'I Just Had A Change Of Heart'

I've been listening to The 1975's new album as of late, in particular the song 'Change of Heart'. This piece stemmed from listening to the song repetitively, mainly to the lyrics.



A song can instil and rise emotions from us, the lyrics similar to own feelings. Even the feelings we keep hidden. CoH reminds me of how we all start new adventures with naive ideas and dreams of how things will occur. Mostly, these ideas never quite come to fruition, leaving us alone and not shattered, but feeling defeated.

A change of heart doesn't have to relate to a lover or a romance. It can be a friendship, conversations or events. It can be the change in the dynamic of how people act towards each other or relate to a topic. When one person may foolishly think everything will remain the idealistic way things were initially, without realising another has parallel ideas and thoughts.

Hiding a change of heart until the last minute helps nobody, especially you. Smashing the ideals of how things were with a cruel and calculated expression of face and words is unnecessary. Yet blaming the change of heart on the other is more fatal a blow.

A change of heart can be healthy, it can show you the toxicity of relationships and people you once trusted. The person you once confided in, can believe you to be the enemy and dirt under the hooves of their high horse in an instant. These are the type of people not to partake in company with. The cruel and calloused of this earth should be avoided, along with their evil calculated motives.

Yet, a change of heart can teach you about yourself and the kinder amongst you. To think I was weak was a mistake. I am a fighter, I am a voice, for the betterment of society, I aim to speak up for those who are quiet and silent. I fear causing pain to others, knowing that so many have caused the same damage to me. Knowing the lasting impact of the hurt. Knowing it can be avoided.

On occasion, a reminder of your own personal strength and endurance is necessary and required. Reminding oneself of the events you have overcome can bring extra strength and resilience. I once said that it was the small act of bravery that define us in our lives.

Those small acts of bravery can sometimes be opening your door, knowing what may be on the opposite side of the door, in the wooden hall. It can be going to eat breakfast or entering the kitchen Monday through Friday for a semester. Bravery can be knocking on a person's door trying to resolve an issue, followed by the realisation that no matter your actions, a person can simply be close-minded, stubborn and spiteful.

Their change of heart can initially cause discontent, but knowing the true calibre of a person and their true nature is more important than a false friendship. I referenced this quote in my sixth year yearbook that 'your time is limited so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important have the courage to follow your own heart and intuition.'

I had another flick through the yearbook and found a friend wrote, 'You have a voice, use it!'

I stayed silent for months on end. An acquiescent silence should never be imposed upon me, or anyone, by dramatics and crocodile tears. Any attempt to speak out should never be doubted by gaslighting and a torrent of imposing isolation.

You are wrong to doubt me and my emotional strength. You aren't the first to try beat me down with cruel syllables and actions. I won't stand for it. Not any more.

I too have had a change of heart. I'm not sorry. 
I did all I could.

I dreamed the idealistic dreams and achieved a few of them.
I'm not sorry that I achieved them.
I'm sorry that you didn't.
I'm sorry for your indignation and utter hatred regarding those dreams and their reality.


I'm dreaming more dreams of my life and its events. You're no longer in them.
 I had a change of heart too.
 I'm not sorry.

I wrote this blog post a couple of months ago and only really got around to posting this now.  Yet I must acknowledge internally that feelings are real and should be experienced, not bottled up or hidden.

An Ghaeltacht

Hey Everyone!

I've been absent for a little while due to study, exams and a two week trip to the Gaeltacht in Kerry! The Gaeltacht course is compulsory when you study to be a primary school teacher.  I spent a fortnight in Feothanach i Corca Dhuibhne. To say it was a great experience is an understatement. I really enjoyed the trip and I was so lucky to be surrounded by such lovely people. 

This blog post will be quite photo heavy so I'll let the photos do the talking, after all, a picture speaks a thousand words. I've included some random selfies as well photographs of the beautiful scenery I witnessed over the two weeks. 

Among some of the activities I did: 

Taking part in Darkness into Light for Pieta House in Dingle

Visited the aquarium in Dingle

Visited the Blasket Islands

Visited the beach in Muiríoch on the last day

Took lots of photographs and generally acted like a tourist

The beach in Muiríoch

Bhain mé idir taitneamh agus tairbhe as an gcoicís gan amhras. 

An raibh tú riamh as Ghaeltacht? Inis dom! 

Le ghrá,

Aveen xx

''That's When I Could Finally Breathe''

Hey Everyone!

I am proud and relieved to say that I am finally back from an extended/unexpected blog hiatus. I feel sad that I abandoned TRLOA for a month but to be honest, it was necessary.

An awful lot of things have happened since I last wrote here. I found that compiling information and photos every seven days was becoming difficult and with a sickening tug I write - boring. I felt like I was stuck in a rut of doing the same every week. Life has become a mundane pattern of routine as of late and it is tedious. I thought that a break to breathe and live a little more would be more beneficial to myself, my blog and all of you.

Since my last post on February 22nd, I have had a quick month filled with highs and lows. I enjoyed my mid term and came back to school. After an agonising three weeks, I received all my mock results back. Overall, I was happy with them, I got what I need in the actual Leaving Cert which was absolutely unreal. I was a little disappointed with a subject or two but I now know which areas to improve upon for the Leaving Cert. It can't be denied that some results need to be taken with a pinch of salt (or a few!)

I also learnt that the stress of the Leaving Cert brings out the worst in a lot of people. People talk and say things without realising the consequences of their words. Despite the fact that what their saying is a blatant lie, it might be believed by others. Also, if someone is talking behind your back and blackening your name, metaphorically and probably physically, you are ahead of them. Actions have consequences. To quote the play Othello by William Shakespeare, ''Beware my lord of jealousy, it is the green monster which doth mock the meat it feeds upon.''

I actually went socialising during my month off! Below are photos from my friends Maeve and Tom's 18th and also a trip to Dublin Zoo with Spleodar! The party was a fantastic night to say the least. You know it's a good night when I only take one photo ie I was enjoying the night too much to capture it on a lens. The trip to the Zoo was the last Spleodar trip of the year which was sad. I joined Spleodar in Transition Year with a poor level of spoken Irish. I attended one of their Gaeltacht courses last year and was a Cinnire this year. My Irish has improved so much over the past few years and I will really miss all the cinnirí and daltaí.

I was with Grace for most of the day and other students in the club. We saw practically every animal and had a delicious pizza for lunch. The weather was beautiful and I took lots of photos of the animals and the sunshine on the bus home. *Cue a shoutout to the man on the Luas who waved back at us all*

Today is Mother's Day, tomorrow is my Mam's birthday and the next day is St. Patrick's Day. Busy start to the week indeed! It's scary to think how quickly time is blurring past. In two weeks I have my Easter holidays for two weeks then my Irish and German oral for the Leaving Cert. Deep breaths!

Credit to Chloe

Caítlín and I !

So that's about it from me, 

Stay Strong, Happy & Fearless!
(Something which can be difficult but gets me through each day. It is the small acts of bravery in life that define us)

I can finally breathe clearly. 

Aveen. 

*Lyrics Taylor Swift - Clean

OOTD ~ Easter Holidays!

Hey Everyone!

Despite blogging for more than a year, I'm still not quite sure what 'type' of blogger I am. I mainly post lifestyle blog posts however, in the past few months I've developed an interest in fashion and beauty. At the moment I'm experimenting with my blog to see what suits me the best.

Personally I believe that we should all post different things to our ''usual posts''  at some stage, life is boring when you only post the exact same things! I've discovered that I love taking photos and using my tripod 'FredOrGeorge' which I get to use more often when doing different types of blog posts.

I will be posting more frequently over the next fortnight as I have Easter holidays at the moment! Two weeks of bliss to be honest which I have been craving. The idea of having two weeks of my own time is nearly a foreign concept for me, it's felt like so long since I've had that amount of time to myself, tragic really.

So here's my OOTD, this is what I would describe as a comfortable outfit. It's an outfit that I feel is really comfy and I feel so snug in my hoodie and with my hat (the weather earlier today was horrible)

I was extremely brave (by my standards) and went outside into the back garden to take photos, even with the new neighbours slamming their garage door practically every fifteen minutes.. (They moved in yesterday and I don't like them already oops)

Top/hoody: Roxy

Jeans: Penneys/Primark

Converse: Local shop 

Hat: Penneys/Primark

The sun went in, oops.

Behind the wall is the infamous garage that gets slammed closed every 15 minutes..

Spring weather in Ireland

Spring weather

Selfie with Harry (He's in nearly every selfie these days)

Stay Strong, Happy & Fearless!

Aveen 

PS. I will be posting a lifestyle post sometime over the weekend, I have lots of other ideas for during the next two weeks so stay tuned! x

Tayto Park, Zip Wires, Slushies and Shouting at Maths Equations!

Hey Everyone!

So it's been another rather bonkers week in The Life Of Me. I posted a VERY brief  update on Thursday during a free study class (when I should have been doing maths homework but priorities) So I'll be telling you about what's been happening and how at this moment in time I'm buzzing with adrenaline, excitement and happiness, a rarity indeed.

So on Friday, I had my usual classes, double maths followed by Irish, break, German, Business, English, lunch, History and finally Ag Science. A fun Friday (sarcasm is dripping in this sentence) No I must admit I like my teachers and they're all brilliant so the classes are fine. However I get many comments because I'm studying Ag Science, which is supposedly for ''farmers sons'' and nobody else. However, my uncle has a farm and I have a genuine interest in the subject, I never knew learning about sheep would be interesting (lambs need to be fed at least 1 litre of colostrum within 24 hours of being born, random fact of the day there for you!)

Enough about Ag Science for now, I've over 20 pages of notes to learn so you might hear more about the subject in the future. In English we had a free class (substituted by my maths teacher funnily enough) and my English teacher had already told us what work to do. Suddenly my maths teacher says to us in this monotone voice that we also had a four page essay. My jaw literally dropped and I thought the class was going to riot, thankfully he was only joking. I nearly cried though, I need a few days notice to mentally prepare myself for an essay!

When I got home on Friday I was doing my maths homework which was simultaneous equations, which are easy, but with three variables! DUN DUN DUN, my OCD was showing. I got so irritated with one of the questions that I literally started shouting at it. To be honest, it's not the first time I've started shouting at a maths question, every day since Third Year it's practically happened! Don't judge me!

After school on Friday I went to Spleodar, or in other words, Irish Club. I go every week for a couple of hours on a Friday where we all speak Irish, play games and basically have '' a bit of craic!'' and every year each club in the country meets up somewhere, this year we went to Tayto Park!

I had actually never been to Tayto Park until today, but it was brilliant. Our club was split into smaller groups and I was with seven other girls who I knew. We were allowed to go on two activities, we chose the Zip Wire and The Sky Walk.

This all seems fine until I realised something, I'M SCARED OF HEIGHTS. I have an insane fear of heights, the dark, claustrophobia, failure, dogs (yes really) and more. So I was walking up the building (below is a photo) and I was thinking, in Irish, I'm scared of heights! Tá eagla orm faoi airde! Oh mo Dhiaidh. (Oh my God) but the girls were great and I did it! I went on the Zip Wire with Saoirse and I loved every second of it! We landed and I was literally shaking from the adrenaline!

Afterwards we went for lunch and went back to the Sky Walk. We were given the option of going high, medium or low. I decided, ''Oh everyone else is going on the high one, I might as well too!'' Oh Aveen, you're scared of heights haven't you realised this? So I went on that, and it was literally like in a movie, the ropes started shaking and at times I couldn't reach them, but I got through it, with a lot of deep breaths and reassurances.

I finally believed the phrase I read in Divergent by Veronica Roth, "Becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it." 
I can't become fearless, what is the point of life if there's nothing to frighten you or make you reflect differently on life events? Life is boring if we did not have any emotions, including fear, it's what makes us possess our shreds of humanity. I can't be fearless, nobody is perfect, we have to appreciate our flaws and not less them posses us and destroy our inner selves. Having fears makes us unique beings and who we truly are. 

However, in short seconds of life, we can become fearless. It is in these moments we keep our fears under control and are no longer oppressed by them. I think we should live for these fleeting moments, let them consume us and possibly, maybe, actually become truly fearless, should being fearless in every minute of our lives be possible. 

So I'm going to stick with saying ''Stay Strong, Happy and Fearless'' in every blog post, I'll be referring to not letting your fears hinder or oppress you from achieving your dreams. If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough, you aren't dreaming big enough, or allowing yourself achieve your utmost potential. 

Be fearless in the smallest moments of life, and you will feel invincible. 

Some Photos From My Week! 

Aoileann and I at Tayto Park! 

More selfies

Aoileann, Kate and I at Tayto Park :)

Slushies ! 

The Sky Walk! 

Part of the Zip Wire and the Slide

Zip Wire! *Wheeee*

Height of the Zip Wire from the ground (Looks distorted as I  was sitting down on the grass!)

So, that's about it for this week!

Hope you all had a brilliant week and an amazing week ahead! Let me know what you're up to in the comments below! 

Stay Strong, Happy and FEARLESS,

Aveen xx