13 things I won't do next semester

1.  Pay more than €3 for a taxi home 

Taxi drivers can be really decent human beings, from time to time. Other times, they’re utter assholes. They prey on the intoxicated, already devilishly poor students that they find stumbling down Ellen Street, in search of any means of getting home. The reason taxi drivers target these students is because they view them as an easy profit. Any young person, if adequately inebriated, will fork out anything between €5- €10 each in order to get themselves home. Boom, a nice jackpot there for the lucky taxi driver. 

This semester however, I will point blank refuse any taxi driver that is not willing to take me home for €3, provided there are four of us in the taxi. He should be thrilled by the prospects of €12 for a short, less-than-ten minute drive out to the university. If not, I’ll simply walk two metres down the road to the next taxi. By the time you’ve shut the door on nine taxis, the tenth taxi driver definitely won’t say no.

2.  Go out wearing heels 

Not that I ever did that during the first semester. I’m just restating the fact that I refuse to wear heels in Limerick. Towards the end of the first semester I honestly tried my best to wear a pair out one night. I got as far as the house twenty metres from mine and couldn’t endure the pain any longer.

I don’t know how I used to do it in Killarney. Every night without fail I would wear heels on a night out. Now I can barely look at the damn things without a blister forming on my heel. I guess when it boils down to it, going out in Killarney is all very pretentious compared to Limerick. It’s all about who you’ll see out, what they’ll see you wearing, who they’ll see you with, etc. In Limerick, it’s all about that bass, ‘bout that bass, no trouble… Okay no it’s not, but it really is all about the dancing and the drinking. How it ought to be, in my opinion.

3.  Buy chicken from Lidl 

Since coming to college and realising that Lidl is a far shorter walk than Aldi, Lidl has become my bae. Chocolate, ice cream, drink, cookies; you name it, Lidl has it. And for way less than the likes of Tesco or Super Valu, my once preferred choice of supermarkets.

With the development of this newfound love for the German super-company, I made the decision to trust it with my main source of nutrition in the whole college week – chicken breasts. Chicken curry, chicken stir-fry… I expected my list of chicken-based meals to be longer, but that’s it. But yeah, I like my chicken. So you can only imagine my disgust when I realised the chicken I had bought (with five days left before the use-by date, btw) was entirely gone off. Now imagine my horror at the thought that I am chickenless for the entire week. That’s a good three dinners out of five gone out the window. Chicken balls.

4.  Miss more than 10 hours of college a week 

Probably something I shouldn’t have to put on this list. Nevertheless, we all know there are times in the week when you have zero motivation to make that ten-minute trek to a lecture you know will be online the next day. Especially when it’s raining. And getting dark. And the housemate asks who wants tea. And you really would love a cup of tea.

Maybe then it’s okay to miss an hour here and there, but certainly no more than that. Last semester was pretty reckless and although there were only a few weeks where I missed a significant amount of hours, I’m going to redeem myself this semester.

Last semester, I devised the idea of a drink jar. For every hour of college that is missed, a euro must be placed in the drink jar. At the end of the semester, the money is spent on, well, drink. Unfortunately, I contributed a large sum of money to the drink jar. That won’t be happening this time around, though. My housemates laughed when I told them I plan on going to every college hour of semester two. Well, I’m determined to prove them wrong. For my pocket’s sake, at least.

5.  Say hi to the village manager 

Quite simply, he’s a bit of a bollocks. Many an evening I have walked past him, made eye contact in an attempt to say hello, and he has glided past me as if I wasn’t even there. I don’t know if he suffers from massive blind spots in both of his eyes, or if he’s just a miserable fucker. Either way, I won’t be caught almost wasting my breath on him again.

6.  Go to the library 

You would think, what with all the time I missed of college last semester that this would be on my list of things I WILL do this semester. But no, it is not. I don’t know about you, but I hate the library. It’s always full no matter what time of the day you go there, and there’s always a bloody queue greeting you when you get through security. Because yes, that’s what it feels like to me when I walk through the library doors. I feel like I should be whipping out my passport as a second form of ID in case my student card fails me.

On top of that, I haven’t a fucking clue where anything is in there. For those of you that need to find a book but haven’t been into the library yet, don’t bother. Seriously, don’t. It’s too big. You’ll spend longer trying to find your way back out of the library than it would take to order the book online and have it delivered by standard mail from China.

7.  Order pizza twice a week 

Or even once a week for that matter. The amount of fivers I have handed over to the men in little cars is ridiculous. Not only that, it’s so unhealthy. There’s a reason those pizza deals are five euro, and it’s not because they’re made with only the finest ingredients.

I know what you’re thinking. “But it’s so convenient and it’s relatively cheap and it means no cooking for the night, woooooo.” Oh believe me, I love seeing that anonymous number appearing on my screen as much as the next person but cutbacks must be made this semester.

I know what you’re thinking. “Boo, you whore.”

8.  Leave my bedroom door unlocked overnight 

Somehow I survived the whole of the first semester without having my room raided and destroyed. The other not so lucky housemates had toothpaste on their mirrors, chairs stuck out their windows, clothes thrown everywhere and even a fortress made out of their whole room. How I escaped the wrath of the “lads” is pretty obvious – I put the fear of God into them. I know damn well they’d be too afraid to even breathe in my room for fear of me noticing.

I hope to maintain this fear factor right through to May, so as to safeguard my personal belongings and most importantly, my food. Having said that, I will still take precaution and lock my door at night. You know, just in case.

9.  Stay up until 6am on a Sunday night 

Ah, Sundays. The day of rest. The day we all arrive back in Limerick for the week. The night we all go to bed before 12am because we all have 9am starts the following morning…

WRONG. Even though literally nothing exciting ever happens on a Sunday night (unless we order Chinese. That’s pretty exciting), I somehow still end up awake at all hours of the night. It actually bothers me. Why do we do that to ourselves?! I don’t even… Anyway. Let’s hope for better sleep this semester.

10.  Have a midday shower 

You know that thing in the hot press that allows you to put the hot water/ heating on earlier or for longer? Yeah, ours doesn’t work. Maybe it’s this way for every house in Kilmurry, but in our house the hot water takes about three hours to heat up from the time it’s actually switched on. So every time I leave the hot water on for an extra two hours in the mornings to accommodate my afternoon showers, I still end up having a lukewarm shower. And we all know how miserable one feels after a lukewarm shower. It spoils your mood for the rest of the day. That 5pm lecture looks even more depressing than it did before your lukewarm shower. Then it starts raining. Then your housemate offers you tea…

11.  Rejoin badminton 

Remember that feeling of anticipation and excitement at the start of the semester, as you signed up for different, exotic sports you had never tried before? That was me when I joined badminton. No, let me rephrase. When I wasted a fucking tenner to play a sport I don’t even like for about three weeks.

This semester I will be wiser. I will tread with caution at the Clubs & Societies registration day. In fact, I might just stay at home and eat. Yeah, I think I’ll do that.

12.  Arrive late to a lecture 

From what I’ve seen of students that arrive late into a full lecture hall, they immediately regret it. They are usually greeted with a sarcastic remark from the lecturer, followed by sniggers from the hundreds of people staring at them.

I can understand why someone who is two minutes late to a lecture the whole way down in Kemmy would go in, but those people that stroll in twenty minutes late with a blank expression on their face? They bewilder me. My face winces just watching them open the door (that always creaks when you're late, might I add) and try to creep in unnoticed. Oh no my friend, we all see you. We will continue to see you as you search for a seat amid the rows of staring faces. And we will laugh when the lecturer picks on you and makes fun of your hair or your flowery shirt. You pussyshit.

13.  Get a bus at 5pm 

Oh merciful Lord. For those of you craters that are forced to get a bus from the Stables at 5pm every day, you will know what I’m talking about. All’s well and good until the screen shows “304 Ballycummin – 2 mins.” Then people start getting anxious. The crowd swells around the outside of the bus shelter, each person trying to estimate where the front door of the bus will stop. When the red light of the bus comes into sight, all hell breaks loose. If you’re with someone, grab their hand or you’ll lose them in the crowd. It’s like a stampede of elephants racing to get to the watering hole first. Getting that 5pm bus is a safety hazard.

Finally, after squeezing every last person onto a bus that should only hold about fifty, you sit there uncomfortably for forty-five minutes before you reach the city centre. I kid you not. I’ve taken that bus at least four times and timed it each time. So after all the chaos and mayhem of getting onto that 5pm bus, you probably would’ve gotten into the city faster on the 5:15pm bus. Oh, the irony.