The Year That Was…2009

I know it is up a bit late but found it difficult to upload over the past few weeks as I kept closing the window and stopping the upload >_< Yes you will see a lot of photos of me in America but that is where I took most photos this year but it is still enjoyable to watch with some photos not being in any other photo montage done this year…Enjoy ^_^

Unsociable Social Networking

I am probably not the first person ever to blog/comment on such a topic but over the last 2 or 3 months I am seeing the effects of Social Networking. It is not by the fact that I am not talking to any of my friends and I am slipping into a place where the only light source is coming from my laptop, but the fact that what we write up on Facebook is being seen by so many and our conversations in real life become of what we have mentioned or did we see what someone said. I am not saying this is a really bad thing as it allows us to express feelings that are hard to say. I would always prefer to write something down and show it rather than to speak out what I just wrote as you won’t chicken out.

Though I do enjoy being on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and of course this blog, I have cut down on what I had and not venturing into the world of Flickr, Myspace, Bebo (though I have had some of these) and many others that are out there. Yes, it becomes a way to meet new people or keep in contact with long lost friends or those who we once knew but is totally on a superficial level and really only done so to increase in amount of friends, followers or subscribers we have. Some of these people will take no interest in what you actually do and will glance at your status updates every once and a while. This was made evident by meeting people in real life who are friends on Facebook and thinking as I am on there that they would know what I am doing with my Life and not having to ask me the question. I am guility of this also but it showed me that though you have friends, followers or subscribers, do we really think them as that or just another number in the race to have the most people knowing what you are doing right now?

Ideas

As I mentioned in my previous post I had set out ambitions for the year of 2009. This time as I look through the looking glass and into 2010, this is what my idea of the year will be:

To have learned more about myself, my God and my friends

To have overcome feelings that bring me down

To have moved out of home for a period of time

To have seen a new city and experienced a new food

To have graduated from my Masters course

To have been put to my limits (in a good way)

To have liked, loved and lost

There seems to be more on my plate for the coming year than the previous. I believe though that I will never achieve everyone of these as I didn’t last year. With the first two on my list being the ones I feel I didn’t achieve and they were at the end of the list are now at the start of this one, so that will surely mean they will get done 🙂

With another down and now we move out of  the noughties, will we now have the Niceys ^_^

Emotions

Moving on to the next of the three topics (Thoughts, Emotions and Ideas) which now is emotions will be this weeks post. Not only the title of this post scared me from writing it but have dreaded the fact that I will be writing about what I have felt the past year.

There are 8 basic emotions and 8 advanced emotions each composed of 2 basic ones. This year by looking at the emotions that are listed in this criteria, I would have expressed every single one of them which is not surprising. From the beginning of this year, it was much more fear, anticipation and disgust as I had a lot on my plate with college and being in Final year and all. As the months went by, it turned to joy, surprise, anticipation with a hint of disgust as I headed out and went to New York for the summer on my J1 and while I was there. As I now come through the final weeks and come to the end of the year, and think of those months since I have returned, my emotions are of anticipation, disgust and fear. Yes, I have returned my year back to the doom and gloom which with I have started out my year. It is the coming back to reality and release what the year was like.

The one emotion that has been through out those three parts of the year which was not said is sadness. Yes, emotions are meant to be outward movements of our life but many we want to keep bottled up for no one to see, and maybe its safe to keep them that way…

At the beginning of the year, I set out ambitions for the year of 2009:

“That my labs and modules go well over the next 3 months and that I won’t be too stressed especially in the first six weeks where we have 15 hours of Modules along with a possible 19 hours of labs, To get my degree in Chemistry of Pharmaceutical Compounds. I have spent four years in the course and every year surprised that I pass my exams and move that step forward so I hope the same for this year, To see a new part of the world during the summer, To experience something new and wonderful, To learn more about myself, my God and my friends, To overcome feelings of anger, hate and distain and to let strangers know how my life is going”

Looking back on this list I feel I have achieved about 5 out of those 7 that I have stated. I do believe that it is a good achievement but looking at the two that I feel I didn’t achieve, “To learn more about myself, my God and my friends, To overcome feelings of anger, hate and distain” makes me saddened that I didn’t get the two more important items on the list. Looking back at that post is scary that I did set myself goals to talk to my future self and to question him, ” Are you happy with what you have done this year as a whole?” That is not an easy question to answer, but overall I would have to say no. As I said sadness was part of every month this year, is because I was not doing my part to fulfill the two that I missed out on is because they were the hardest to deal with. As I am now looking back I try to scramble and see if I can make good on these. I am taking time out and not just focus on college(which has taken so much of my time) but also on God. Psalm 6 has tugged on my heart strings which describes my year within me. As you go through the Psalm it moves to that  I am getting my strength back but will take time. To blog about this is hard and I hope that others who (if any) read this will reflect on the emotions and reasons behind them for the past year. With not being happy with those two, I have decided to start my year early, by starting in December and aim to start this year well as I reflect back on the year that has just gone. I know some people say they cannot wait till 2010 to start over but to get a jump on the year is to start early and hope that your year goes well for a month longer.

So with my year of 2009 being completed, I look onto the year that is 2010 and wonder at what this years ideas/ambitions will be for it ,which I will talk about next week.

Thoughts

Last week I titled the post Thoughts, Emotions and Ideas, which will be a topic for each of the blog posts, this week being thoughts, as we move out of 2009 and knock on the door of 2010. My thoughts are those that have been of 2009 and what my recap of the year that was.

Yes, the past year has had its ups and downs but that is no different from any other of the 23 years being on the planet. 2009 had started out with the thoughts of failing exams, getting projects done and what was on the horizon after graduation if I made it that far. It also held the prospect of a J1 Summer which would allow freedom and experience but the hurdle of exams was always there looming. The time leading up to the exams was going so slow and I thought it would never come.

America had opened my world to getting to know people, to interact with people differently and experience a new culture and change my thoughts for the future that was ahead of me, of where to go, what to do, what to see and espically what I am missing out in. My thoughts of the J1 summer is that everyone should do it and experience a whole new level of freedom (I would say individuality but I do so ligthly). My thoughts of what to do when I returned to Ireland were tested and had to once again make a decision pretty much independtly away from parents and friends with little or no contact from them which did make it harder. My thoughts on what I would do on my return and being a fully graduated student had been altered due to the doom and gloom of the recession and the effects of what I thought I wanted to do. I had the plan to either take a year out and travel and come back to work and “settle” back and look forward then to what to do for my life or to work for 6 months and then travel for 6 months and then return. However, that was changed by the lack of jobs, money and prospects. The change was pushed by the fact that it would involve too much effort to do all that and instead to take the easy option and head back to college for another year and to postpone the inevitable. The Americas did come and go by so quickly that as I look back I cannot believe I was there for so long and I didn’t take the oppertunity to do as much as I would have liked.

Starting of my new college Masters life meant the giving up/passing on the responsibilities of the UCC SVdP Society which I had been involved in since 1st year and never waivered from though at time there were confrontations but these were overcome. I knew it was time to give it up without being sure that I was coming back to college and as a Postgrad, it was up to Undergrads to take it on and proceed with it as they would get more involved being around in college longer than a few months like I was. It was before this I knew though that it was coming to the end. The college course was a lot more intense than I first imagined, maybe due to the fact that it was crammed all in 6 weeks unlike most modules which would be 12 weeks long so that made people think twice of the course which has led to 6-7 people already drop out of the course with only 6 weeks worth of lectures being done. But with 4 years under my belt and I have never failed an exam yet, I don’t intend to start.

This year has led me through thoughts of am I gonna finish the race of college and survive the torments that have been nagging away at me. Yes I have slipped for longer periods than I had thought but I rise to the challenge and not on my own. It has been during these hard times of college, exams and projects that going into these things my thoughts like always turn to Him and ask Him to help me and direct me, to make all the answers to be correct as I seal the papers closed and not fail. This is not the only time I think of Him but throughout the day but mainly at night as I think and go through my head I know that He is listening to me and He drops words into my mind and allows me to grow and have new thoughts, emotions and ideas.

As you can see these thoughts are those of the past with ideas in the coming weeks will be the plans for the year of 2010.

Now with so much free time it has allowed me to think more of what is going on with my thoughts, emotions and ideas which I will continue to blog on… This does not mean that I am not doing any college work, which I am but there is only so much information a brain can handle.

Thoughts, Emotions and Ideas

I know that I have not posted in the last while, which did not mean I was neglecting the blog in anyway but I was rather gathering my thoughts, emotions and ideas with what popped into my head. However, I felt that I shouldn’t write them down/draft them as it was a time I wanted not to put fingers to a keyboard or a pen to paper but to do some natural thinking for once.

I have however, been enjoying other social networking on Facebook and spreading out via Twitter and getting a good feeling about those that respond to my few tweets that I do, at you know people are listening/reading you as it is so easy and efficient to respond. It was also a chance to see the passing few who go through my blog, and search for it without any new posts going up.

Innocence is Bliss

Not knowing about adult things when you were younger was the task held by your parents. Close your ears, when adult talk is said or close your eyes when a naughty scene appears on the TV. But when its coming of age, your parents stop protecting your innocence and thrown into the big bad world which happens during the teenage years.

Even though you should grow more mature along with age which I feel in some shape, way or form but I feel that I am still innocent and there is so much more that the world has to throw at me. Is this a good thing to have innocence to see the world as a good and happy place to live or should I be harder and not care??? So many people have become the latter and everyone is out to get them and let no one in.

 

That Thing You Do (Or Don’t)

Yes, we all have things that we would love to do in life but are too freaking scared to do because we worry about what people will say, the looks we will get and numerous other things that are on our mind when we step out…But are we always brought up to not care what others say??? Why then do we take this true to heart and never go through with what we want to do…

There is an ever growing list of things that I would do but my mind is in two minds, one is what people will think, say and the backing up why you do it even though it has no impact on their life and the other is saying do it and not care what happens at the end of the day.

MSc Biotechnology, UCC

I am now in my first week of what you could say is a study month with only 2 hours a week which are labs being my college attendance from now till christmas holidays in 6 weeks. This is due to the fact that this year my lectures took place in September and October rather than November and Decemeber which occured in previous years.

This means we get to go over our college material in the last 6 weeks for the 5 out of 8 modules we have to do in MSc Biotechnology. This is very helpful but its more organization rather than study as we will forget it come March when we have our exams (Mar. 29 till Apr. 9) with exams every second day. This means with it being easy now, will lead stress in Jan to Mar. with 3 modules (along with their assessments) and study for Spring Exams 🙂

 

Comprehending Life…

There are too many ways to comprehend what life throws at you. The actions/sayings/travels that you take in life can be scrutinized by yourself in so many ways and can have so many meanings to you and a whole lot more of explanations can be seen by another person looking on your life.

The way you act or say things in a moment can define who you are and labelled for the future to come. But what about the actions/sayings/travels that you don’t take? Are these to be left below your surface and never see the light of day? Is this what your truly want to be and are too afraid to step up and out with?

My blog post have been of late considered as cryptic and I believe that they are in no way like that. This post comes off the bat of  the first sentence coming into my head and I continue to type in the hope that it might help someone out there in our small world and stir up questions in their life too.