No Strings Attached.

Warning: this diary entry contains graphic mental imagery that some readers may find disturbing.
Especially if you're a bloke.
Now's your chance to look away.

Today I am skipping a morning lecture to go to my local medical centre for a smear.
It's a 10-minute job so I know I'll be able to get to UCD in plenty of time for my second class of the day.
I see my Doctor regularly about other stuff, but he's never seen my 'bits'.
And I'd prefer to keep it that way.
So the practice nurse, whom I have not met before, will be performing the task.
She is young - more a girl than a woman - homely, and full of friendly banter.
She takes down my personal details and fills in the appropriate areas on the requisite documentation that accompanies such a procedure.
I can tell by her accent that's she's from 'down the country'.
The dried mud on her shoes only serves to underline the fact.
She looks like she'd be more at home with her arm stuck in the rear end of a pregnant cow.
But at least she's not wearing wellies.

I'm familiar with the routine, so I remove my boots, jeans and knickers, retain my socks for fear of verrucas, and hop up on the paper-draped couch.
I'm not embarrassed about gynaecological stuff generally, so while she has her back to me, snapping on her latex gloves, I stick my heels together and drop my knees apart, optimistic that she'll soon be expediting my onward journey.
'Oh!' she says as she turns around and clocks my ungainly posture.
'Let's preserve your dignity a little, shall we?' she beams rhetorically, grabbing a woolly blanket from a nearby chair and throwing it cheerfully over my general pelvic area.
It's touching my pubic hair.
I find it extremely disconcerting.
My mind starts to pose all manner of threatening scenarios:
'How many other pubic areas has it touched before mine?'
'What if the previous coveree had crabs?'
'How on earth would I explain that little contagion in any kind of plausible way to San Fran Man?'
I envisage the microscopic crustaceans leaping gleefully from the comfort of their woven home into the unsuspecting warmth of my loins.
Defeated by such thoughts, I resign myself to the fact that these atrocious hygiene standards will probably be the ruination of my relationship with the love of my life.
But obviously, I keep my mouth closed.
I wouldn't want to make a fuss.

Happy as I am that nursie's wearing gloves, she is somewhat undermining their purpose by constantly pushing her hair behind her ears with the latex-clad fingers that will soon be manipulating my folds.
But before I have the time, or quite frankly, the will to voice my concerns about lice, she is lubed up and going at me like I'm some kind of prized heifer.
She takes the swab, painlessly I'm pleased to say, but stays 'down there' a good deal longer than I would have deemed necessary.
'Did you say you had the Mirena coil fitted?' she asks.
She's frowning in a manner that makes me nervous.
'That's right,' I answer, 'about 6 months ago.'
'Mmm...' she hums, shining her light up me with renewed determination.
I can almost feel her breath.
'I'm afraid I can't see the strings.'
'Oh!' I reply, as it's the only answer such a statement warrants.
'I'm going to have to call the Doctor in, is that OK with you?'
'Of course,' I say.
So much for my commitment to never showing him my nether regions.

She leaves me; lying legs akimbo and waiting for the second opinion.
My Doctor, who, I have to say, on the whole, is wonderful, returns with nursie and is swift in his confirmation of her initial diagnosis.
My strings have most decidedly disappeared.
'It's definitely still in there,' I protest.
'Oh, I'm sure it is,' he agrees, and adds with a laugh, 'but I'm not sure how we're going to get it out!'
I don't share his good-humoured approach to my predicament.
I'm not feeling particularly reassured.
Or dignified, given the length of time I've had to hold this pose.
'We'll have to send you for an ultrasound scan, just to determine its exact location,' he informs me.
'I'll give you a letter for the hospital.'
And off he pops to write it.
I'm also starting to feel a tad morose.
My gynaecology has been the bane of my life; the constant and very prickly thorn in my side.
And as my end of semester exams are looming, the timing of yet another plumbing problem could not be worse for me.

After I've dressed myself, my doctor gives me the letter to bring to the hospital.
He has no idea how long I'll have to wait for the scan but informs me that it may take up to 8 weeks.
The good old Irish health system.
As I drive to the nearby hospital, I feel my eyes starting to well uncontrollably as I reminisce about my personal hard luck story.

You see, I was a later starter with boys.
Well-behaved and virginal at school.
A good Catholic girl.
You may find it hard to believe, but I didn't even masturbate.
For fear of going blind.
But I finally ceded my virginity to my first boyfriend's efforts after 5 months of patient dating when I was 19 years old.
A few months later I went away to college and shortly afterwards we split up.
I subsequently suffered an infection in my fallopian tubes that manifested itself in bizarre ways and damn nearly killed me.
I missed a chunk of the curriculum as a result.
And it left me with a number of life-long legacies: a 3-inch bikini-line scar, the worst form of self-imposed stigma you can imagine and the very real threat of infertility.
By far the worst of these was the threat of infertility.
It caused me to metaphorically lash out in my relationships and destroy them before the prospect of a childless future had the chance to flourish as a reality.
At the time, of course, I didn't recognise it as the cause of my actions.
I thought I was just fickle.
But at this stage of my life, hindsight allows me to view the past through prescription lenses.

When I finally did marry, at the age of 34, I forced my husband twice down a fruitless IVF route.
I desperately needed to know the answers to the 'what if?' questions while there was still time.
But the answers left me with more questions than I had at the outset.
This time, however, they were of the 'why me?' variety.
And they gave me cause to repeat the behaviours of my earlier metaphor.
As a result, in my self-symapthising, emotionally turbulent turmoil, I dealt my poor hubby the vilest of blows and sent him packing in a most unsavoury fashion.
For which I have never forgiven, nor likely will ever forgive myself.
A couple of years later, having resigned myself to a life without children, I fell pregnant within the realm of an unhealthy and ill-fated relationship.
Just before my 42nd birthday and 6 months into my new, highly-paid and highly-pressurised job.
It was a complete fluke.
And of all the possible times of my life to become pregnant, it most certainly was not the best given my circumstances.
Yet I embraced the tiny miracle wholeheartedly, for all its life-giving potential.

Once it was confirmed, I announced my good news to the world, my employers excepted, and experienced 2 weeks of utter pregnant joy before the ominous signs showed themselves.
That little spot of blood in my knickers that signalled all was not as it should be.
It was an 8-week pregnancy that amounted to nought.
An empty sac attached to the lining of my womb.
My only chance; gone.
And it sent me over the edge to the darkest of times which I have no desire to revisit.

Brushing such memories aside, along with the tears from my cheeks, I pull myself together in the hospital car park.
I approach the reception desk in the Radiology department and hand the letter to a particularly friendly and helpful lady who's sitting behind it.
I'm expecting her to say something along the lines of, 'thank-you, we'll be in touch,' but she opens the envelope, absorbs its contents and asks me to take a seat, saying, 'I'm just going to check if we can get you seen straight away.'
There's a discernable stress on the words 'straight away', which leaves me feeling more anxious than I was on arrival and before I have had the chance to sit down, the receptionist is making the call.
The radiologist is by my side almost immediately and asking me to follow her into the consulting room.
She applies the cool gel to my tummy, and rolls the ultrasound 'microphone' over my abdomen, but my bladder is too empty for her to get a clear image on screen.
That would be because I got up this morning, had a bath and went straight to the medical centre without even so much as a cup of tea.
I wasn't anticipating ultrasound.

The radiologist asks me to go off for at least an hour and drink a lot of water until I'm at the point where incontinence pads look highly desirable.
My words, not hers.
As I live an hour's drive from college, it looks like my scholarly pursuits will be put on hold for today, so I decide to take a leisurely brunch in the hospital café.
I opt for the soup, due to its somewhat liquid consistency, accompanied by 2 bottles of water, and watch the ubiquitous backdrop of Sky News on the wall as I wait for my kidneys to do their work.
Just to be on the safe side, I give it an hour and a half.

I waddle back to the radiology department in a condition that can only be described as 'fit to burst' so I'm extremely grateful a queue hasn't formed in my absence.
The radiologist whisks me straight into the consulting room without further ado and confirms what I already know.
My little contraceptive device is in there alright.
But it looks like it might be attempting to escape via another route.
It's right at the top of my womb and the risk is that it may soon start tunnelling, if it hasn't already done so.
The radiologist asks me if I've been experiencing any pain or unusual bleeding recently and I am delighted to report that I haven't.
'What happens next?' I ask, pessimistically.
'I'm really not sure,' she replies, honestly.
'I imagine it will need to be removed,' she continues, 'purely because of the risk involved.'
I am gutted.
It's supposed to be in situ for 5 years, at which point it can be exchanged for a brand new one, by which stage I should be menopausal anyway.

This tiny implant was one of the best things that has happened to me recently.
No periods (I used to suffer very heavy bleeding). No pills (which I would frequently forget to take). No weight gain (unlike with the pill). No monthly expense (believe it or not, you have to pay for such necessities in Ireland).
It totally changed my life for the better.
I should have known it would turn out to be too good to be true.

I now have to wait a few days for the results of the scan to be returned to my Doctor before he can assess the next steps.
Knowing my luck, it will involve an operation on a scale akin to that which recently saw the release of the 33 trapped Chilean miners.
But with added complications.

©Alacoque Doyle

An Act of Contrition.

I have dragged myself along by the scruff of my neck to Gráinne Ó Suileabháin's Linguistics tutorial.
Her 'get-togethers' - I refuse to call them 'lessons' due to the complete lack of educational content that has heretofore been imparted - take place fortnightly.
The experience is more like going to a tea party.
Not of the Sarah Palin variety.
Like your granny used to have.
Only less fun.


I missed the last get-together completely by accident.
I had been chatting with chums in my favourite extortionate eatery when one of the mature students from the same group walked in and asked me why I hadn't shown up.
Affronted, I whipped out my home-made, laminated timetable expecting to find exoneration in its multi-coloured shiny detail.
There was a horrible moment as I absorbed the terrible truth when considered I may be experiencing the onset of alzheimers.
I laughed it off as an absent-minded and silly error, but the simple answer is that it had completely slipped my mind.
It still niggles.


Anyway, four weeks on, I am prepared to give Gráinne the benefit of the doubt and write off the first 2 'tea parties' to teething trouble.
Put it down to finding her feet.
Maybe tutoring is just very new to her, given that she's a scholar and not a professor.
I have no idea how much assistance is given to PHD students to help them hone their teaching skills.
Very little, if 'Biddie' is anything to go by. 
So far, it rather feels like we're being used as guinea pigs in a large and disorganised, educational cost-cutting experiment.


Seeing how she was late for both of the previous sessions, I take my time strolling to the classroom.
As I amble up the stairs, I'm wondering if I should have brought along a packet of Hob Nobs for the class.
I guess that would be too sarcastic.
Though undoubtedly the irony would be lost on her.
Fly straight over her blue-rinsed head.
She would probably find it a grand idea and waste the first 15 minutes spouting on about the generosity of my gesture.
And thereby prove my point.


I am somewhat startled to see Gráinne in situ when I enter the room; standing in front of the whiteboard and already in full flow.
Forcing me to have to apologise.
I hate that. 
As I take a seat and get my writing tools out of my bag - for effect in this instance, rather than any practical purpose - and pick up on 'Biddie's' rambling discourse, I realise I haven't missed anything vital.
Nor anything non-vital for that matter.


Gráinne has at least managed to bring the designated textbook with her this time. 
'What I'd like to do today if it's alright with ye,' she says in her west of Ireland brogue, 'is for ye to ask me any questions that ye may have on what ye've done so far.'
I've been looking forward to this moment.
I've planned for it.
This is an opportunity to perhaps keep her on track and prevent her inevitable aimless verbal meanderings.
'I wonder,' I pronounce as I open my folder, 'if you wouldn't mind talking us through one of the questions on an old exam paper.'
She seems a little taken aback, but gathers herself together, adjusts her glasses, smooths her skirts  and cheerfully agrees that she'd be delighted to.


I snap open my ring-binder, take out the aforementioned exam paper and walk it over to her.
'Perhaps this question?' I ask politely. 'About phrase structure rules?' I add, pointing to the question in question.
She scrunches her nose and peers at the paper through her varifocals.
'Yes, yes, that's grand,' she says, 'no problem whatsoever.' 
I smile at Gráinne sweetly, return to my seat and self-righteously snap the ring-binder shut again.


But what ensues is the most unbelievably shambolic and incompetent demonstration of how not to give a lesson.
Gráinne furiously flips through the textbook on the desk in front of her; bobs back and forth between it and the whiteboard like a hen on a hot griddle; consults the book constantly as she attempts to draw a tree diagram on the board for us; makes mistakes; checks the book again; erases and corrects them; checks again; rubs out and redraws.
There are extraordinarily long pauses during which she is bent over the book, desperately searching for enlightenment.
I am horrified at her lack of preparation more than the apparent knowledge deficit.
I have carried out so many business meetings in my time that I know and appreciate the value of research and groundwork.
I would never have dreamed in my long and varied career to go blind into any form of executive rendez-vous.
That would be called 'winging' it.
Or professional suicide.


As I observe Gráinne floundering out of her depth, a sense of guilt begins to engulf me.
I acknowledge it's only because of her age.
If she were 20 years younger, I'd just feel incensed.
So I immediately dismiss the sentiment.
After all, this is MY education that's at stake.

Anyway, it wasn't my intention to humiliate her.

I was trying to give her direction; to stop the tangents and digressions.

I was trying to help!

But people are starting to giggle.

And the guilt returns with a vengeance.

Cocooned in contrition, I sit, counting the minutes till the agony ends. 


©Alacoque Doyle

Vendiendo la leche antes de ordeñar la vaca. (Putting the cart before the horse).

A decidedly disgruntled few of us show up for Spanish today.

After the shock of last Thursday's test, the classroom is so sparsely populated, you'd be forgiven for thinking a mass boycott had been organised.
It's quite possible.
A collective decision may well have been taken over rowdy pints of snakebite in the student bar at the weekend.
None of my compadres would even have thought to let me know.
Mainly because I never speak to any of them.
The rapscallions.

Actually, I doubt they drink snakebite any more.
It was all the decadent rage in my day though.
I destroyed more than a few brain cells consuming that lethal concoction, I can tell you.
Anyway, I think most of the students at UCD are from rather comfortable backgrounds.
This is the posh part of Dublin after all.
The D4 set.
And judging by their clothes and general absence of smell, I'd say Mummy and Daddy probably give them more than enough pocket money to survive.
So I imagine they can easily afford to get off their rich-kid faces every night drinking Fat Frogs.
Whatever they are.

I am 1 of 4 out of a possible 20 sitting in the room waiting for Javier.
He walks in and gives us his usual, '¡Hola! ¿Qué tal? greeting.
We've stopped replying weeks ago.
Yet he continues undeterred.
If he senses the growing hostility that's being harboured against him by his students, he does a very good job of not showing it.
He opens the text book and asks us, in Spanish of course, to turn to page 52.
There are 3 boxes drawn on the page, each of which contains a description of a person's daily routine.
The first one describes the shift work of a taxi-driver; the second, the unscheduled life of an artist; and the third, lo and behold, the quotidian activities of a student.
It's almost word-for-word the same as the torturous section in the test that none of us was able to complete.
And the whole exercise concentrates on the reflexive and irregular verbs we had never seen before last Thursday.

Javier wants us to take it in turns to read these descriptions aloud - a regular practice in this class and a process that can be as entertaining as it can be painful due to the varying levels of ability amongst our novice group.
It's the totally-non-Spanish-and-completely-Irish-accented efforts that delight me the most.
Not that I'm proficient in Spanish by a long chalk.
I am undoubtedly picking it up quite quickly, thanks, in large part, to my existing ability in French.
French and Spanish, along with Italian, are what are known as 'romance' languages; rooted in Latin and with similar structures and rules. The knowledge of one makes the learning of another infinitely less problematic.
However, I often forget to pronounce 'v' as 'b', and I sometimes omit the requisite 'lisp' on the soft 'c' and 'z' where appropriate.
But I always at least try to sound as Spanish as I can.

There are 2 others who make such an effort.
One of them is a mature student from California.
I say 'mature' as he is more than 23 years old - the qualifying criterion for slotting into such a category - but he's still barely more than a child.
Without question I am old enough, if not responsible enough, to be his mother.
He is most certainly used to hearing a great deal of Spanish given the diverse culture in which he was raised.
So his accent is really rather good.
The other chap is the one I accosted in the Arts Café after the test.
Arguably the best in the class.
My rival.

As there are only 4 of us in attendance today, we have chosen to seat ourselves in a mini horseshoe arrangement.
As far as that's technically possible to achieve with 4 people.
I grit my teeth and flare my nostrils throughout the lesson as Javier smiles his nonchalant way through the exercise we should have studied in advance of the test.
I'm hoping he'll pick up on the fury I'm exuding on behalf of the entire class.
The steam coming out of my ears perhaps.
But he appears completely oblivious.
As the lesson ends I pipe up: 'Excuse me Javier, but shouldn't we have done this a week ago?'
Due to the 'horseshoe' seating arrangement, I can see the look of shock on the faces of 2 of my classmates.
I assume the expression on the 3rd, who is sat nearest me and whose face is out of my peripheral range, is somewhat similar.
I am initially taken aback by their surprise, but I remind myself that they've yet to have a boardroom battle and/or confrontation with an incompetent boss.
They have come straight from school and have only known unquestioning respect for authority.
Obviously, they have a great deal to learn.

Javier splutters an unsatisfactory response about how he has told us the importance of working on our Spanish in our own time.
My fellow students sit wide-eyed and stupefied.
I won't be abated.
'Well, the other class knew there was going to be a test,' I say, 'and Ana prepped them!'
Javier stares at me icily though somehow manages to retain the permanent smile.
It's clear he's not going to bother to entertain the discussion any further and his frozen grin signals the end of the conversation.
I pack my stuff away hurriedly and leave the room with the others so as not to be left alone with him.
Especially after the 'horny' incident.

As I hurry down the corridor, my classmates trot after me in a flurry of excitement.
'Oh my God!' squeals the girl with the pierced lip, 'I can't believe you did that!'
'We were all thinking it!' adds my rival, 'but you had the balls to say it!'
I'm not sure how I feel about the implication I possess testicles, but I take it for the compliment it was intended.
'Kudos!' chips in the Californian while patting me on the back.

I smile proudly at my new 'mates'.
I feel as though we have somehow established an important bond.
Despite the fact I still don't know their names.
  
©Alacoque Doyle

Chouchou du Professeur. (Teacher's Pet).

I must be the only student in my French Literature group that actually looks forward to Monday's tutorial.
But then I do have a special relationship with Madame O'Reilly.
She looks favourably on me because I work hard and prepare for her classes.
I'm her favourite.

The first half of our semester was dedicated to short stories and I must say I found these far more pleasurable to analyse than the poetry element of which the second half of the semester is composed.
Try as I may, I just cannot muster the same level of passion Madame O'Reilly clearly holds for the great French poets.
But I make the effort because she seems to hold me in high esteem and I should not wish her to think any less of me.

In my schedule, my French Literature class comes sandwiched between a French Language lecture and a French Language seminar.
The start to my academic week could not be more Gallic if it tried.
So I am always mindful not to wear my Breton shirt on Mondays in case people think I'm taking the piss.

Because this francophone wedge sits between 12 and 3pm, I am forced to eat bits of my lunch while walking between lecture theatres and classrooms.
I'm sure it's not the most elegant of sites - a middle-aged woman chomping on her sarnie as she scurries along the corridors, struggling with her bags - but I simply can't last that long without sustenance.
Every now and then I lose the odd piece of pickle from my 'Cheese and Chutney' special as I hastily make the journey between classes.
But there has never been a serious accident.
No soiled clothing
Unless of course someone has subsequently slipped on a rogue morsel of relish and suffered a horrible injury.
I guess that would constitute serious.
But I'm sure I would have heard about it.

Today we are analysing the work of the 19th century poet, Charles Baudelaire.
The work he produced was meticulous, voluminous and at the same time scandalous for its day.
He led quite the life, did Baudelaire.
With a penchant for prostitutes, he is rumoured to have contracted both gonorrhea and syphilis.
As if one STD wasn't enough!
He drank to excess, smoked opium and was a long-term user of laudanum.
His greatest collection of poems, Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil), had sex and death as its principal themes, with a bit of lesbianism and profanity thrown in for good measure.
Its publication, though well-received in certain of the more artistic circles, was generally met with outrage and he was successfully prosecuted for creating an offence against public morals.

Yet today he is arguably one of the greatest and most influential French poets of all time.
And he died when he was only a year older than I am now!
To have accomplished so much at such a relatively 'young' age is a thought that sobers me.
I have accomplished so little by comparison.
Though admittedly Baudelaire only just has the edge on me in the hedonism department.

Madame O'Reilly's regular routine is to read aloud and with great flourish whatever piece we have been asked to prepare for the lesson, before optimistically throwing things open for 'insightful' comment.
'Alors,' she says, then lovingly breaks into the first line of 'Harmonie du Soir'.
She's only got to the 3rd line when the door opens and 2 female stragglers shuffle into the room.
The Ugg-boot affect only serves to make the shuffling more pronounced.
Madame O'Reilly abruptly stops what she's reading and puts the book down on the table with a slap.
'You know you must try to get 'ere on time, hein?'
For a dainty woman she can be quite formidable.
The girls mumble a barely audible apology from under their bed-head coiffures and make for the back of the room.

'Alors,' resumes Madame O'Reilly as she makes her second attempt at doing Baudelaire justice.
But the 2 late-comers are unzipping pockets on their bags, rustling paper and generally being noisy as they take out their notepads and pens.
She narrows her eyes in silence and looks at them, waiting until she's sure they've finally got themselves organised.

'Alors,' she continues with renewed confidence.
The classroom is situated near one of the main vehicle routes within the boundaries of the University campus. It doesn't exactly experience rush-hour traffic, but it can get pretty busy.
Added to which there is a great deal of construction work taking place nearby as part of a programme of scheduled improvements to the campus facilities.
This time she manages to get to the 4th line before a boy-racer car with a modified exhaust goes roaring past outside.
She winces but carries on undeterred until a jack-hammer joins the cacophony towards the end of line 5.

She throws the book on the table and both her fragile arms up in the air in exasperation.
'Oh mon Dieu!, she shrieks, ''ow are we supposed to appreciate Baudelaire with zis racket going on!?'
We sit in silence, holding our breath, trying not to emit any noise at all as she persists in her literary pursuit.
I'm hoping and praying that her next attempt at the recital will be uninterrupted and successful.
The others are probably hoping and praying that the interruptions will be frequent and drawn out, in order to postpone the agony of the 'discussion' which will expose their lack of preparation.
Thankfully she gets through the entire 16 lines without even the slightest blip.

'Bravo!' I want to shout.
But I think better of it.
I don't want to appear sycophantic.

©Alacoque Doyle

Gunshot to the Head

Our third and final 'Hispanic Cultures' project has us learning about Chile's years of repression via the play, 'Death and the Maiden'.
It means we also have to learn about 'performance'.

Quite frankly, I could do without it.
The mere word conjures up images of black leggings with matching black polo sweaters along with the superfluous use of the term 'Dahhling'.

I didn't sign up for Drama classes.

In the same way I didn't sign up for group work.

Before choosing my course modules, I attended the 'Hispanic Cultures' sample lecture during 'Orientation Week', in which the tutor treated us to a highly enlightening lesson on the origins of the Argentine Tango.

She played us music to illustrate the different styles and evolution of the genre.
It was extremely interesting and, more importantly, thoroughly enjoyable.

I went out immediately after the class and bought one of the albums whose tracks she'd sampled.

Well, I ordered it from Amazon.

The point is that I was so enthused by the teaser lesson, I signed up for the module without the slightest hesitation.

I had no idea it would turn out to be the nightmare that it has been.
Studying the horrors of the evil military dictatorships of Franco, Galtieri and Pinochet was bad enough.
But group work has proven to be the ultimate in inhumane torture.
If only those three monsters had known its power, they could have wiped out far more insurgents in a much shorter space of time.

Our tutor, who just falls down on the heterosexual side of effeminate, has shoulder-length hair which he persistently has to sweep out of his face.
His badly-aligned teeth, that should have been orthodonticked many years ago, cause him to lisp in a way that may serve to underline in my mind the near-ambiguity of his sexuality.
Added to which, he is young enough to be my son.
It's hard to refer to someone as 'Mr.' when you feel they should be the one to proffer respect.
I've already had a run-in with him over how unfair it is to be graded as a group rather than as an individual when I'm the only one in mine who actually seems to give a fuck.
Consequently, I've resigned myself to just getting to the end of term in this subject without failing.

Today he asks us to stand in a circle.
Oh god, what next?
'OK everyone,' he declares ebulliently, 'we're going to play a game called 'Pass the Clap!'
I have another Tourette's moment.
'There's medication for that!' I shout.
Thankfully most people laugh.
It restores my faith in my sense of humour.
I was seriously starting to worry that I'm not quite as funny as I think I am.
Now that fear has been somewhat appeased, I'm seriously starting to worry I may actually have a mild form of Tourette's.
I'm not sure how much research has been done into the phenomenon.
And whether or not it's an advancing disease for which you can display 'early warning signs', but sometimes I genuinely do struggle to contain the vocalisation of  words before my brain kicks in.

The object of 'Pass the Clap', contrary to what you, or at least I, might imagine from the title of the game, is for someone to start with a single hand-clap, and for the others in the circle to 'feel' when it's right to continue with another.
It keeps going until two people break the continuity by clapping at the same time.
The idea is to see how many claps can be achieved before this happens.
The best we can manage is 3.
We're clearly not a particularly sensitive or perceptive bunch.

After that little exercise is exhausted, i.e. pretty quickly, 'el tutorio' asks us to split our respective groups into smaller groups of 3 in order to try and reenact a short scene from the play.
The setting is the living room of a couple's beach house.
'Replete with a plethora of unstable plastic bucket chairs that have mini-desks bolted onto the side,' I think.
Despite my cynicism, I  force myself to try and use my limited creative visualisation skills.

The 'couple' comprises Paulina and her lawyer husband Geraldo.
The background to the scene is that Paulina was horribly tortured and raped by Pinochet's henchmen - the principal protagonist of whom was a doctor - while defiantly protecting the identity of her leftist husband Geraldo.
Geraldo suffers a flat tyre on this particular evening and is rescued by a certain Dr. Miranda, who he invites back to the house and to whom he offers a bed for the night.
In the early hours of the morning, Paulina whacks the Doctor over the head, thus rendering him unconscious, drags him from his bed, ties him to a chair, gags him with a pair of her knickers and wields a gun in his face.
Despite being blindfolded throughout her ordeal, she declares to Geraldo that Miranda is undoubtedly the Doctor responsible for the atrocities she suffered and pronounces she wants justice.
She says she recognises him by his voice and even his smell.
The truth is never actually revealed to the audience; instead they are left to ponder and draw their own conclusions.

It's not supposed to be slapstick comedy.
But Buster Keaton would feel quite at home in the unfolding 'drama'.

I find myself in a threesome, if you'll pardon the expression, with 'Lady Marmalade' and a fresh-faced, virginal young chap from our group named Liam, who at least is good at research.
He's a sweetheart but he does have the tendency to giggle innocently at everything.
I immediately volunteer to play the role of Paulina.
She's crazed, paranoid and out for revenge.
I feel I fit the bill just right.
Liam, offers to play the part of Geraldo.
'Lady Marmalade,' hasn't volunteered to play anyone, because it is abundantly clear that she has not even read the play.
By default she gets the role of the gagged and bound Dr. Miranda, who doesn't, due to his predicament, have many lines in this scene.

'Lady Marmalade' sits in the chair and puts her hands behind her back.
I stand over her and point my fingers at her shiny auburn face in the typical 'pretend gun' fashion.
I start calmly enough, but she's not taking this seriously.
She starts laughing a flailing her arms around.
For Christ's sake, they're supposed to be tied behind her back - a fact I try to bring to her attention.
She then decides to ad lib the script, by offering, in her best inner city Dublin accent, ridiculous excuses for why she could not have been my torturer.
'Sure I was away on me holidays,' she laughs, 'so it coudna been me.'
She then starts rocking backwards and forwards, like she's davening at the wailing wall, and swishing her heavily-laquered auburn hair in all directions as her laughter turns to hysteria.
Tears and mascara are running down her cheeks creating deep troughs in her thick auburn make-up.
I look at Liam in disbelief, but he just shrugs his innocent little shoulders and giggles helplessly.

As I immerse myself in the part, I find myself unleashing 'Paulina's' wrath on 'Miranda' in a spittle-filled bilious rage.
I'm quite impressed with how quickly 'Lady Marmalade' succeeds in suddenly switching into character.
She manages to emulate fear quite well.
And as I press 'the gun' hard against her forehead, I would go so far as to say there's an almost genuine look of terror in her auburn eyes.

Our tutor calls an end to the session, and as I lower my hand, I can see the indentation left by two of my fingernails in 'Lady Marmalade's' flesh.
It gives me a great feeling of satisfaction.

©Alacoque Doyle

Testing.

'Today you have a test,' Javier announces as we enter the room.
Oh.
He's smiling at us.
I want to punch him right in his Castilian chops.
A little prior notice might have been nice.
Some time to prepare perhaps.
It was only the day before yesterday that we last saw him.
So why spring it on us like this?
And there's only about half the class present.
Not that there's anything unusual about that.
In fact it's a significantly higher turn-out than normal
But had the absentees known there was a test scheduled for today they may well have made the effort to drag their grubby adolescent arses out of bed and show up.

As Javier hands out the single sheet of paper that constitutes the test, he reassures us, 'You don't have to worry. Ees a seemple test and everytheeng we have already covered in class.'
I glance over the sheet and am relieved to note he's not lying.
He tells us we can leave the classroom once we have finished and that we can start straight away.
I get through the exercises speedily enough and am about to hand him back the sheet when he says, 'There's more on the other side.'
Flipping over the piece of paper, it becomes clear that here lie the more complicated exercises.
The traps into which me may fall.
There is a whole section on irregular and reflexive verbs.
We haven't yet covered irregular or reflexive verbs.
I know this because I only have one blemish on my otherwise pristine attendance record.
And I had the good sense to check with one of my class-mates what I'd missed in my absence.
Nada, I was reliably informed.

Try as a I may, I just cannot complete this section.
It is a paragraph about a student's daily routine.
The fictional female is telling us how she passes her day and we are supposed to fill in the 10 blanks using the appropriate verb (from a supplied list of 10) conjugated correctly in the present tense.
I feel completely lost.
And a bit panicky.
I know the message the verbs are supposed to convey from the context of the words surrounding the blanks.
But I have no idea what each of the verbs means.
I might as well be looking at Algebra.
I make a half-hearted crack at the first 4.
But it's complete guess-work so I decide to abandon the rest.

I finish the remainder of the paper to the best of my abilities and hand it to Javier before walking out of the room in disgust.
I wasn't the first to leave.
Which increases my anxiety about my ability in Spanish.
5 or 6 walked through the door before me.
The implication is that they found it easier than me.
Despite the fact we are all beginners, I am, or at least I think I am, one of the best in the class.

I head for the Arts Café (where else?) for tea and sympathy.
As I drown my sorrows and dunk my bourbon in an over-priced brew, I see one of the guys from my class chatting with a friend at a neighbouring table.
I shove the soggy biscuit in my mouth and without so much as a by-your-leave, I gather my belongings and relocate to join them.
'How did you find the test?' I ask him, inadvertently spraying crumbs on the sleeve of his companion.
He appears not to notice so I say nothing.
'Well apart from the fact Javier hasn't taught us those irregular verbs, it was fine,' he says sarcastically.
I feel a sense of relief.
This young man, whose name I never bothered to learn, is definitely one of the more gifted in Spanish.
I may even go so far as to say he's better than me.
Though it pains me to do so.

It transpires his friend is a student from the lovely Ana's class and has just sat the same test.
It seems her class was fully prepped and spent two of the previous lessons concentrating on reflexive and irregular verbs.
I am seething.
I chat with whatshisname about the part of the test we have collectively screwed up.
And we express our shared dissatisfaction with Javier.
On further analysis, involving my pocket Spanish dictionary, I can only laugh as the details of my errors emerge.
The paragraph of the student's daily life, with the correct choice of verbs should read, 'Every day I get up at 8am. I take a shower at 8.30...'
Thanks to my erroneous verb selection, my student appears to lead a more, shall we say, hedonistic lifestyle.
A rough translation of my uneducated endeavour is, 'Every day I go to bed at 8am. I get up at 8.30...'

I guess my version of events is slightly more realistic.
Half an hour? That's a power-nap!
I remember frequently getting by on that little sleep in my first failed pursuit of a degree.
Note the word 'failed'.

©Alacoque Doyle

Shh!

Wednesdays are long days for me.
I have lectures at 9am and 1pm, plus a 5pm tutorial.
So a bit like a regular working day.
But with disproportionately large tea breaks.

I am trying to discipline myself not to waste the intervening hours between classes chatting with my mates in the Arts Café.
It's proving difficult.
I could quite happily spend all day there, chewing over life while munching on a custard cream.
But the reality of my not-so-robust financial situation has helped drive me away from the over-priced tea and biscuits and towards the library.
That and my expanding waistline.

I've mentioned before that the Arts Café is expensive.
They even have the temerity to charge 50c for a cup of hot water thereby scuppering the thrifty bring-your-own teabag ploy.
Capitalist thugs.

I have carved out a nice routine for my library sessions.
I always head for the same group of desks and select one near a socket.
I plug in my laptop.
Get out my books.
Put in my earphones.
And turn on some music.
I generally spend the best part of the next hour browsing facebook and google-stalking ex-boyfriends who haven't yet succumbed to the lure of social networking sites.
I recognise it's procrastination.
I'm not even interested in what any of my ex-boyfriends might be up to.
Well, not very.
Maybe one or two.
But at least it allows me to defer the act of studying.

Today, I choose the wonderfully soothing 'Bach's Cello Suites'.
It's fabulous music to study to.
No lyrics to interrupt the flow of academic thought.
Ahem.
But there appears to be something wrong with the volume on my new Mac.
It was an excessively generous gift from San Fran Man and I would be crushed if I had somehow managed to damage it already.
The music is barely audible through my earphones.
I check the mute button.
No, that's not the problem.
I check the volume on the laptop keyboard and keep clicking until it is at full tilt.
Some improvement but still not right.
And it should be hurting my ears at that level.
I go to the iTunes application and check the volume settings there.
They are at the mid-point so it should be sufficient.
Even so, I slide the gauge to maximum.
It's slightly better but there definitely appears to be a fault.

I notice some of the students at the surrounding desks have started to shuffle around uncomfortably in their seats.
Like they have ants in their pants.
'What's wrong with them?' I think indignantly.
The chap seated opposite me lifts his head and peeks at me over the desk-divider.
He's a woolly-headed sport-jock type.
I look up and he gives me a withering glare.
I didn't think jocks were capable of such non-macho facial expressions.
I frown at him in a way that says 'What?'
He eyes my laptop pointedly then looks at me again.

Then I see it.
The tail-end of my earphones.
Sitting on the desk.
Beside the laptop.
Instead of in it.

I frantically grab it and quickly shove it into the socket.
I nearly burst my eardrums in the process.
I almost jump out of my seat with the excruciating pain that's searing through my head.
But thankfully I manage not to scream.
I hit a variety of keyboard buttons manically until I find the right one and am able to resume normality to my poor auditory senses.

At least I selected a classy piece of music with which to annoy my fellow scholars.
And not 'Smack my Bitch up'.
It could so easily have been much worse.
Not that I own anything by The Prodigy.
Nevertheless, I am suitably mortified.

©Alacoque Doyle

¡Perro Caliente! (Hot Dog!)

It's Tuesday and the Spanish drudgery rolls on.

We're all feeling somewhat disillusioned by Javier's teaching methods.
Especially since his return from Spain.
He just can't seem to get us excited about anything.
And as a group we appear to have lost the will to vivir.

Added to which, he has the rather annoying habit of repeating the same snippets of advice in every session.
It's really starting to grate.
He tells us how important it is to be working on the exercises in the text book.
Noted.
He tells us not to be afraid to make mistakes in pronunciation.
Uh huh.
He tells us to get together in pairs in our own time and try speaking Spanish to each other.
As if that is ever going to happen.
And he tells us that a good way to get used to pronouncing Spanish words correctly is to read out loud.
'What? On the bus?' I blurt out in response to his last words of wisdom.
Because, you see, I think I'm hilarious.
Clearly no one else agrees with the high opinion I hold of myself.
Because it doesn't get a laugh.
Not one.
It doesn't rouse even the smallest of giggles.
And Javier's lips curl just enough to give the slightest hint of a snarl.
Despite the near imperceptibility of the expression, it absolutely could not be confused with a smirk.
'At least I got to him,' I think.

We turn to the next chapter of learning in our text book.
We are looking at celebrities and are about to explore words used to describe people.
Adjectives for both physical appearance and character traits.
On the page is a selection of famous people including Madonna, Penelope Cruz, Ronaldo (the Brazilian one), Antonio Banderas and Javier Bardem.
Mmmm...Javier Bardem.
I'm not quite sure how Madonna managed to wangle her way into a group of Hispanic personalities.
Especially given her Italian roots.
I decide it must be because of her 'Evita' role.
One of her finer acting performances.
Let's not go there.

Javier poses us questions about the various individuals pictured.
When it's my turn, he asks me to describe Señor Bardem.
I have another tourettes moment.
'¡Muy caliente!' I announce in a full-blooded way.
I think I may have actually growled.
(Muy means 'very' and caliente means 'hot').
I've no idea if this literal translation works - I may well just have said that he's at the high end of warm - but I figure it's worth a stab.
And anyway, my vocality was spontaneous & involuntary.
I couldn't have controlled it if I'd wanted to.
Javier blushes at my comment and struggles to find the appropriate way to correct me.
I surmise I have made another error of judgement.
It's becoming a bit of a recurring theme in my student life.
'Well,' he says, 'you're right. You can use caliente to describe someone.'
'So why is he looking so downright uncomfortable?' I ask myself.
'But it doesn't mean, what I think you wanted to say. It doesn't mean 'sexy'.'
He's looking less and less comfortable as he approaches the point.
'It means - at least I think this is how you say it - 'horny'. As in 'I feel horny'.

Javier is the same age as me.
I know this because some cheeky whippersnapper had the gall to ask him the question - in Spanish of course - when we were covering that aspect of conversation in an earlier class.
But I don't feel the same age as him.
I feel at least 10 years younger.
And hearing him say 'I feel horny' is more than mildly disturbing to me.
It feels somehow inappropriate.
Verging on paedophilic.
Which is, of course, ridiculous given my advancing years.
But there's something about the teacher/student relationship that makes his words sound threatening and makes me feel strangely vulnerable.

My blushes compete with his and in this respect I am the undisputed winner.
He notices my embarrassment and in response his lips curl just enough to give the slightest hint of a smirk.
Despite the near imperceptibility of the expression, it absolutely could not be confused with a snarl.
He looks triumphant.
I can almost hear him thinking, 'At least I got to her.'

©Alacoque Doyle

Résultat!

Monday.

I am in my French Literature tutorial.
Madame O'Reilly is about to give us back our first marked assignment.
A critical analysis of a passage from a short story set in the Corsican scrub, called 'Mateo Falcone'.
It's the charming tale of a father who kills his ten-year-old son on a matter of honour.
Nice.
And typically Corsican, allegedly.
I must remember to scratch that little island off my list of potential holiday destinations.

However, before she returns our essays and puts us out of our misery, she runs through what we collectively got right and wrong in our attempts.
As she points out the elements of the passage we should have highlighted, I note that I picked up on most of them, if my memory of what I wrote is correct.
She makes regular eye-contact with me as she talks.
I take it as a good sign.
As she moves on to the various errors people have made in their critique, there is a discernible change in her eyes.
The earlier softness in their hazel hue is replaced by a hard and angry ebony.
And they move away from me to focus on the back of the room.
Where the skulkers sit.

As her diatribe is unleashed, I am happy in the knowledge that I am not guilty of any of the offences she is reeling off her inventory.  
But I try not to appear smug.
It's a challenge, I must admit.
Eventually, she passes out the assignments.
I quickly glance at her hand-scrawled comments on the assessment sheet.
It's all good.
And there at the bottom is the grade.
A+!
My smugness-containment gene must be faulty.
As I just can't stop myself from grinning.
I can feel the heat of my class-mates' glares burning into my back.
But I don't give a shit.
I'm not even familiar with the features of most of them due to my habitual front-of-class positioning.
I never deign to look round.

It crosses my mind that Madame O'Reilly may have marked me favourably due to my constant class-time contributions, without which, it must be said, there would be nothing more than a deathly abyss of silence.
But I quickly dismiss the thought.

I worked hard on this assignment.
I wrote a bloody good essay.
And I deserve that A+.

©Alacoque Doyle