spandau before they had the argument to end all arguments with their flatmate (and landlord) and were consequently thrown out. We arrived to meet Kieran, who was joining us for a week, at the airport with all our worldly possessions in tow and ended up checking into a hostel called Generator together where we dormed with Charles, Seb, Max, and Comme – four French guys from Lyon who became our best friends for the week. The next day, Nick showed up in Berlin to surprise us all having booked a flight over from Washington DC via Dublin on a whim. Katerholzig, hangovers, rooftop techno clubs, breakfast buffets, cocktails, getting to know the world’s most quirky city even better, a visit from Jade and Ollie, heart-to-hearts, hugs and constant side-splitting laughter made that week in Berlin undoubtedly one of the best of my life. On the 29^th of August Shannon and I flew back to Dublin, and back to reality.

The Irish, the French and the American at cocktails

"The Jade"

Ooh er

The dorm

Burning the candle at both ends got to us eventually

Heading home after almost four long months away

Reeling in the Year - Spring

January

The first month of the new year is hazy in memory. I do know that it involved several parties in Shannon’s granny’s old house, threatening letters from the law school, our first Law Ball, new clothes, mock trials, trips to Workman’s, missed German drama rehearsals, a Luas fine, and (half-baked) new year's resolutions.

Wir lollen

 

Law Ball

February

February saw me desperately trying to learn my lines for the fast-approaching German drama, The Night We All Got Horribly Drunk Hence Nobody Can Remember What Happened, oversleeping the morning on which the tickets for Trinity Ball went on sale and very nearly not getting one,  the German theatre group’s performance of “Pension Schöller” in St.Killian’s Deutsche Schule, my first trip to C.U.N.T., the theatre group’s trip to Tübingen (which is one big hilarious blur of exhaustion, forgotten lines, and collapsing sets) and travelling onto Berlin from there to meet the rest of JF law and German for reading week. “Dreeeeeeeeeenk some!”

Bundestag, Berlin - JF Law and German 2013

CU Next Tuesday

"Pension Schöller"

Sorcha and I thought that this was hilarious at the time

March

I attended Bombay Bicycle Club’s St Patrick’s Day gig in the Academy, fulfilling a long-held dream. I had desperately wanted to go to their last Dublin gig but unfortunately it was on the same week of the Leaving Cert Irish orals so everyone was too exhausted to go. This gig more than made up for that bit of disappointment, as Bombay played a stellar set and we were up the very front for the whole thing. March was also the month I got elected to the DU Germanic Society’s committee after showing up to the AGM on a whim, and I attempted to have my tea-damaged laptop keyboard fixed without success.

April

The first half of April revolved around Trinity Ball: getting excited for it, actually going to it, and then living in a post-Ball bubble of euphoria for days after it. It truly was a fantastic night; we spent the afternoon in the sunshine all kitted out in our finery in Shannon’s back garden, before hitching a free ride to Trinity in a stretch hummer at about 11pm. Bastille, Ellie Goulding, Imagine Dragons, the Vaccines were the main headline acts and they plus several others kept us entertained all over campus until 5am. Jolly good fun. The rest of April involved a lot of cramming for nasty first year exams which (for me) were to begin at the beginning of May. I was swallowed up by a vortex of stress, fast food, and crankiness where I remained for the remainder of the month and well into the next.

We scrubbed up well

"Page of Friends"

Vogue

Baby Face

Two things happened to me within the last month which have forced me to accept that I look younger than my twenty years. While I'd always heard from people that I looked maybe a year or two younger than I actually am, that I looked like somebody in senior cycle at secondary school rather than a second year college student, I'd never really paid much heed. I certainly couldn't see it when I looked in the mirror, and besides, people assuming I was in fifth or sixth year instead of senior freshman Law and German was, at best, amusing, and at worst, mildly irksome. Sadly, my living in ignorant bliss about exactly how young some people seem to mistakenly think I am came to a screeching halt thanks to these two recent occurrences, causing me to become hung up on my apparently youthful appearance.

"Let me show you to your table", the young waitress smiled. It was a mid-November Friday evening, and my parents, brother and I had headed out to dine at a nice restaurant in Drogheda. As the four of us sat, the waitress said to my mum, "I'll bring you along menus now. Would you like the kiddies' menu for the children?" and gestured towards me as she uttered the words "kiddies' menu". I was incensed. Dad smirked, Mum was rendered speechless and looked towards me nervously, awaiting my reaction, and my brother Dara, four years my junior, grinned. I was the first to break approximately eight seconds of thundering silence. "I'm twenty", I explained smoothly, as though the waitress were a dense toddler, "so I really don't think that would be appropriate."

"Oh!", came the waitress's surprised reply. "That's so embarrassing, I'm sorry, I'm only twenty-one myself!" With that, she scuttled off, and sent another waitress back with our menus. By now, Dad's shoulders had started to shake with laughter, and I had launched into an amused albeit miffed tirade about how I was sick and tired of people thinking that I am at an age which qualifies me to eat sausage, beans and chips (in this case, ten and under - seriously).

So aghast I was I even went as far as posting a Facebook status about this little incident, something I tend to reserve for very special occasions only. It got fifty-five "likes", and unfortunately I'm not sure if this means that fifty-five people simply found the waitress's faux pas amusing or whether fifty-five people agree with the waitress on me looking like a fourth class pupil. Of course, I've had this happen before, but never before have I had anyone so brazenly mistake me for someone so young. When I was sitting the Leaving Cert, people thought I was sitting the Junior Cert, and when I was sitting the Junior Cert, people tended to think I was still in first year, and so on. That, I could handle. And everybody is going to look juvenile in school uniform, anyway.

It's starting to become a little more embarrassing, though. Or so it did two months ago, anyway. It escalated last week, on the last day of term. I came rushing out my front door, weighed down with a suitcase, a backpack, and my cumbersome laptop and its replacement keyboard, determined to catch the last bus for the next twenty minutes into town. Still running, I stuck out my hand as the bus pulled up to the stop. As I clambered aboard, sweaty and breathless and patting myself down trying to find my ticket, the driver leered and quipped, "are you running away from home, love?!" Having found my ticket, I validated it, chuckled weakly, and proceeded to haul my case into the luggage rack and find a seat. Twenty minutes later as we approached my stop in town, I made my way back to the luggage rack at the front of the bus to tussle with my case.

"Are ya heading home for the weekend, love?" he asked.

"Yeah, I am! Back to Louth!"

"Ah you're from Louth; a wee lass from the the Wee County! Are ya at college here?"

"Yes, yes I am!"

"And where are ya studying?"

"Law and German in Trinity..."

"That's gas, love, Sure don't ya only look about twelve. Ah sure look, you'll make some lucky man very happy someday!"

Why, because I look twelve? I wanted to ask. Instead, I chuckled moronically again, and disembarked wishing him a happy Christmas. I remained dumbfounded for the rest of the afternoon and my mouth hung so far open I'm surprised I didn't catch flies. People had now moved on from simply confusing me with someone who still believes in Santa, to actually going out of their way to point out that I look childish. Fantastic.

And what is it about my appearance that causes people to fall under this misapprehension in the first place? It's not as though I wear my hair in pigtails and carry a lunch box. Okay, I don't wear a pick of make up save special occasions, but would a layer of foundation and some mascara really add five years onto my appearance? Probably not. I'm now perennially plagued with doubt about my appearance thanks to Menugate and that "character" of a bus driver, and my mind is filled with so many questions. If I look twelve now at the age of twenty, how old did people think I looked when I was actually twelve? Four? Is this why bouncers who man the doors of pubs and nightclubs so often ask to see a bank card or health insurance card with my name on it to back up my ID, and not just because they're "strict with everybody" as I had always thought? Will I look thirty-two on my fortieth birthday?

Dad says he suffered with the cursed baby face when he was at college, too. Even though he was often left red faced when he got refused entry to licensed premises for looking like a character from an Enid Blyton novel, he says it stands to him now (it doesn't). I can, however, take solace in the fact that when you Google "having a baby face" you are met by a Yahoo! Answers page where most people say that it means you have soft skin (a plus in my book) and a round face (hmm) and that it's generally a good thing. I'll take that. Even though I don't really believe it.

I Am Not Law Student-Like

Earlier, as I sat in the law library in college mulling over a seminar assignment that was failing to hold both my attention and my interest, I came to a realisation. I have chosen the wrong degree.

I've always kind of suspected law wasn't really up my alley. Law students are expected to be motivated, good problem solvers, diligent, and pay attention to detail. I'm lazy, haphazard, disorganised and careless. While I enjoy the German part of my degree (language and cultural history), my legal modules force me to question my intelligence, my sanity, my ability to care and even my ability to spell - when you read the word "manslaughter" eleven times across two pages, it just starts to look really, really wrong and unwordlike. I don't want to be a barrister or a solicitor. For one thing, I would leave all the necessary preparation until the last minute and then everybody would go to prison or lose custody of their children or whatever, and for another, I don't want to have to work hard at something I absolutely do not enjoy. Call me lazy, but law is difficult and involves having a working knowledge of Latin and makes me want to lie down thinking about it. I know the reality of the future is paying bills and putting food on the table and all this stuff about "following your dreams" and "being true to yourself and your interests" and "doing what you love" doesn't really matter when you're forty and have a mortgage to pay off but come on. I'm sure I'll figure out how to pay for things somehow.

I didn't sign up for a law degree as an aspiring Clarence Darrow only to have my expectations of what it would all entail unfulfilled and my hopes dashed and my dreams crushed. I'm not sure what I was thinking, really. The German aspect appealed to me the most and the university's prospectus was terribly misleading in that it made the German legal systems module sound interesting. My strengths have always been language and expression so I thought a full grounding in law, German law, German history and German language was a pretty decent fit. I suppose I also had romanticised notions of arguing passionately in favour of this, that and the other and speaking out fervently against X, Y and Z but you do very little arguing of your own in a law degree really. You just need to learn about what about other people argued and then argue for or against their arguments. There are very few morals involved; it's all a giant storm in a teacup over minute details and technicalities.

As I sat in the law library this evening, six things came to my attention that hammered home the reality of the situation - that I am not cut out for the hard graft and effort required for a Trinity law degree. As my peers hunched over desks around me, diligently poring over fat legal textbooks and online legal databases, I sat chewing a pen I got for free in Supermacs and wondered whether I could get away with faking tonsillitis if I simply refused to speak for a few days and consequently would not have to attend my land law seminar. For starters, everybody else was typing away on neat little netbooks or MacBooks or iPads, while I lugged out my worse-for-the-wear, dinted and crumb-covered 17" laptop complete with plug-in USB keyboard because I spilled tea all over the original one back in February and it no longer works. Secondly, I had no notepaper with me, never mind the fancy yellow legal notepaper, because the bag in which my notepad fits didn't go with my outfit this morning so I chose to take a smaller one to college with me instead and leave my notepad behind. Thirdly, I was not neatly dressed and wearing trendy high-heeled ankle boots. This is foreshadowing; I will never be able to wear a trouser suit and look elegant and not spill something all down the front of it. Fourthly, I had to look the most basic of terminology up in an online legal dictionary and the most basic of legal concepts up on Wikipedia. Granted, land law is a difficult twat of a subject but that's no excuse for not knowing what "conveyance" meant. Fifth of all, I hadn't set foot in the library since May, despite it being November and the seventh week of lectures, and didn't know the "showing your student ID to the security guard who grunts or nods in acceptance" system of entering the library had been replaced by one involving swiping your card against an electronic reader thus I rammed into the very solid barrier and made myself look like a right cretin. Finally, my laptop's screensaver is a photo of Alicia Florrick from "The Good Wife" with my face poorly photoshopped onto her shoulders, which was a going away gift from my pal Maria. It's supposed to be ironic because she's wearing a trouser suit and I was going to Germany to work in an office and despise trouser suits, as hinted at above. I'm also drunk in the photo and have lipstick on my face. Juxtaposition at its very best.

I keep waiting for the day I will have an epiphany or a "Eureka!" moment and discover a legal module or aspect of a legal module that will make me love law and want to sit down and read cases and legislation and actually enjoy it or maybe even just tolerate it, but this possibility becomes more and more remote with each passing lecture and mind-numbingly tedious legal concept. At least I have German, I console myself. At least I have German.