Word Vomit

During the summer, a number of my co-workers (notably, one Deeface) developed several potentially lethal medical disorders. The first of these was the little - heard - of F.O.M.O., which was inevitably followed by the contraction of M.B.D.D. 
The first, Fear Of Missing Out disorder, kicks in when you're sitting at home with the crumblies, watching something scintillating on the tellybox like How To Remove All The Moss From Your Drainpipe or Let's Start Planning Christmas - It's Already August! and you get a text from a friend who's at dinner / in a pub with all of your mutual friends. For whatever reason you can't make it, which immediately results in symptoms of anxiety and hyperactivity, while imaging all the fun you're missing out on by not being there.


The only solution to FOMO is to immediately drop everything you're doing, scab a fiver in change from the back of the couch and join your friends in whatever depravity they're engaging in. This, unavoidably, leads to Mad Bastard Dancing Disorder, a terrifying condition which causes the sufferer to dance like a complete moron, with or without the aid of alcohol and with or without the company of any other dancers. In the entire building. 


As life - threatening as these disorders are, nothing prepared me for the most shocking thing I've EVER seen (and I watch a lot of terrible terrible documentaries). It kicked in in my very first class here, it's contagious and it's only getting worse. There's no official name for it but researchers (me) like to call it Pathological Need to Express Myself, and estimate that the prevalence rate is 99% amongst American students. While it's fun to learn random facts about your classmates (for example, during my Adolescent Psychology class today I found out that the entire family of one of the girls in my class went out for breakfast to celebrate the day she got her first period), it happens all. the. time. I have a friend with awesome pink hair and whenever we go anywhere together, at least 5 people come up to tell her how much they like her hair. Which is nice and everything, but like, chill the beans man. We've come up with a game where we spot the people who are trying their utmost to keep their thoughts in - we reckon they'll have horrible facial contortions and tics going on as they try desperately not to say what they're thinking. Fun game in theory, but in practice we haven't found anybody who hasn't said what's on their mind yet.


Sadly, this Pathological Need has spread through so much of the school and faculty that it's now a class requirement to speak up. Seriously. Between 20 and 25% of my pass rate goes towards 'Class Participation'. Obviously, being Irish, I'm absolutely crap at this and feel The Fear every time I put my trembling hand up. It doesn't help that everybody turns around and stares at you while you answer. It's terrifying!! It's an easy enough way to pick up marks but it's just so not what I'm used to. I'd better get used to it fast!


That was a massively long rant up there so now I'm going to talk about things that make me happy, like going to parties where they provide you with a keg (full-sized), my random trip to Cape Cod this weekend, Nutella tasting the same, and list of visitors that are coming to see me :) First off, the most excellent crumblies are taking Fall Vacation (bahaha, how poncy) in Boston with meeeeeeeee, at the end of October, very very exciting! Dinners out and shopping all round, woop :D After Christmas, my wonderful wonderful other half is coming over to take advantage of all the snow to go ice skating and see New York in the winter, can't wait for that either <3 THEN, my not-so-hairy-anymore big brother is coming at the end of February. We're going to get drunk and wave giant foam hands at the hockey games, shouting USA USA, regardless of the fact that both teams are going to be from the USA..... in my brother's words, "it's all going to end well"... oo er!!


As you can see, I'm busy out, and that's without the insane amount of schoolwork I have to do. Howandever, I'm having an absolute ball and year of my life! I would like to add to my above list of visitors so anyone who's up for a visit USA-side, just let me know. 
Toodles for now xoxo