SECOND GRADE FRESH

That’s how much I HAVE to spend on uni textbooks for this semester.

Why do I HAVE to? Well, because they’re all brand spanking new editions of course, which rules out buying a second hand one!

And they’ll be out-dated by the end of the semester, so that rules out selling them on!

“Surely that’s too much, she’s including “recommended” textbooks too, right?”

Nope! These are the ones I’ll be reading as I eat breakfast, while I shower - with my arm sticking out beyond the shower-curtain, on the bus on the way to uni, during my tea-breaks at work, before I go to sleep - the stuff I need to PASS.

This is the grand total if I got all the books, not just the prescribed ones… $1922.60!!!!!!!!!!! (The ones that you probably need to do better than a pass).  Oh, it’s only the price of the laptop I’ll probably need in order to get through the semester anyway!

Borrow them from the library you say? I study in Queensland! Where all of the major universities combined will probably have 1 of these books if I’m lucky, going on my the last three years of uni…

Yep, I’m fucked.

Killing myself trying to work out which law elective to do in second semester. Do I really want to do tax law? Useful, but boring. Everything else is either boring and useless, or interesting but kind of already covered in earlier subjects? Why can’t I just do ALL (or most) of the electives. What if I miss something? How will I do all the human rights subjects AND all the corporate law ones? I need to work out whether I’ll be a good person or a money-hungry rich fuck.

Sure London still gives me butterflies when I go wondering about its streets, and Barcelona and Berlin aren’t far behind - but I’ve finally accomplished another dream and made it to Ireland. I’m getting my 3rd, 4th or 5th helping of those other cities - but Dublin is new and fantastic.

For those of you who aren’t aware, I’m a fan of the little things. The most rad days happen when the bus waits for you, or everyone gets splashed except you, or it’s starts raining when you get home and close the door - not when huge things happen. Huge things are great for a little, and then are forgotten!

Here are some little Dublin things that have kept me smiling all day long (ALL day).

• Awesome Irish dude helping me get my luggage out of the overhead luggage bins without me asking him to.
• Awesome Irish dude (another one) helping me pick up all my coins after I dropped them everywhere. By now I am convinced that Irish people are friendly and lovely beings.
• The bus from the airport to the city costs just 2.20 euros.
• The GIANT “Welcome to our home” Air Lingus billboard outside the airport. Sure it’s an ad for a company I didn’t fly with, but it made me feel welcome. Besides, Ryanair are Irish, right?
• My flight here cost 1 euro.
• I forgot, when the Ryanair air hostess said “Welcome to Scotland… er Ireland” and the plane full of Irish people rolled their eyes in unison.
• The billboard that said some kind of Irish alcohol was “a long way from Tipperary”. If you don’t think this is awesome I’m better than you.
• Everything being pretty.
• When I was asked for my surname where I’m staying and I spelled it out as per usual J-U-A-R-E-Z and the guy behind the counter said “Juarez?” and I was like WHOAH you can pronounce it! And he was like, how do you pronounce it? And I was like “Juarez”.
• He turned out to be the only hot South American I have ever seen in my whole life (no offence guys). Hooray for Uruguayans hanging out in Ireland.
• The fact that half the people in this place are speaking Spanish (what?).
• The fact that the happier I am the happier people around me are. Actually struck up a conversation with some of the room-mates. Now they’re referring to me as the Spanish one from Australia. They’re completely amazed that there are Spanish people in Australia… One of them is from Brazil, and the others haven’t told me where they’re from, but they sound Spanish Spanish.
• Half the people on the street are Spanish.
• The Temple Bar.
• The UO (yeah, I’m not going to spell that shit out, I’m ashamed) at the Temple Bar.
• The awesome photography and photography bookstore place near the meeting place.
• Giving nice bums that hang out on quaint bridges money.
• Cheap, AWESOME shoes from Topshop. Seriously - gorgeous, all Spanish leather, 27 euros.
• Student discount at UO and Topshop - even though I’m studying in Queensland, AU.
• The cute guy at Topshop giving me a big grin as I walked out with my rad purchase.
• None of these dot-points being in order.
• The sign on the Jesus cabbie statue that uses the wrong form of “their” (there).
• A place called the Yellow Jelly Club or Bar or Something.
• Pretty sure I’ve forgotten lots of things and you aren’t actually reading this dot point.
• Guiness factory.
• The fucking rad cow skulls adorning one of the theatres. What is that shit?
• Everybody’s accents.

Dublin rules, but I can’t wait to see my Bobben and Stooby-Doo in Glasgow.

P.S. THIS IS IMPORTANT GUYS. If you live in Dublin or have any ideas as to what is awesome to do anywhere in Ireland that you can get to on a train, LET ME KNOW PLEASE!

P.P.S. Reading this back I’ve got to add that there was a rad dude at a London tube stop playing some sort of Latino rumba junk on a HARP yesterday. Has nothing to do with anything but was hilarious/totally ruled.

P.P.P.S. Dublin is actually way better than what I’ve explained.