Guest post by Sinead Keogh

Just like busses, you wait for a guest post and then two come along at once. Today's contribution is from Sinead Keogh. Sinead's a fellow journalist whose Inkheart blog where she unleashes the ink from her veins in all directions.

Enjoy.

Bah Normal Society...

In just over one month my student card is going to be out of date. No more printing stuff for free on the fly. No more discounts on clothes and cinema tickets. No more considering the best use of high speed library internet to be watching YouTube videos. Boohoo, well why don't you guest post about it?

It's difficult to know what to do with a guest blog – kind of like driving somebody else's car. You don't want to move the seat on them and piss them off but when you're a girl in a boy's car, you generally have to. STIG is a boy's blog. It has never, to my knowledge, concerned itself with make-up, pink things or frivolity. It's tough to find something in common with it as someone eternally concerned with pink things, make-up and frivolity who has never run a marathon. The common ground comes in the acronym: Student 'til I Graduate.

You wouldn't be wrong if you called me a joiner. I like belonging to things and being helpful. I enjoy events and lists and a nice bit of a sense of occasion. They invented extra-curricular activities with me in mind. As such, my memories of college will always be centred around debating and writing and attending things as if it was going out of fashion. It is those things that I'll miss the most.

In the "big bad world" there's plenty to be doing with yourself. There's always community theatre and charity groups to join. After that, it's almost as if joining groups to make friends when you're an adult becomes a bit weird. When you're 17 you're actively encouraged to social calendar your day up a notch in the pursuit of successful integration into college life. You get past 20 and suddenly that's odd. Suddenly the landscape of things to be a part of is curiously less vibrant. You can play poker or do a musical at any age – but what happens to the brave souls whose common ground was debating or student radio or clubbing together to get really, really good alcohol promotions and not much else?

A lot of college situations don't have to end with parchment in hand. Degrees become jobs, student housemates become young professional housemates, thinking it's perfectly acceptable to stay up all night watching Dawson's Creek episodes remains a curiously static thought. The best part though, the organising of things for free just because you want to, the meeting people you never thought you would, the random things you find yourself doing just because you got up that morning and chose college over bed – seems consigned to studentville. I can live without a Student Travel Card, weekday lie-ins and free stuff in Freshers' Week, but I'll never understand why there aren't adult societies for the pursuit of anything-that-takes-your-fancy-really all about the place. College caters to the random draws and niche callings, and they don't go away. STIG indeed, STIGDAKAS…Student 'til I get dragged away kicking and screaming.

Sinead Keogh's wordpress blog can be found at sineadkeogh.wordpress.com

The Sunday Column - The other side

Following Sinead's experience as going to the Kerry vs Monaghan qualifier a few weeks ago I found myself in the Canal End, or Davin Stand as they now call it, for Sunday's Cork vs Kerry semi-final clash.

A bit of background is required first. I'm a devoted Dubs fan that usually goes to every game the boys in blue play in a championship season. My Dad used to be club secretary of the biggest club in the country so I was brought up with the mentality that the three most important things in my life were (1)Crokes (2) The Dubs and (3) Tipp hurlers, in that order. Dad would have preferred I switched 2 and 3 around but that just ain't ever happening.

The powers that be in the Irish American Football League managed to schedule games for the DCU Saints, as in the the team I play for, that clashed with every game Dublin played up to and including the Leinster final. No worries, sure I'll make the quarter final. Then the GAA went along and moved the date of that game to clash with a trip to Galway I was already committed to. No problem I thought, sure Tyrone are muck. Oh dear, that didn't work out well at all.

So here we were late in the championship season and I hadn't been to Croker for a non-rugby match in 2008. This just wouldn't do so I opted to go and watch Cork & Kerry play in front of a less than half full Croker in the All-Ireland semi. Now I could write a full post about why this game should have been played in Thurles but I'll spare ye for now.

My company for the day were Kate, from Bantry in Cork via California but whose Dad is from the Kingdom so therefore she was up for Kerry, her brother William who has the same characteristics, his girlfriend Ríon (sp? and no it's not Ríona) who said she was 'half and half', and the aforementioned patriarch of this grouping Mr Tom Fitzgerald.

On the way down Clonliffe Road a photographer and journalist from the Irish Mirror stopped me and Kate for a photo. He then moved me out of shot as I was not a pretty blonde in a Kerry jersey. Kate did some America's Next Top Model poses and then we confused matters by explaining her whole geographic origins.

It was at this time that I also explained to the journo where my allegiances would lie that day. Cork and Kerry are two counties I generally root against so in the past this would be a tough one to ponder but over the years I've had to face similar questions so many times that my answer was simple. It had to be Cork that got my backing on this day because, as I told the intrepid reporter "I'd rather cheer for Meath than Kerry."

It's like cheering for the New York Yankees or Man United. You just don't do it. It's wrong, it's fundamentally against everything at the centre of my being. So in we went, 3 and half Kerry fans with 1 and a half Cork fans.

Much like Sinead, Kate doesn't have a great grasp on the game of Football. This doesn't bother her in the slightest and that's fine. Unfortunately for her she was seated beside a sports nut that's managed one Soccer team and been a selector on two Hurling teams, which led to plenty of tactical shouting and explanations, as well as reffing in three sports including Football, which led to lots of shouting and explanations on the fouls. None of which she wanted to hear.

Sorry about that. I actually do it everywhere bar UCD soccer games, even my flatmate's tag rugby team have been subjected to my rants from the sideline. Worryingly that team is so bad that my advice improved matters and trust me that isn't a good sign, but I digress.

Shockingly there were more Kerry than Cork fans in the stadium. A turnout of 35k was still appalling for this level but Kerry fans never go to games other than finals. Obviously they must have more fans living in Dublin, it's the only possible explanation.

The first half was lively enough but after the break Kerry took control. With just one score in the first 33 minutes of the second period Cork looked down and out. It appeared as though once again I would leave Croker cursing a victory for the Kingdom. Suddenly however Cork were just a goal behind.

Then the Rebels were awarded a penalty. This led to probably my most ill-informed piece of tactical analysis of the day. As I was sitting at the far end of the stadium I thought the foul was committed outside large rectangle. So I say to Kate "That's what I'm talking about. You foul him before he gets into the box," in a blood-spitting tone. "You do whatever it takes to win, it's about the team. You sacrifice yourself, even if it means getting sent off and missing an All-Ireland final. If that's what it takes, you do it."

Then of course I realised that everything I just said was irrelevant as the foul was inside the box. There was still a chance to redeem myself of course. The penalty itself. Coolly I reassured the Kerry fans around me that all would be fine. "They [players] never get these. He'll miss. He's going to choke, they always do with these last-minute penalties."

It's in the net, Cork are level. I've been proven wrong again but no matter, Kerry are no longer winning. A late effort at a point from the Kingdom hits the post and goes wide. Finally I leave Croke Park having seen Kerry fail to vanquish a foe. It's not a defeat but it's a start.

Postscript
We headed back to Kate's where we lounged for a while before enjoying some nice Mexican food in a place on George's St (the name escapes me). After that we headed on to Sibín, formerly Crush, for a drink and some free boxty (nice!).

I capped off the night by heading home and watching the final of Gladiators. Yes I taped it and yes I'm glad I did. The two final eliminators rocked.

Just another day

“Life goes by pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it.” – Ferris Bueller in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

I can’t find an adjective. There is no simple way to describe it. In the 24 hours from 10pm on Monday through to the same time yesterday I did a whole lot of living and I nearly didn’t realise it. It’s not that it was wholly interesting, it wasn’t unless you lived it, it’s just that it’s the type of stuff you tend to not acknowledge.

I had to take an early night on Monday. Having just come home from a great night meeting Dundee United fans at the UCD game I needed some rest before my flight to London in the morning.

Unfortunately for me the garden next door had other plans. The rowdiness coming from Garret Fitzgerald’s backyard just wasn’t welcome. I always figured it would be the former Taoiseach that would take umbrage with my shenanigans some day. Instead there was a gang of young ladies in his garden shouting and chatting until well after midnight.

Yeah I sound like an old fogey but my alarm was set to go off at 3.45 am. This was the next part of the tale. It was the earliest I had been up in 7 years. That I even remember is odd but I remember why. It was the day I first moved to Aberdeen in 2001 and I had to get up early because there were huge delays in the airport due to the post 9/11 chaos.

It was that year in Aberdeen that led to my even caring about Dundee United visiting UCD on Monday but this story isn’t about Zen. It’s about noticing stuff.

You see I was up so early as I had to catch a flight to London where Lenovo had an event on. You might remember them as the company whose laptop I killed. Well the dude that gave the green light to that experiment was there and it’s fair to say it was a little frosty.

I was back in Dublin by 6.30pm and home by 7.10pm. It’s easy to forget that most people don’t travel as much as I do in my job but rather than think about that all I had in mind was dinner. So off we, at this stage Ciaran my flatmate was in tow, went to McSorley’s.

In my life I do a fair bit of flirting and eat a decent amount of soup. Neither of these points is surprising but it’s rare the two coincide. Yet here I was having some banter with an American barmaid because they were serving a concoction as odd as carrot and orange soup. The barmaid meanwhile turned out to be an ex PR person and I had spent the day largely in the presence of PR folk but to avoid me going off on another Zen tangent I want you to stop and think about this.

All these two foodstuffs, that’s orange and carrot for those that got distracted, have in common is colour but somehow it worked. I mean, how often does soup genuinely surprise you? I don’t get genuinely surprised by anything all that often so why not by soup I suppose.

And that’s how the story ends. With soup and a mixed view from Ellen the barmaid about my plans to grow a fro. In truth Ferris Bueller said all that I needed to say at the start of this post but I’m glad I said it anyway.