CV

Michael is a truly wonderful person. (I did not write that myself!) You thought correctly; when I go to the hairdresser I always get a jack-of-all-trades hairstyle. Short on the sides for a slightly defensive look, a tight moustache for a hint of professionalism, a medium-length beard for a wild coming-down-the-mountain appearance, all of which will be balanced by long hair on the top for whenever I need to exude a meditative vibe!

I originally titled it sample of my CV only to realise that it was the entirety of my CV!

I handed out deliveries and once or twice I got a few unhappy faces. It was only afterwards I realised the letters could have been them getting sued! My scanning, printing and stapling skills were a force to be reckoned with! I learned that if you ever spill fish soup on your bag be sure not to leave it around electrical systems or people will think something is melting. It was a handy stint because whenever I was bored of being inside I could go out and be a postman! I tried not to sneak in a hot chocolate break on my walk back! They trusted me with the cheque lodgements and I swear that I was never tempted to escape the pouring rain and make a runner to Hawaii.

I actually tried to self-educate by Googling my own personal syllabus on the phone a lot of the time when I was trying to form new ideas. You could be an 80 year old sage who writes down endless wisdom in a giant book but unless you can summarise your arguments in a Google article with a few photos and internet links then I'll never be able to learn from you since I'll probably never even have the energy to read it unfortunately!

(joke to self) I was thinking of maybe adding a middle initial to my name: Michael C. McMahon. Then the C can stand for Chief!

I'll make a confession: I'm never good at getting up in the mornings. Too much lucid dreaming! The sports course was a 40 minute walk from my accommodation and so I'd a routine where if I was going to be 20 minutes late I'd get away with walking while if it was going to be later I'd have to spend money on a taxi instead!

I used to be very disorganised and didn’t have my study completed in time for the leaving cert exams. I might have tried to do too many subjects and I never really scheduled my study. Maths is a very tricky subject to fall behind in because it's harder to know how long it will take to learn the methods of the remaining chapters compared to the simple case of seeing how many pages are left in a biology book. It consumed a week of study before the exams just to get my head around the probability section. I left a lot of chapters until the week of the exams and of course I became too fatigued and burnt out to get it finished. I thought I'd have enough time studying after each exam and forgot about the added stress of exam week. In retrospect I should've hastened my study to get more of it completed but at the time I took too much of a risk and didn't want to compromise my grades for college entrance. Perhaps I should've studied for a few weeks during the previous summer holidays and maybe I should've taken more breaks in the months leading up to the exams. I didn't relax enough on weekends and the stress only got to me at the end of the year. I got a D3 in Maths which means I must of aced paper 1 as I never sat paper 2. I got an E in Irish as the examiner didn’t appreciate my attempt at a mixed language in the oral exam. I got a B3 in English as I was rushing and not paying attention so I probably answered the wrong questions. In ordinary level French I got a B2 which was quite the achievement considering I gave up the subject 6 months earlier. With geography I got a B3 as I never revised any of the early chapters and was mostly relying on general knowledge. But I never actually got around to doing it again as I was busy with other things. So technically I didn’t fail my exams simply because I didn’t actually sit them! I'd originally intended to repeat by studying myself and maybe do other subjects to pass the time. I considered doing A-levels to retry applying to universities in England but I became uncertain because the interviews can be subjective and a lot of it is down to chance. At least I acquired some skills studying each subject so I didn't view it as a waste of time that I didn't get grades for them. I soon got distracted by other topics mentioned in the blog and became unsure about my previous goal of studying science where I started thinking about freelance journalism or philosophy instead. I investigated studying with the Open University after the leaving cert but the finance didn't work out. I was so preoccupied with an existential crises that I reasoned I'd just do my own thing! I'd started a distance-learning journalism course but then I got too distracted by my own journalistic ideas to get it finished. A few thought I was just doodling on the internet seeing as it's easy to expend a lot of time on social media or entertainment. But in truth there's libraries worth of encyclopaedias on the internet whereby there's not much you can find in a textbook that isn't freely available on the internet with 20 euro a month free mobile data! Its educational value all depends on how you use it. I'd often have up to ten tabs to return to after finding links in articles along with getting lost in an exponential series of links found within links. Intermittently I thought about going to university. I looked around a university bookstore in Dublin to see if there was any topic I'd be interested in studying. But I knew I'd lost interest in going back to college when I was only drawn to the shamanic section on the top floor of the book shop! I temporarily did a science access course in UL when I was 24 before determining that it'd take a bit too long to become fully qualified and opted to look for work experience instead. Recently I was doing a distance philosophy course only to leave it incomplete as I became too preoccupied by own philosophy threads!

I’d often write down any new ideas I thought of wherever I could conveniently put them on my phone. I wouldn’t write it all out but just one-word reminders. One day I’d an appointment with a nurse in Dublin. I was doing a lot of thinking on the train on various topics. But after I met her I accidentally sent her a list of words, “cannibalism, nightmare...”. I tried to apologise and was desperately telling her it was just for a South American history article I was writing. Luckily she was understanding. So if you’re ever forming a blog it’s best to write your ideas on a notebook and not on message drafts! I was there to participate in a brain scan for a study they were doing. I’m not sure how helpful I was seeing as I was very tired after the journey. I was half-asleep lying down in the scan while they were trying to ask me the questions.

I asked them to reprint my results and they actually typed an A grade for my classical studies test. I should probably let them know but I won’t say anything! The exam was the last one and a week after all of the rest. I was meaning to study for it but took took the week off unfortunately. I’m probably owed a few brownie points for once having went overboard and wrote a 4 page essay for homework on Achilles in the Illiad. When I read it out in class the teacher made everyone redo their answers for homework.

Totally Miscellaneous Jokes Section:

Ever lost a match 6-0 6-1 only for the tournament to upload 6-0 6-0? In tennis terminology that's a double bagel. There's nothing more dismissive than this as they know you'll be too embarrassed to complain for that lone game. I mentioned this to a friend and he told me they do that all the time and it's their way of saying "back to Clare with you!"

I remember losing a match and heading afterwards to a restaurant. Whatever happened I started speaking to the three chair umpires and we went to the bar to have some drinks. We were discussing training schedules and they were telling jokes. The next day I was thinking if only I’d bought them more drinks I could have talked my way into a few wildcards!

Camping on the tennis trail! There’s no better way to practice shock absorption than hitting a few old balls at top speed into the woods!

They tolerated my time travelling and teleportation theories. But making a joke at the expense of a Greek God crossed the line and had to be removed:

That was only the mild version of the joke. If the moderators saw my first drafts there'd be a lot more banning being enforced!

One blog to rule them all!

If a day is 24 hours long, then turning up to a hotel at 1am means you should really get two nights for the price of one when you round upwards.

I try to avoid ambiguous and coarse language when I'm angry. These days there's so much openness that shouting "fu*k you" to someone could be interpreted either as an insulting dismissal or else an honest sexual request.

Pretending to read something can sometimes be a good strategy to avoid awkward silences. I made a mistake one time of reading the mineral contents of my water bottle which led everyone to speculate on who'd ever spend so long studying such material?

If this mixed bathroom were at a disco then it'd be the source of endless flirtation:

Woman - Hey you were the guy at the party!

Man - Oh yeah hi how are you?

Woman - I'm good. Why don't we sneak in for a kiss?

Man - Thanks but I can't right now; sorry.

Woman - Why do you not like me?

Man - I do but I actually did have to use the bathroom.

Woman - Oh!

A friend advised me not to try the "tweener" tennis shot between the legs in case I hit the wrong ball.

My street football skills are a little different to the foot-skills of Fifa street. My most cunning tactic was pretending to start a friendly conversation with my opponent as the goalkeeper was passing out the ball so that I could sneak out in front and steal it.

I used to visit a friend's house to shoot the zombies on Call of Duty. Eventually he laughed, "Is this all I am to you? Someone you get to kill your zombies?" It can be a tense game when you're killed just before the next round were about to begin.

I'd a choice between spending 90 euro on a 4 star hotel and be out of money for the next day or else spend another half hour looking for a cheaper room. As you can imagine I took the 4 star hotel and had a nap on my suitcase the following night!