Quote of the Week #77

'What would disguise itself as a rat?'
'A mouse with delusions of grandeur.'

Horrible Histories

WTF - How To Be A Teen

'Lads, these steps are actually really uncomfortable. And you didn't even get my head in the photo!' (Thanks for the pic, http://iam-dollparts.tumblr.com/post/38059719612!)

A while back, I was distraught to read a blog post by a girl I've come to know and admire. Upon her sixteenth birthday, she wrote about how she was coming to believe that she was doing adolescence wrong - that she should be:

...doing things.

I feel like I should be sneaking out at night, going to parties, making memories. I feel like I should be buying cheap beer in the supermarkets and hanging out with my closest friends, talking about nothing and everything for hours. I feel like I should be taking lots and lots and lots of pictures in my camera. I feel like I should be lying on the floor of my room, looking up the ceiling, and listening to some sad indie music in my denim shorts and tie-dyed shirt. And yes, I know this is so stereotypical and even a tad discriminative of me, but, it just makes me worry. What if I'm not doing enough?

I want to be able to look back on these years and remember the rollercoaster feel of the time I've had. And I mean, I have made great memories. I have friends and a Friend who I wouldn't trade for anything in the world, and we've had amazing times with each other. But I just wonder if I'm making the most out of my youth. I wonder if this is enough. I'm sure that I would make more memories as I grow older but I'm already half-way through my teenage years and I'm not sure if I've lived in it enough...

As a seventeen year old, and therefore someone older and wiser, I feel it is my duty to set this straight.

That, first of all, is bullshit - that being seventeen gives me the authority to tell you how to be a teenager. Actually, no one really has that authority. And I think it is disgusting that we are given to believe that there is a formula for How To Be A Teen. I mean, it's easy to see why there is such a thing - so we buy stuff, but I'm not going to get into all that. You're sick of it anyway.

If you want to be sneaking out at night and going to parties and drinking beer and taking photos and listening to music on the floor of your room and all of that... if you want to, if it suits you, that is completely fine. What is not fine is that for this writer it feels obligatory, as if there's a mile-long checklist of important tasks that must be completed by the time you're 18 or 19 or 21 or whenever. That's just needless pressure that prevents you from doing what you really want to do with your time. And if you spend your time how you like, that's all that should matter. The only goal adolescents should have regarding their adolescence is getting through it without hurting themselves or anyone else, and emerging as an adult on the other side, even if it's hard to feel like an adult. And once that's done, you've just completed a successful adolescence. Gold star!

All of us who are teenagers now - I really don't want to use the word generation, it's become over-used - are 'doing' adolescence in a much different way than our parents did. With this new-fangled internet that's rotting our brains, for one, which I don't need to tell you about. And it's easier these days to be a person of colour or a girl or LGBT or all three than it was forty or thirty years ago, which is good. There are those that despair because teenagers these days don't have much to rebel against, apart from each other, but conformity years ago was more of an essential part of Being An Adult Person and getting a job and spouse, especially for women, which made rebellion lots more fun! But maybe it's this lack of conformity, set goals, a direct route to being a grown-up, that has resulted in record companies and film studios and retailers trying to put us on their routes instead. And everything is very confusing now.

I just think it's really sad that people who are leading perfectly adequate lives, even really good lives, people who are talented and kind and warm, feel as if they are not doing their life justice for no reason. That's all.

Smarter Than You Because I've Been Seventeen For One Month and Seventeen Days,

Eleanor Roscuro

Friends In Real Life - Shaun Meighan

Say hello to Shaun.

This is my friend Shaun Meighan. I have known him since we were both fourteen-ish. That's three years now. I met him through Kilkenny Youth Theatre. Shaun likes playing video games, vlogging, and he builds websites, including Quick Revise, for Junior Cert students, and his personal website, Shaun Plays Games. He is one of the nicest people I know.

Once upon a time a few weeks ago, he tweeted that he'd like to know what it would be like to be interviewed. I volunteered, as I have had some experience in this. After some time passed and we hadn't found a day we were both free to meet, I emailed him some questions. He has given me permission to put his answers, below, up on Apostrophe.

*Describe yourself in five words.

Nerdy, average, nervous, loving, self-sufficient.

*Now we're not fifteen anymore, what is your view on Nerdfighteria? (I have a lot of feelings on this, and I just want to see how you feel, as a person who is not me, but was a Nerdfighter the same time as me. Are you still a Nerdfighter?)

Honestly, I feel that I have outgrown the community. It was great when I was in Junior Cert, it was my only form of expression. Now, though, after TY, I've just grown as a person. Not to offend anyone who is a nerdfighter: it's just not for me anymore.

*Tell me about your website building. How is that coming?

The website building is going good :) I'm teaching myself and am saving for a mac to use a certain program :)

*What five songs would be essential to a Shaun Meighan soundtrack? 

• Art Is Dead - Bo Burnham
• A Man's Gotta Do - Dr. Horrible
• Nothing Suits Me Like A Suit - How I Met Your Mother
• 4 Chords - Axis of Awesome
• Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles

*On your Facebook profile, one of your favourite quotations is 'her past is gone, the present hurts, she has no future'. Why? (I know very well what it means.) (From A Vampire Story by Moira Buffini)

I just really like that quote :)

*Tell me about Ravenclaws. Who are they really? Do you identify yourself as an eagle?

I love Harry Potter, it's been with me since I was six, but I've never really identified with any one house - I see bits of myself in all of them. Also, I'm more of an owl :P

*What would you like to do when you leave school? 

Computer Science, mainly focused on web design and game programming.

*Why do you vlog about video games? (Do you say video games or computer games or just games?)

I say video games :) The reason I make videos on them is because they are one of the best forms of expression that I can think of. They don't tell a story, they let you live it.

*If you could return to a specific era in history, what would it be and why? 

I'd love to live during the Renaissance; all that innovation sounds like heaven to me :)

*How is Quick Revise? 

Quick Revise has been a great learning experience for me. It taught me so much about making websites - and managing them, dealing with a lot of users and trying to make changes while the site was in use. I'd love to do some more work on it :)

*What or who influences your wardrobe?

I tend not to base my wardrobe on anyone, I just wear things that I like. Many of my shirts have video game references because it's a way to start a conversation with people who have the same interests that I do.

*Quick-fire round -

• favourite book? Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkein
• film? X-Men: First Class
• band or album or both? Green Day
• TV show? Dexter
• website? YouTube
• place? My bedroom
• game? Sky Roads (an old MS DOS game, it's awesome)
• city? Kilkenny
• interviewer? my good friend Eleanor :P

*Shag/marry/kill - Florence Welch (of Florence + the Machine), Miriam O'Callaghan (of RTÉ), Michelle Obama (of the White House). 

Shag Florence, marry Michelle, kill Miriam.

*The colour pink, discuss. 

Pink has a Hex Triplet of #FFC0CB. Pink is any of the colors between bluish red (purple) and red, of medium to high brightness and of low to moderate saturation. Commonly used for Valentine's Day and Easter, pink is sometimes referred to as "the color of love." The use of the word for the color known today as pink was first recorded in the late 17th century.

*What advice would you give to anyone who wants to build websites/vlog about games/aspire to some level of ShaunMeighanness? 

Be yourself. I say that because I am legally obligated to. Seriously, though, don't say "oh I can't do it" or "what if people think it's stupid?" I used to think that when the teacher asked for volunteers to fix the computer. Now I don't need to even put up my hand; they ask for me. That feels so good. To know that you can offer help to someone is one of the best things you can have. My grandfather told me something that has stuck with me my whole life. Do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life.

I'd really like to make interviewing friends I have in real life a regular feature. (Me here again.) It's interesting what you can learn about people outside the realms of normal conversation when you ask them random questions and put them under pressure to deliver good answers for you lot, and their other friends who will hopefully read this.

If any of my friends in real life are reading this and wouldn't mind being questioned, or would like to plug something cool they're doing, give me a shout. I've got a Dictaphone, so you're in safe hands.

Eleanor Roscuro

Quote of the Week #76

Alice’s end of the daisy chain kept falling apart. She glanced at Marie’s end. It draped across her lap, seeming to go on forever. Marie’s long fingers seemed lightning quick as she pierced the stalks. Alice’s end was measly in comparison. But Marie was older than her, and so self-assured and confident and so kind to her. And it was her kindness that made her beautiful, because nice people are usually the prettiest, as Marie had said to her once. Or pretty people are usually the nicest. Anyway. Marie was amazing. It was a wonder she would let Alice near her at all.

Bró + Ron - Alice.

Making A Debut

I am a member of a superteam. The superteam is called Bró + Ron.

It was all my idea, I'd like to say.

Brónagh is my very fashionable friend who writes Glamour + Grunge. I can barely dress myself on a good day. We write, style and direct fashion shoots under the name Bró + Ron. Rather, I write, she styles, and we both direct.

We've been working on our first shoot since the start of June. It is called The Reluctant Debutantes. Cause we're making our debut, yeah? Clever. Anyway.

It's the first time I've ever done anything like this. Fashion confuses me. But I liked the idea of basing outfits around characters and stories, which is what we've done here. The Reluctant Debutantes are seven young ladies in an alternate Kilkenny, with the marriage market of a hundred years ago. They're not that happy about it either.

It goes online tomorrow at BroandRon.tumblr.com, and I really hope you check it out, and that you like it. We had great fun, from planning and plotting, to writing and styling, and the shoot days were like parties, the best parties I've ever been to. Just eight girls going around the park wearing crazy clothes! And we're already planning the next one...

The Reluctant Debutantes - Saturday 11th August 2012. By Bró + Ron. 

Oh! Forgot to say. I'm Ron.

Ronaele Roscuro

Oh Dear Diary, We Fell Apart

They say every teenage girl, or person, even, should keep a diary or journal. A place to record your feelings and secrets, and let out your frustrations.

I started keeping a diary before my thirteenth birthday, and ended (so far) just after my fifteenth. I filled up two ring binded Paperchase notebooks. Those rings would become bended and twisted from being shoved in my schoolbag every day. Scrawls of red, pink, blue, black ink that changed colour with the yellow pages of my first notebook.

All my adolescent angst and turmoil was spent during my First and Second years of secondary school, when I was thirteen and fourteen. Some of that has been recorded here, if you're willing to look or have been around long enough. Those diaries were filled with the usual stuff, like 'why won't anyone be my friend? I can't be that unbearable' and 'I HATE THEM ALL THOSE SELFISH BITCHES'. I'm not quoting directly or anything, that's just the gist. Then there was more personal stuff, like 'I thought I was supposed to be smart, so why am I so bad at everything at school?' I wasn't that bad, really. Just terrible at maths, but the next year I would go from Honours to Ordinary, so happy ending there. But lots of people, a few with letters and initials after their names, had told me when I was in primary school that I was really clever, and then I didn't feel clever anymore. I didn't know what to think.

So there I was, pouring all my problems out into my diary, fulfilling the stereotype. People say that's a great way to look at your problems, out there on the page instead of all muddled up in your head. But after a while, I started to realise the opposite - as I wrote them down, my problems left my mind, and in doing so entered the real world. I could not deny them anymore, for they existed. It made them all the more terrifying and unsolvable, and made me all the more unhappier. I didn't like it.

I didn't mean to stop writing my diary, it was completely unintentional. During the Christmas holidays of my Third Year in school, a month after I turned fifteen, my school opened for about a week for girls doing exams to come in and study for a few hours a day. I went in and each day I would spend the bulk of my time studying and about an hour writing in my diary, but the diary-writing time grew day by day. I'd gotten news of a play I was going to be involved in, and I was so excited, but I had a plan. I wasn't going to just write it in my diary, I would print out the email I'd gotten and paste it in, for posterity! So each day I would hint at it, and agonise over leaving my friends, and become unbelievably excited.

I never stuck it in.

I'm glad I got over my angst back when I was younger, and that it didn't stick around. Of course I'm still worried and angry about things now, but only sometimes, and I know how to deal with it. I know that I have power. And people to talk to. Those days I only had friends outside of school, and while they're great and everything, they're not really that much use to you on a daily basis. (I DON'T MEAN THAT I LOVE YOU)  What I needed was friends in school, and for whatever reason, my own... I don't know what it was, or maybe I don't want to know, but I didn't have them. At the start of Fourth Year, which I finished back in June, I thought 'Okay, I don't need people anymore... but it'd be cool to have them.' I didn't need friends, I just wanted them. And they were there.

I think.

Those diaries are now in a box in the shed, which I refer to as the Archives in my head. Whenever I read them, which isn't very often, I feel sad. But that's only natural.

And sometimes I still want to write my feelings down, or what's happening, down on paper, where I can scrawl, and it only belongs to me. But I don't want to get back into the habit again. I want to leave it behind.

Moments of Transition (Year)

February

Today's the first, and this morning I was woken by a nightmare in which Joseph Goebbels was a teacher at my school. It was terrifying. He kept putting me in detention because I have brown hair and brown eyes and chose to learn French instead of Spanish. I can't remember what happened in those detentions, but it wasn't nice. None of the other teachers changed their behaviour, but they treated the methods of Mr. Goebbels as perfectly normal. And there were horrible rumours going around about Mr. Goebbels too, but you could never be sure if they were true or not, because everyone was afraid. When I woke up this morning I was terrified that I'd go into school thinking everything was normal until I had Mr. Goebbels first thing, so I said to myself 'OK Eleanor, let's sort out if Goebbels actually teaches you or not.' I promptly fell asleep and was woken again by my mother.

What does it mean when you dream of a Nazi?

********

September

I'm about to open an envelope. This envelope contains my Junior Certificate results. Everyone else has crowded around each other outside, it's a lovely day, but I ran off behind a wall. This is private, it's mine. For now, at least.

I try to take care as much as I can with the seal. I thought it would be an A4 sheet, not something this small. But where did I get that idea?

And the very first result listed -

English. D.

Ah, shit.

I knew on the day that I wasn't going to get a great result. I completely lost my head, but it's a matter of pride still. It's the first D I've ever gotten for English, because even with poetry, which I'm shit at, I can usually articulate something. I've still passed, but...

I've never really liked 'school English', whatever that is, but I only realised then how much I had let it become a label. Eleanor's Good At English. Which means she's one of the Creative Ones, which must mean she's bad at Maths, because that's how it works, isn't it? If you're creative and good at art/writing, it means you have to be bad at maths or business or science. But I'm not good at English in school. The only thing I can really do is the drama bit, because that's the bit that makes the most sense to me. But that doesn't mean I'm hopeless. Most of the content on my CV is stuff I've written.

Just because I didn't get the mark I had hoped for, but the mark I knew I would get when I finished Paper One, doesn't mean I'm suddenly incompetent. I'm still good at this. I am a semi-competent writer! I got that award, didn't I? That was just one day. Jesus Eleanor, calm down. You've still got ten other results! You haven't looked at them yet!

I scan down the page. There aren't any other Ds. I've got two As, three Cs, and the rest are Bs, including French and History, which I was really worried about. Excellent! Time to join the others and squeal a bit. Lovely.

Although it would be cool to get a C or something for the Leaving. Just to satisfy my own useless pride. And for the points, of course.

********

October

God, I'd forgotten how much swearing was in this play.

My Adult For The Evening, my cousin Eimear, is fidgeting in her seat beside me. She's twenty four, a primary school teacher, and she's my Cool Older Cousin, so I thought she'd be best to bring along to this night-time event in a pub.

But then I remember how I've always been her Baby Cousin Eleanor. And that I'm still only fifteen. And these people in the room, a lot of whom I seem to know quite well, are all older than me, and drinking, and some of them are shifting the face of each other on the projector. And my mother and her mother are waiting for us back home, and they'll want to know everything. And the dancing girl sitting with her friends at the front, the drunk one in the play, is getting a bit louder and a bit louder all the time. And apparently she's my friend.

And I come to appreciate a little bit more how trusting my mother and father must be.

Seems I'd also forgotten how much sex is discussed, and all that business with the condoms and everything.

The drive home is going to be very awkward.

********

March

I have known John Kennedy for one year and two months.

It is a very strange moment when, at Fishamble's Young People's Tiny Plays For Ireland reading, I am introduced to him for the first time. We're both from Kilkenny!

'Actually we do sort of know each other already...'

'Oh really? How?'

And, for some reason, we're standing there nodding and grinning inanely at each other. And I don't know why I'm not saying anything like 'Well, John here wrote a play called Shifting for the Devious Theatre Company back in Kilkenny, and it was completely sold out over it's six night run and received rave reviews, because it really was a brilliant play you know, and it was directed by that man over there in the blue hoodie, John Morton, beside the lady with the long brown wavy hair, no, below that row, and I was assistant director. And that's how we know each other.' That covers it. But we're not saying anything. It's very strange. Why aren't we telling him?

But eventually we say, at the same time, 'We worked on a play together...' Which is also the truth. And it'll do for today, because, and it seems strange, but we don't need Shifting today.

And the well-meaning person who introduced us but whose identity I have forgotten says 'Oh!' and escapes, leaving us to stand nodding and grinning inanely at each other.

********

December

It's the last day of school before the Christmas holidays. Everyone's exchanging cards, and all of a sudden she hands me a wrapped present.

I don't have anything to give her. Just a Christmas card with some song lyrics paraphrased inside, and what good is that if I've done it wrong and she can't understand it? And then she goes and gives me beautiful chocolates.

And they're Lindt chocolates. Everyone loves Lindt chocolates. I'm not the only one who's received them of course, but I can't remember the last time I got a Christmas present from someone that wasn't a relative.

A friend?

********

March

Today is World Book Day, and so a group of us have been entertaining some children in one of the local bookshops. We've dressed up as characters from Where's Wally for the occasion, and it's been loads of fun. Now we're walking down town to get lunch in our madcap gear. (Our madcap gear consists of red/white striped tops, blue jeans, hearts on our faces, and assorted accessories.)

I'm in a group of five and I'm doing my usual conversation thing where I stay on the edge and dodge the kerb and stone benches and listen to the others talk, and one of the girls is fiddling with her super-cute pigtails self-consciously. This girl is one of the kindest, most sincere girls I know, and I don't like seeing her uncomfortable with herself. So I try to tell her to relax.

In my classic, Eleanor Roscuro empathetic fashion.

It doesn't really work, because I haven't mastered empathy and all that stuff, so it's just me telling her that she's fine and she doesn't have to care about what other people think, all that easier said than done stuff, until eventually, a little voice in my head says 'You know what you should try? Paraphrasing that Henry Ford quote that Bill Cullen likes. That'll work!'

'If you think you're ugly or not ugly, you're right.'

'Really? You think that?'

And, oblivious to her body language or the tone in her voice, I do what I always do: concentrate on the words and plough right through.

'Yeah. I do think that.'

Suddenly, we all draw to a stop. There are boys ahead. They've just come out of the nearest boy's school. We go to a girl's school, so we don't know them... We take a breath, brace ourselves, and then carry on, our eyes raking each uniform for a familiar face. There's got to be about fifty, and I don't know any of them. Dammit.

She starts fiddling with her pigtails again, worse than ever, and I tell her to leave it, but she doesn't, and we've stopped talking. This is ridiculous! It's not the Charge of the Light Brigade for God's sake! Yet their attitude is infectious, and I can't help but expect... something.

Eventually our paths meet.

This is what I was wearing that day -

Note - awesome mask. Happy (unaware of camera) face.

I love this mask, and I'm enjoying walking around the street in it. Until it was assumed by a subset of the boys in uniform that since I am wearing a mask, I must be extremely unattractive. Hideous, even.

It could have been so much worse. I know that. But I wasn't expecting it all the same. And it doesn't make me feel good.  I don't know if I was supposed to hear, but it was quite loud, and it doesn't make me feel good. But when I'm older, maybe this will be a part of life. I don't want it to be, but that's not up to me, is it?

And she's still worrying about her pigtails, and she was passed by unscathed, and the one who didn't care was marked down, how's that for irony? And the moment to say something back has passed. And then it dawns on me that I may have called her ugly, in a backwards way. And I feel awful, because I've hurt the feelings of the nicest girl in the year. And I feel awful, because some strangers have hurt my feelings.

And when I tell them half an hour later what they said, when I get sick of the bloody pigtails, no one says anything. We change the subject. When we're older, in college maybe, and it gets worse, we probably won't know how to handle it.

********

February

I'm on a night out!

Well, technically. It could be said. I'm in Kilkenny, at night, and I'm with adults, but nice ones who invited me here, and there is alcohol present, but not in my hand or my gut.

Yeah, I'm on a night out.

I'm upstairs in the Watergate Theatre, at the launch of the new Devious Theatre production. They're going to remake Night of the Living Dead in July. I'd been aware of it since work experience in November, but it only registered tonight. The night is starting to draw to a close. I'm standing beside my older-super-cool friend Alex at the bar. John's leaning over the other side to us, like we're smugglers in one of those taverns three hundred years ago where you'd be sure to find all the criminals singing drinking songs, plotting, and drinking. But instead of planning our next robbery, John is telling us about getting into drama courses, something that seems just as foolhardy and dangerous. Well, it's all for Alex's benefit, she's the one applying this year. I just arrived in the middle of the conversation and quietly slotted myself in. We're both nodding solemnly as John gestures and points his fingers on the bar for emphasis.

The Mid-Term Ball is on Monday. I've no real interest in going - I've had my fill of monster discos since the Junior Cert Results. I've having a great night here. Everyone is so nice. I know most of them already, which is good, and I've even mentioned Gormenghast, and people have listened! And my pretty dress has been admired. That's always good. And there's buns and cake, and they have nice orange juice. And I was invited  and everything!

Apparently they don't look at your Leaving Cert marks in the colleges, not really. Just at what you show them at auditions. Wow.

There's a little voice in the back of my head saying 'It'd be nice to get the points anyway...' and I have a small memory of staring at a page behind a wall. Oh, the Junior Cert English thing. I'd kind of forgotten about that. It isn't such a stab to my pride as it felt like at the time. Hmm. That's good.


********

January

Today is a great day.

I'm in McDonalds on Grafton Street, finishing up my meal with my friends. We've come up to Dublin with the rest of the year to Trinity College. My older-super-cool friend Helena is studying Business and French there, and she was able to point me in the direction of the Drama and Theatre Studies talk that had started as we got off the bus, so after sneaking away from the group (!!!), I made it for the last five minutes. Then I met another older-super-cool friend Ruth who was at the talk and we had a lovely chat. Then I was able to discreetly insert myself into the group, go around the different stands, and then we went for lunch. Now we've got back onto Grafton Street and I'm turning right to go back to Trinity, but the others go left.

'Hey, where are you going?'

'Shopping. We've seen everything there.'

'Oh, okay. I'm going back to Trinity, I'll meet you later so - '

I wasn't expecting them to look that horrified or gasp that loudly. Or to chorus:

'You can't go back there on your own!'

I start to feel a little irritated. Up until last September all I did at school was go around on my own! I'm not desperate for human contact, but I really like their company, and I'm fine going around Trinity on my own. It's fun, and I'm meeting so many people I know, and I could look at the things I find interesting while they do their shopping. It's just thirty seconds up the street. I don't see what's wrong.

'No, really, I'm fine - '

'No, you can't go back there on your own... You can come with us if you like!'

'But... I don't know when I'll get there again, and I've been to Grafton Street before, and I'll be seeing it again at some stage. It's just up the street... I can look after myself!'

I know I shouldn't have said that as soon as it's out of my mouth. I've done it again. I don't know whether to turn and leave, or listen to what they've got to say next. Whilst I'm deciding, one of the group steps forward, not one I'm particularly friendly with. She sighs.

'Lads, it's alright, I'll go back with her...'

NO!

Because I don't want to be 'her', someone that has to be babied and minded, someone that's always getting in the way of everyone's fun! And I'm not, and I wouldn't be, if only they would let me go! But what am I supposed to say? I don't know what to say. I'm stuck now. The others don't look happy about the prospect either, and we all say:

'No, you don't have to, it's fine!'

But she's coming with me now. The other girls look as downcast as I feel. 'Well, if you're sure... We'll see you later so.' And they turn and walk off. We walk silently back to Trinity.

I feel bad about giving her the slip when we get there, but I do it anyway.

********

April

'Anna, why don't we ever do anything Irish?'

We've just filled out our evaluation forms about the last Kilkenny Youth Theatre year. This was something that had occurred to me when I was remarking on how I enjoyed the fact that with Gormenghast, we weren't confused by British slang or place names that we knew nothing about. Instead, we referenced places like the Hall of the Bright Carvings, or the Tower of Flints. Most of the youth theatre plays we read are by British playwrights.

'You mean a play?'

She goes on to explain that:

1. She really would like to do something Irish, but:
2. There are very few Irish plays written for a teenage production.
3. Those that do exist either don't have an ensemble cast or a cast large enough to accommodate sixteen-ish people, or are not very good. Or both.

Which is a shame, because I had been hoping for some to read, but I know Anna spent most of her career working with children and teenagers in theatre, and would know best out of all the people I could ask. I've been reading some of the British ones in the school library whenever there are no seats for me in the canteen, and there are some I love, and some I hate. But I'm Irish. I want to see something Irish.

It just makes me more determined. (Determined to do what? says the stupid voice.)

********

May

It's the last day of Transition Year. It's glorious outside, so we're sitting outside in the grass. We're making daisy chains, and writing on each other, and eating, and chatting lazily.

This is the day I have been waiting for all winter, all spring. It's brilliant. It's heaven.

********

November

I've come to a sudden stop outside the Butler Gallery. There are tourists, couples walking around the park. One passes me, and we smile. The weather's beautiful for a November morning, warm, with a soft breeze, the sort of day I like. And you wouldn't expect to find these many people in the park today, but they're here.

Today is the first day of my work experience with the Watergate Theatre and everyone's been so nice and I've got leaflets of a ballet, Scherezade, to drop into local businesses around Kilkenny and I've been doing that and last week I did work experience with Devious Theatre which was wonderful and I'm so lucky to have gotten what I wanted.

Today is my sixteenth birthday and the weather is beautiful and I'm not in school I'm on my work experience and I know that this year, this year is going to be brilliant.

********

Quote of the Week #75

My mother said to me 'If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.' Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.

Pablo Picasso

Apostrophe Mix - April 2012

Apostrophe Mix - April 2012 from EleanorRoscuro on 8tracks.

• Pegasus - Prelude of Titus
• The Offspring - You're Gonna Go Far, Kid
• Franz Ferdinand - The Lobster Quadrille
• Valora - Extreme
• Biffy Clyro - The Captain
• Regina Spektor - Hero
• Hans Zimmer - My Mind Rebels At Stagnation
• Pegasus - Gormenghast

Kilkenny Youth Theatre would like to tell you a story, a story of family responsibility and tradition versus personal freedom and choice, a story about a very different place: Gormenghast. Where age-old rituals and traditions govern the lives of every person, where nothing has changed for thousands of years. In this forbidding landscape the old order is being confronted by two young men – Steerpike, the renegade kitchen boy who murders and seduces his way up the social ladder; and Titus, the seventy-seventh Earl, a child who comes to embody the change that threatens the very existence of his home – Gormenghast.


And that's what I've been doing for the past eleven weeks. That is what this mix is about.

Eleanor Roscuro

Quote of the Week #74

Within an hour the morning classes were under way. At an ink-stained desk, with his chin cupped in his hands, Titus was contemplating, as in a dream, the chalk-marks on the blackboard. They represented a sum in short division, but might as well have been some hieroglyphic message from a moonstruck prophet to his lost tribe a thousand years ago. His mind, and the minds of his small companions in that leather-walled schoolroom, was far away, but in a world, not of prophets, but of swopped marbles, birds’ eggs, wooden daggers, secrets and catapults, midnight feasts, heroes, deadly rivalries and desperate friendships.

Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake