An Rud A Lionas An Tsuil Lionann Se An Croi

I have this newspaper from college that I've held on to for the last 12 years. Though I haven't looked at it in a long time I know it's there, in a box of mementos from my four years of college. The paper was printed shortly after the Virginia Tech shootings. It wasn't that particular event that made me keep the paper, but the article that it contained, about all of the tragedies my generation had grown up with. At the time the article was written the emphasis was on the most recent tragedy, the shooting at Virginia Tech that resulted in 33 deaths; September 11th; & Columbine. I was ten, almost eleven, when Columbine happened. Before that there were a few events I remember seeing on the news or hearing about while catching snippets of adult conversation. The LA riots, the OJ Simpson case, the invasion of Kuwait. I was so young when these things happened that of course, at the time, I didn't understand them, but I do remember the images - the car chase, the bro...

Is there a song that, no matter how many times you hear it, always gives you goosebumps? For me that song is "The Bells of Notre Dame" from Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Yes, I'm serious. Earlier this week, on Palm Sunday, my family & I were taking a drive. Our car is an '08 & doesn't have an AUX port, but does have a disc changer so we often resort to listening to a variety of CDs while driving. And, naturally, there is always at least one Disney CD in the mix. That song came on & by the end of it my legs were visibly covered in goosebumps. It made me wonder why that happens: why do we get goosebumps when we hear certain pieces of music? The thought occupied my mind for a bit, but I never came to any conclusions & I resisted the urge to Google it & fall into a Wikipedia blackhole of information on biological reactions to external stimuli. And then I saw the news yesterday about THE Notre Dame. It broke my heart to see those...

Whilst scrolling mindlessly through my Instagram feed yesterday I came across an advertisement for a neat gadget: the Astrohaus Freewrite . It reminded me, at first glance, of those little toy "computers" that were all the rage when I was growing up. Laptops for kids, with a teeny-tiny screen, a keyboard, & access to so-called educational games. In one promo video for the Freewrite a couple of the creators are featured, talking about their invention. It doesn't seem coincidental to me that these men, who looked to be in their 30s, probably grew up with those same Vtech laptops. Though the design is pretty sleek & basic and boasts a keyboard that is far more familiar to those of us that grew up learning how to type on desktops instead of laptops, what caught my eye was the advertised purpose of the device: to provide writers with a "distraction free" writing tool. It can connect to WiFi so that projects are uploaded to the cloud, but aside from that the...

Hey, Thyroid. We've been through a lot together, you & me. For some twenty-five years things were pretty good. You formed when I was about 12 weeks old gestationally & did what you needed to do - helped me breathe once I was born, kept my heart at a steady rate, helped my body maintain a comfortable temperature, kept my weight where it needed to be, & eventually kept my periods regular (which was super awesome, by the way). But then...you changed, Thyroid. I don't know if you were jealous of my new appreciation for the other parts of my body after having a baby. Maybe you felt neglected, like I all of a sudden was more awed by my reproductive organs than I was by you & the rest of the endocrine gals. But, if I'm being totally honest, I had never given you any thought before. I took you granted, Thyroid, & for that I am truly sorry. But the way you behaved after my oldest was born was pretty extreme. I guess I just got sick & tired of being, w...