aoife.trench.warfare

The first one that came to mind was when my family and I were holidaying in Kinvara in County Galway during the summer for about a week or so. I must've been maybe 7 or 8 years old at the time. One of the memories from this holiday was a day we spent at the beach - my parents, myself, and younger brother and sisters - and we decided to build this sandcastle village. I can't remember whose idea it was, but all I know is at some point in the evening, myself and Tom were there with Dad making the sandcastles first and then Dad started building this huge wall around it like a medieval town, and soon enough it grew and grew, and began to attract a bit of attention from other beach-goers that day. We even dug a bit of a moat around the outside and collected water from the sea to put in to it. I recall decorating the castles and the town walls with shells and seaweed, and putting twigs into the ground to resemble trees as the evening sun began to set. It was really cool, we took some...

It depends. I can be incredibly patient in class as a child struggles to read a word aloud, but I can totally lose my cool when I get stuck behind an incredibly slow car, even if I'm not particularly in a rush anywhere. Patience is a virtue, honestly, and it is something I need to work on a bit more this year. I have plenty of it at work (where tbh it's part and parcel, like if you didn't have some ounce of patience there is no way you could teach children for a living) but it tends to do a disappearing act once I leave the classroom. Not sure why. I guess time will tell. If I'm willing to wait long enough to let it show me how.

The return of the sun.  I can't emphasise enough how much I love warm, sunny weather. Absolutely buzzing with the mini-heatwave we're having of late. The Six Nations rugby championship . Slightly disappointing this year, but an essential part of spring nonetheless. Leagues . Champions League, GAA Hurling and Football Leagues, Premier League. Time off school. February mid-term break, St. Patrick's Day bank holiday, Easter. I love my job, I swear... My birthday .  Pancake Tuesday . The only time of year I have pancakes and so do the absolute dog on it. Getting to wear cute clothes again.  No more puffy parka jackets, woolly hats and scarves covering up whatever ensemble you had put together underneath. Winter-wear be gone! Making summer plans.  March and April are when you start looking ahead to that expanse of free time available in a matter of weeks. At the moment I'm busying myself getting stuff organised for heading away this summer. The majority of frui...

(This was actually a lot harder than I thought). A film character with whom I identify would be Gru from Despicable Me, oddly enough, because: He was evil, then changed colours as the movies developed. Similarly, I have found that life experiences in adulthood have softened me as a person and reduced the negativity and bitchiness with which I enveloped myself as a teenager. Now, I didn't have any plans for world domination, but if I did, it would've been death to all by complaining. Part of what made him more woke to the good things in life was the presence of children. Working with kids both in the classroom and as part of extra-curricular ventures has, without a doubt, deepened my compassion and empathy for others. We are both most often seen sporting dark clothing. Can't go wrong with grey. We both speak with Russian accents. Obviously.

I am looking forward to all the travel I get to undertake this year. I go to Iceland in Easter with my family for a few days, and then in the summer, South East Asia will be calling my name. A wise man once said: "Travel is the only thing you can buy that will make you richer" (the wise man being my daddy, who was quoting it from another wise man but that's not important). Ever since those words were spoken to me, I have tried to include in my life as much travelling as is humanly possible, more so now as a wage-earner than a miserly student. Seeing more and more of the world is bound to do nothing else for you only further your appreciation of it, at the very least. I am looking forward to the amazing scenery and natural beauty in Iceland, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, as well as the hustle and bustle of sprawling cities like Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. I am looking forward to having intellectual chats with my dad about geographical phenomena we will witness at play in I...

Not to pay a blind bit of notice to people who contribute nothing to my life only negativity. How the Irish rugby team ended up conceding the opening try against Wales (thanks to a live stream blow-by-blow analysis by the one, the only Brian O'Driscoll). That I can deadlift 45kg.

I am good at: planning teaching learning playing music singing dancing doing crosswords making people laugh analysing speed-reading bull-shitting making salads languages creeping v far back into people's instas without accidentally liking anything art eating estimating the amount of time it will take me to do something texting back remembering stuff (most of the time) Hey, don't look at me. No-one specified that it had to be just one thing.

This summer I will fulfill my dream of travelling around South East Asia when I spend 5 weeks exploring Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Malaysia. To say I am buzzing would be an understatement! This is both the furthest away and the longest period for which I have ever traveled on my own and so seems somewhat daunting, but the scenery, culture and experiences on offer are enough to eclipse this almost completely. Other far-flung adventures I wish to undertake in the next few years would be the west coast of the USA, the Caribbean, the African savannah, and of course, the ultimate excursion: Bora Bora in the French Polynesia. But I might save that one for my honeymoon. Watch this space.

FYI, I could write a list containing one hundred different books. But I'm not looking to write a novel myself, so here are synopses of five, as promised. The Cuckoo's Calling  by Robert Galbraith : Spoiler alert - it's actually J.K. Rowling using a pseudonym, and, truth be told, I don't think I would have purchased this book on its own merit had I not known who the real author behind it all was, as I tend not to opt for crime or detective novels. However, I can safely say that this book, and its sequels, swiftly changed all of that. I have not known a series of books in recent memory that have gripped me in the same way as these did. I recall as an 18-year-old sitting curled up on my bed for, literally, hours at a time as I avidly paced with Detective Strike through the streets of London or tailing over back-roads in rural England investigating whatever crime was at hand. Expect plenty of twists, turns, and "oh my GOD" moments. I cannot recommend a series ...

The idea of publishing a month of journal prompts on an online blog.

For me, the most important thing in life is truth. That is to be true to yourself , to speak only the truth , and to listen and give voice to other people's truths . That probably sounds very vague, but lemme break it down real quick. Being true to yourself means knowing who you are and what you stand for. As we go through life, we each build our own value systems. A quick mental glance at mine shows up things like: honesty, justice, equality, learning , and creativity . I live a life that is true to who I am when I manifest these values in my life, for example: HONESTY: telling the truth, and admitting when I'm wrong JUSTICE: getting two sides of the story when kids in my class fall out or have an argument before continuing with the next step EQUALITY: asking girls as well as boys to move furniture, and using inclusive language in class to explain terms like couple, e.g., defining it as when two people  (as opposed to a man and woman) are in love with and committed to...

1. I learned how to parallel-park with 100% accuracy. 2. I learned Sligo polkas . Never again. 3. I learned how to write fortnightly plans in record time. 4. I learned that I am more articulate than I thought. 5. I learned, begrudgingly, that London Bus do not accept cash. 6. I learned that it is okay to want to be better than what you are . Just because someone else might look at me and see external perfection doesn't necessarily mean I have to too. I am allowed to want to eat salads and go to the gym and find enjoyment in that and not have to listen to drivel about how I'm "so thin anyway sure you've nothing to worry about". 7. I learned, after hours of practice, how to solo a football. I get it about 4 times out of every 10 attempts. This is a statistic of which I am proud. Be kind. 8. I learned that the Irish rugby team can take you on a rollercoaster of emotions in 12 months. We went from a tantalising Grand Slam to winning our Australian tour...

How apt that a prompt regarding age would present itself on my birthday. Alas. Advice I would give to someone younger is to care less about the opinions of others . This cannot be emphasised enough. I used to (and sometimes still) tread so carefully through life worrying about what others think about me that I forgot to actually live . Wear what you want, do what you want, say what you want, once you are being true to yourself. Do not blindly follow anyone anywhere. Do not censor yourself if you feel you have something to share. Do not let someone else rob your happiness. There are many things I regret as I look back on my younger years. I invested too much time in the wrong people, and failed to show the right people how much I truly cared about them. Spend quality time with those who have shown you time and time again that they genuinely care about you, and whatever you do, don't let them down. The morbid but honest truth is that you are going to die some day. Don't look ...

(Excuse the obvious lateness of this post. Celebrating our nation's patron saint and turning 25 simultaneously is no easy feat.) How would I describe myself? Do we have all day? Nah just kidding. But seriously though, how can one do such a thing in a succinct manner? I have many different selves. There is my true self, the self I am with my family, with different groups of friends, when at work, etc. But that's way too much. And no-one wants a big long list of adjectives either. So I'll try be as to the point as I can. I can be really inconsistent. One day, I could be extroverted af, the following day I want nothing more than to be alone in my room reading books. There are times where I have the patience of a saint and am oozing politeness; other times, I'm the crazy lady laying on the horn and shouting abuse at everyone (metaphorically, of course). But we all have those little irregularities. I'm not the only one. Other than that, I would like to think I am c...

This was very easy to write. One of the most inspiring people I've ever met is Clare . I had the pleasure of living with her for a year and a half, and it is safe to say we bonded from the word go. A fellow primary school teacher, we had lively and interesting conversations daily about education, psychology, learning and teaching, and needless to say I learned so much from her professionally. Whenever I had a problem, or needed some guidance in general, I always went to Clare and she ALWAYS came up trumps with advice and tips, which would range from how to handle classroom behavioural difficulties to helping me politely word a text to a Tinder guy I no longer had any interesting in dating. Clare has overcome a lot in her personal life and considering what she has been through, it would be fairly understandable for her to shut herself off from the world. On the contrary, she is one of the most well-traveled people I know, having visited far-flung places, even sometimes on her own...

1. Literally, one of the steps I'm taking is more steps. I'm going walking way more than I used to, as I originally used to think it was for nans. But I pop my headphones in, blare my favourite podcast and I drink in my surroundings as those Fitbit steps climb up into five digits. 2. I'm trying to vary the exercises I do in the gym. It can be very easy to fall into the same routine of press-ups, sit-ups and lunges, etc. Throwing in some plyometrics, or combining two exercises for the price of one (e.g., squat presses or burpee curls) adds novelty to my workouts and forces my body and brain to rewire themselves instead of just going through the motions. 3. Squats, squats and more squats. 

As goals go, I'm mainly preoccupied with my fitness at the moment. I thankfully live just a 5 minute walk from my gym (can I get an amen for that extra cardio burn), so getting a workout in a couple of times a week is no problem. I never considered myself particularly sporty as a child, but in my later teenage years I became more woke to fitness and exercise, and now I'm at the stage where I'm either walking, running or lifting weights at least 5 days out of 7 every week. I always feel like I'm radiating energy after engaging in physical exercise, and the aches and pains that ensue the following day are testament to the fact that I put in a serious session. The thing with fitness is that there's no real end-goal as such, you're just keeping your body active and toned, and improving the quality of your life. Don't get me started on the diet part, though. A LOT easier said than done.

My mum. . . . Apologies for the lack of meat in these last few blog posts. Consider this my mid-month slump. As you were.

Silence. That is all.

For me, one of my favourite places to be is by the sea . Wow so much rhyme for one sentence. But yes. I don't think anything soothes my soul more than the sound of the waves breaking on the shore combined with the saltiness that permeates the sea air. Even looking at the water surface is relaxing, whether it is producing rolling waves, gentle ripples, or emitting a total sense of stillness. Water is understood universally as a cleansing agent, and I truly feel like I am purified just by being near it as well as in it. My mind transports me backwards in time to beach days with my family, where we strived to build the most breath-taking sandcastles on display, before running back to the picnic blanket to scavenge sausages from the portable barbeque and an ice lolly from the cool box. I remember trips to see my grandparents in Mayo starting with getting the ferry in Tarbert, and how our car would snake along the coast road for about a mile or two, the sea staring back at us, balanc...

Everyone needs to care about something. Maybe it's because I'm listening to really emotional music right now, but it would still be true with or without the dulcet tones of CHPTRS's "Obvious" echoing in my ears. If I didn't care about being on time for work, or getting to make and eat a delicious bowl of porridge for breakfast, why would I get out of bed? If I didn't care about wearing clean clothes or living in a tidy space, why would I bother doing any housework? If I didn't care what happened to the characters in the book I was reading, why would I waste time continuing on? Part of my job as a teacher is to motivate pupils. If they aren't motivated to complete the tasks I lay before them, then what is the point of any of it? Linking schoolwork to something they truly care about - like themselves, their families or their hobbies - is bound to draw them in, and help see them to the end. I do the things I do because I care about something great...

Right now, the thing that makes me excited is my job . I can sometimes go through ebbs and flows with it, but even today, just sitting down making a web diagram of the stuff I plan on teaching my class over the next fortnight was really making me anticipate returning to work on Monday. I also attended a quiz this morning to support kids from my school, and hearing how grateful the parents were for the work I had put in with the team genuinely filled me with joy. The reason I decided to pursue a career in education was down to one child . In 2010, I spent a week in my local primary school on work experience, having never truly considered teaching as a career choice, and I was assigned to a couple of different classes for the 5-day period. I mainly worked with a 10-year-old boy who really struggled across the curriculum. This was quite a challenge for me at first, but when he figured something out, or came up with the correct answer, the excitement I felt was second to none. I thought,...

This prompt is phrased quite oddly to me if I'm going to be honest. Do you mean 'what does it take for me to be someone's friend' or 'what does it take on someone's else's behalf to be my friend'? Slightly confused over this one, but I'll plough on nonetheless. Speaking as someone who has found it difficult to maintain friendships since childhood, it actually does take quite a lot to make a friend, in my opinion. There's that initial spark required to pull you both towards each other in the first place, and following that, chemistry is needed to allow the friendship to grow and strengthen. You just have to be able to get each other. Basically. Being someone's friend asks a lot of me personally too. I have to be willing to be vulnerable around them, support them when they need it, and be generous with my time, TLC and various foodstuffs. No kidding. Especially since, like Joey, Aoife doesn't share food. But hey. Sacrifices. Right now,...

Hmm. Bit of an odd one since responding to this prompt here would thereby defeat the purpose. Leave it with me a while. K so a fact I don't usually tell people is that I oftentimes like to be alone. Whether it's alone with a violin or piano, a book, or a Netflix series to entertain me, it's the being alone part that counts. There are times when I'm out with friends or in large social groups and the last thing I want to do is take part. I don't experience this all the time, mind. There are other times where I'm only rearing to get going and have chats with people or hit for the town. But there's something about having chill time with me and only me that I find so satisfying it's difficult to put into words. When I'm on my own I don't need to explain to anyone what I'm doing, or what I'm thinking. A book or a piece of music or a movie or a podcast can take me on a journey even though my body is contained by four walls, and I can take tha...

bananas frozen berries almond milk chicken fillets brown bread vanilla yoghurt spinach red bell peppers red onions feta cheese chorizo pasta bacon bits tomato sauce muesli bars avocado treats x12887564

To be honest, I didn't have to think too long or hard about this one. Something I want in abundance in my life is quality time . Quality time in all shapes and forms. Quality time with my friends, with my family, with myself, with art, in nature, at day and at night and anywhere in the world. That is not to say that I don't share special moments with people in my life as it is. However, I find more and more these days that when I stop and tune in to how I am feeling at a particular time, there always seems to be something else distracting me from being in the present. I come home from school eager to relax from the day's activity, yet my head feels as though it is whirring and buzzing, deep in the process of building up a humongous to-do list for the next day's lessons. I sit at the wheel - watching the road, obviously - but at the same time mentally calculating my meals for the week, or what household tasks I must begin the minute I land in the door, instead of admiri...

Wow. What a Monday topic. Give me a second while I think. *does laundry and ruminates on past misgivings* You know, something I actually let go of about two years back, and have managed to maintain successfully (for the most part) is bitching about other people. I remember as a teenager having every conversation punctuated by scathing comments about anyone and anything - someone's hairstyle, the way someone acted around someone else, how long it took for someone to answer a teacher's question. I bitched about any man, woman or child, it didn't matter who you were or what you did. Not sure what exactly happened in my life that I decided, in my early 20's, to shed this trait. However, I'm glad I did, because what I found was that I felt so much happier as a human being when I stopped speaking negatively about other people on a constant basis. Now, don't get me wrong for one second - if someone's behaviour is absolutely wearing , and I've tolerated it...

Ooohhh what a juicy prompt! I can't begin to even recount the amount of intriguing fictional characters I have come across in all my years as an avid reader and movie-watcher, not to mind select just one with whom to switch places. Do I delve into fantastical worlds of make-believe, or choose someone who has a unique and fun way of navigating through the obstacles of real life as I know it? Do I opt for a male energy or a female energy? A youthful character or someone who has stood the tests of time? Human being or beast? Someone who mirrors me in every way or who totally deflects from my personality? After much deliberation and consideration on what is clearly a matter of life and death, I am going to plump for is, surprisingly, Serena van der Woodsen from the TV series Gossip Girl.  This may seem so basic and mainstream, but she was one of the first to pop in to my head, and I know exactly why. I visited New York City on holiday at the age of 23, and fell in love with it. Im...

A fairly random journal prompt but a fun one all the same. Anyone who knows me will be well aware that I live my life around lists. NOTHING would get done in my house if it weren't penciled on a to-do list previously. Therefore, when it comes to packing, if it ain't on the to-pack list, it's not getting packed. Starting a list for packing became necessary when it would occur that I had forgotten something, and would have to forgo it for the rest of my trip, be it 3 days or 3 weeks long. I remember a family holiday for a week to Cavan in 2012 for the All-Ireland Fleadh where, between my mother, brother and two sisters, we had forgotten to pack a hairdryer. Cue erratic towel-drying of the hair for 7 days. Not a fun time, especially when you're as vain about your hair as I am. Time that could have been spent playing in a session was instead spent hanging out the window, towel in hand, trying to get a bit of extra drying out of the mild August air. I'm surprised we d...

·       Fleetwood Mac - Landslide Well, I've been 'fraid of changin' / 'Cause I've built my life around you / But time makes you bolder / Even children get older / And I'm gettin' older, too ” ·       I like it because it speaks to a universal truth. All the while we’re wrapped up in someone or something, nothing in the entire world matters more than them. Think fun childhood summers, secondary school boyfriend, college best friend. But time is a great teacher, and sooner or later those people either decrease in value, or fade from our lives altogether, and the lyric warns of the dangers of building your life around another person. A bit morbid for a Friday, I’ll agree, but a gentle reminder nonetheless that if you cannot be with yourself and love who you are without bringing someone else in to it, you have a good bit of work left to do.

My lifelong dream as a child was to be a writer. I filled copybooks with stories that tumbled out of my busy and youthful head, detailed with random characters and fantastical events. I grew older and realised it was these busy and youthful minds I actually wanted to sculpt instead. I began this blog during my years in teacher-training college as a way of keeping that inner fire burning, and also as a creative means of blowing off steam about the world in which we live. I feel guilty for not frequenting this platform enough, however, and wonder at what is holding me back - lack of original ideas, time constraints, fear of being evaluated... Yesterday, I decided I would undertake a challenge for March - a journal prompt challenge. I want to write more, to fuel that childhood passion, to stay in touch with who I am as a person, and it occurred me this evening, as I typed my entry for March 1st into Microsoft Word, that I could kill two proverbial birds with the one stone and journal he...