Lily’s blog

I'm a firm believer in celebrating happy times. Like tax and death, we are all fairly guaranteed sad times, so when there's a happy time, we should celebrate it. My next 21st is coming up soon and I intend celebrating it. Particularly when all the news is doom and gloom we need to focus on happiness.

I think the government should set aside some money for suicide prevention in these difficult times now that the country is in recession. Whilst trying to get the economy back on the rails, it should recognise the extreme pressure under which some individuals find themselves. The government contributed in some way to the problems now being experienced here in Ireland. I do think this aspect should be borne in mind when planning solutions.

Sorry Tommy for being a big bag of fail at frequent blogging.
 
In fact my infrequent blogging is now a source of embarrassment to T. He feels that he may have to drop the link to my blog unless I pull up my socks.
 
I like the blog but find it takes time. Time is not always on my side. I would also like more time to read other peoples blogs.
 
Could we invent a photocopier for time?

We all know the scene, cranky child at supermarket checkout, hazzled parent, child demanding 'I want...'
 
Being from the Gestapo, I had a no sweets policy so didn't have too much trouble with this, though son once threw a major tantrum in the supermarket for an item I had put into the trolley. I don't think the passersby would have believed me as he tantrumed and I got more hazzled, that the tantrum was over a natural yogurt
 
Anyway time has moved on but once again nothing has changed. This morning, turn on my phone, email in from eldest son in Canada.
 
"I WANT A NEW BLOG POST"

The Young Scientist is over for another year. Great fun was had by all.
 
One thing I'm sure judges watch out for is projects that get too much help from teachers, parents or whoever. Some direction is appropriate, but I one hundred per cent agree with students not being over helped as in the long run it does the student a disservice. The YS organisers could create a new Category for (over-zealous) parents!
 
However this morning I watched the Nationwide programme from Friday night. There I see the 'bould' elder brother walk in to Castletroy College 'to give the younger brother some help with his project' or words to that effect. I nearly threw up. I don't think he looked at even a page of Tommy's project.
 
So my complaint is the opposite. Adults masquerading as helping Young Scientists should also be thrown out!

I was really struck by a recent newspaper account written this week by Fares Akram a newspaper reporter in Gaza. The Israeli invasion became a personal tragedy when he discovered his father was one of the first casualties of the ground war.
 
He wrote
 
'The phone call came at around 4.20pm on Saturday. A bomb had been dropped on the house at our small farm in northern Gaza. My father was walking from the gate to the farmhouse at the time. It was our beloved place, that farm and its two-story white house with a red roof. Nestled in a flat, fertile agricultural plain north-west of Beit Lahiya, it had lemon groves, orange and apricot trees and we had recently acquired 60 cows.
 
It was the closest farm to the northern border with Israel. Ironically we always thought the biggest danger there was not from Israeli troops, who usually went straight past if they were mounting an incursion, but from stray Hamas rockets aimed at the Israeli towns north of us.
 
But shortly before sunset on Saturday, as Israeli ground troops and tanks invaded Gaza in the name of shutting down Hamas rocket sites, the peace of that place was shattered and my father's life was extinguished at the age of 48.
 
...
 
But in truth, as a grieving son, I am finding it hard to distinguish between what the Israelis call terrorists and the Israeli pilots and tank crews who are invading Gaza. What is the difference between the pilot who blew my father to pieces and the militant who fires a small rocket? I have no answers but, just as I am to become a father, I have lost my father.'

I was talking to a teacher at the Young Scientist yesterday and she commented about how nervous one of her students was speaking with her judge. At this time I had a weather eye on T along the aisle. He was with his judge and I was so glad he was vertical and taking an active part in the conversation.
 
That teacher was so afraid about how nervous her pupil was. I was so afraid about how relaxed T was - I was afraid he would be horizontal.
 
We were all afraid - it didn't matter why

Behind every successful man is a ...
 
Behind every Young Scientist entrant is a photocopier, collator, proof reader, bottle washer etc! The same also applies to aspiring college entrants.
 
Thankfully deadlines have all passed and normal life is now resuming.
 
Heres to resuming (new) blogging life also

My earliest memory was hanging out the gate waiting for my older siblings to come home from school. By this early age I had a well developed sense of the value of pester power. I remember 'pestering' my mother to be let go to school. Eventually I was let go. It wasn't at the start of a school year but some time during same. The Department of Education that time probably hadn't a well developed rule book for pestering kids.

 I was three.

 My school life was blighted by constantly being told that 'We'll keep her back next year'. This seemed like a threat hanging over me always like the threat of rain. I escaped the threat. I missed doing my Inter Cert because I was too young. The Department of Education rule book said you had to be a certain age by a certain date. I almost missed college entry the year I did my Leaving Cert because again I was too young, however my mother said in August after Leaving Cert, apply anyway and yes she was right. Nobody noticed my age until I was due to start but by then it was too late and I got in.

 Life has gone merrily since. At this stage of my life I have ceased being too young for anything, unfortunately.

 That was until the upcoming Blog Awards. Devastation. Tommy tells me my blog is too young for an award.

 Life hasn't changed at all.