One of my bigger goals for March was to take a significant leap into the world of Irish culture and start learning the Irish language. I gave up after about three hours.
I read somewhere that the first language you learn teaches your mouth to shape itself in a way that makes it particularly easy to pronounce certain words. I learned Russian first, so the hard staccato Rs of Italian and Spanish were easy. English, I find, is just a very accommodating language and doesn’t require a lot of effort in pronunciation, and when I was very little, speaking Estonian was very similar in the softness of the dialect. Irish, however, is a whole other ball game, if the ball game was in another galaxy where sounds were formed from squeezing air between rocks or something.
First of all, the traditional Irish alphabet is known as Irish, Gaelic, or Irish Gaelic. The standard name is Gaeilge, but prior to 1948, it was spelled Gaedhilge, while in Middle Irish it was spelled Gaoidhealg. Irish Gaelic is referred to as Gaeilge na hÉireann, and there are three main dialects: Munster, Connacht, and Ulster.
Anyway, when you wrap your head around that, there’s the original Ogham Alphabet which is comprised of essentially symbols, then there’s the Gaelic Script (enthusiastically used for pub signs and spelling every nerd’s Keep Out door poster.) Finally, there’s the modern Irish alphabet and if by that point your brain hasn’t melted, here is a basic sentence:
Tá áthas orm buaileadh leat
It means “Pleased to meet you” and I can guarantee that no matter how you pronounced it, it’s not the right way. Unless you are Irish.
Anyway, this is a very, very difficult language (and insane props to everyone who has learned it here), and I don’t find it intuitive at all so I can’t even predict how things are supposed to sound. I tried to learn the word for “egg” and I think it’s Uv, but I could be wrong, and to be honest, I don’t want to ask Jeff because he gets very cocky about how many words he knows.
Okay I just looked it up. It’s UBH. ….but pronounced Oov. See what I mean? And it took me 30 days to learn that one word and I still can’t even.
So anyway, the goal of learning Irish is going to be a slow-burning one. But that, in fact, was my Learning Something goal of the month, and I guess I learned that I am stupid.
Something Social:
Once again, Lady Covid has thwarted my social plans, so the few Skype calls I’ve had with friends this month have been the highlight of my existence. More importantly though, this month, I wanted to focus on why I am the way I am, in an effort to stop feeling so fucking shitty about a lot of the things I do. I am an introvert with high-functioning social anxiety, and even though I’ve been this way for most of my life, I’ve never written about it. I tend to feel like there is something wrong with me that I can’t fix, and the cycle of shame and inevitable behavioural patterns doesn’t stop.
For example, introverted people become exhausted from spending time with others. It’s not because I find the people or the party boring, it’s just a feeling of being really tired and unable to keep talking, and needing to be alone in a quiet room. It’s not a choice, or a statement of ‘everyone around me sucks’. It just happens, and it’s just how I feel, because an introverted person’s brain processes information differently and gets overstimulated by sensory stimuli. So, if I’m at a party, let’s say with Jeff, and we’ve been there a few hours and I start to feel exhausted, I ask him if I can dip out and go home by myself. He thinks I’m an asshole. It all works out great.
Similarly, in an office setting, introverts need to recharge during the lunch hour. Not because they don’t want friends, not because they don’t want to talk to their co-workers on their break, but because they just need to reset their energy levels by spending time alone. Guess what everyone thinks, though. Guess. They think I’m an anti-social asshole. It all works out great.
What makes me a person with high-functioning social anxiety is that I really like spending time with people, I can carry a conversation, I do like social events, and as I’ve already bragged about in past blog posts, I’m really good at interviews rolling on floor laughing. The distinction, for me, is how I feel being around people for longer periods of time, rather than how I handle myself.
Introverts can feel very lonely, because they need people, but not too much, but they want to be invited to events, but they might have to leave earlier, but they don’t want to feel excluded, but they might say no to invitations because they find the idea of an unknown event full of people overwhelming. I’ve felt this way for a long time, and I’ve never wanted to talk about it because the stigma isn’t pretty, and it’s easier to just hide it.
I feel the world is built for extroverts and our expectations are that everyone will be energetic, positive, and up for a meet-up at all times. It’s a balancing act to seem like you have your social shit together but honour your need to be alone. Also, admitting that you prefer your own company to anyone else’s just makes you sound like a dick. It is what it is, and I wanted to carve this into the virtual stone of permanence that is this blog (omg fabulous) because I think nobody should feel so low about something that is inherently just a part of their personality, the way some people love extreme sports, or looking at pictures of animals wearing hats.
Something Productive:
This month, I wanted to declutter, to find a place to put all the little bits and bobs of crap we have lying around the house, and I found a really nice grey box on Amazon, so problem solved. I mean junk stuff, not a box for actual turds.
I also wanted to organize all of the photos on my computer desktop, and I finally did. Does anyone know what to do with pictures that are just so funny? But like..you know you’ll never open them again, but it also sucks to throw them out because they are so, so funny? But …you’ll never look at them again…?
Something Caring:
Months ago, when I thought I would be going back to Canada, I bought my mom a fruit cake. She loves them, and I found her a lovely vodka blood orange one, but then had to put it away because my flight was cancelled and the route between Ireland and Canada was terminated, thanks to some fab new variants we have circulating in our international breathing space.
Anyway, I was sad that my mom wouldn’t get to have the fruit cake, but then I decided to just ship it to her and packed it into a box with some other Irish treats. The postman at the post office said “You’re after committing a grave sin. You should take the fruit cake out. It weighs 2kgs so your shipping rate will double.” I said ummm ThAts KiND oF ThE PoINt oF ME SeNDiNg ThIs PaCKage SIR and paid the crazy shipping fee, which still ended up being less than sending ANYTHING to ANYONE from Canada. Honestly, what is up with Canadian shipping costs?
Something New:
A few weeks ago, some random Dublin Food account started following me on Instagram. It was around 7am and I was enjoying my usual morning insomnia, so naturally, I was perusing pictures of food and decided to check them out too. One of their posts was about none other than my favourite pastry in the world, the Cardamom Bun. It mentioned the name of a bakery we hadn’t heard of, Scéal Bakery, and I was so excited it was all I could think about for weeks. Our favourite place in London is Fabrique Bakery who make these unbelievable gooey cardamom buns and I’ve been so obsessed I even tried baking them myself last year:
Anyway, imagine my elation at seeing that we could have them here! In Dublin! Without having to fly to the UK!
Excited at the prospect of discovering the best pastries in Dublin from a secret bakery I somehow hadn’t yet discovered, I ordered a double chocolate croissant, two cardamom buns, and a wild garlic sourdough (with wild garlic from the Phoenix Park!!). We walked to the Fumbally Stables to pick up our treats (a new place I’ve never been to!) ..and here is what we got:
The double chocolate croissant looked very impressive but tasted exactly like a regular pain au chocolat. Nothing special, really.
The cardamom bun looked so pretty but tasted more like a flaky morning bun, with a hint of cardamom but certainly not the taste intensity or texture I was expecting. I wouldn’t get it again, because I’m not a huge fan of big flaky pastries. I was disappointed, but I didn’t cry, in case you were wondering. I knew it was too good to be true so I won't go into an aggressive diatribe as to how my hopes and dreams were crushed. It just is what it is and I'd like to move on with my life, please.
The wild garlic sourdough was interesting and had a bit of complexity to it, but the garlic aftertaste didn’t lend itself well to ..well..eating an entire loaf of sourdough in one weekend. So, I think I would even prefer the Tesco olive sourdough to this. Yes. A GROCERY STORE SOURDOUGH. IMAGINE.
Fitness:
This month, I reached the 3km milestone with my running, so I’m just working on slowly increasing mileage, as always. It seems to be helping with the neck and shoulder pain, so it’s really encouraging! I’m hoping for 5km next month but I don’t want to get greedy..
March Challenge:
Okay, let's end this on a bitter note.
Here’s something to remember if you ever embark on a diet: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If you can tolerate wheat/gluten/sugar/dairy/whatever, don’t go ‘challenging’ yourself to just…not eat them. Everything in moderation should be the first idea you implement, and restricting things just to see if you can is a massive waste of time.
This month, I decided to cut out sugar and dairy. Neither were causing me any discernible issues, but I thought What if I feel better than I do now, and I realize that all this time I was allergic to either of them? I also wanted to break the hold that my sugar addiction has on me.
Legitimate idea but not a fun month at all.
I bought a few sugar-free products to soften the blow…
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| These tasted great once baked in a zucchini loaf or banana bread! |
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| I wouldn't recommend these chocolate bars. Both had the texture of candle wax and had that awful stevia after-taste |
…but the cravings never went away. Ever.
I alternated between sugar-free chocolate which made my stomach turn, fruits, and just crisps or some other sugar-free snack after dinner. It sucked.
Worse yet was cutting out dairy. I didn’t care about not having cheese because I don’t eat much cheese anyway, and I found breakfast was manageable without the usual sort of morning dairy you’d have, like yogurt or cottage cheese. What really got me, though, was the coffee. I bought oat milk and coconut milk to try as creamers…yuck. The oat milk was okay for a few days, but I quickly got so sick of it because the taste is quite specific and not versatile at all. I then tried the coconut milk, but that was much worse, with a gritty aftertaste. I switched to just black coffees for the rest of the month, which did not taste good at all and just made me miserable. I never want to do this again.
Anyway, lessons learned:
1. Everything in moderation is better than being sad and depriving yourself (if you don't have to)
2. Don’t make yourself miserable in a pandemic.
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