Transcribe your podcast
[00:00:00]

Hello and welcome to The Blind Bye podcast, you, Jose Susan's. How is everybody? It's March now, which is. I got a small vibe, a positivity today. I. No unnoticeably heard the sound of birds. I heard the sound of birds properly for the first time, which signaled that were coming out of winter and it was an enthusiastic type of bird song. I think there were robins. They look like robins, but there was an enthusiasm for the bird song, maybe I was projecting, maybe I was projected onto the Birds project intentions and motivations onto the birds.

[00:00:49]

But I genuinely when I heard the birds today, that's the first time I've probably heard them. Since fucking September, actually, there's there's an interesting thing, man. And I wonder if I'm right or wrong. So I heard birds singing today and legitimately there was an enthusiasm and a motivation and and a sense of like a gold focused tone to how they were singing. Like, that's the vibe I got, the vibe I got was like the Bardes had just gotten out of bed.

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And they have some shit planned. And there are chatting about how to get it done. And they really they want to support each other and don't want us, no one was complaining. Right. But then when I hear Bardes in September, like the swallows that are upon it on a pile, I'm getting ready to leave and there are chattering that fills me with a sad feeling like I'm being left out, you know, that they're going to have to do something that doesn't involve me.

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Like when your friends, your friends have got tickets to go and see a see a gig or a festival and you didn't bother getting tickets and now you're like, really disappointed because they're hidden and you're not. And is that real or am I projecting onto the birds because it's the 3rd of March, let's so legitimately the birds, literally, they've got shit to do. They're thinking about building nests, mating, laying eggs. All right. They're also thinking about the fucking ground isn't cold anymore.

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The insects are doing their thing. We've got more food. We have reason to be excited and happy. But I'm aware of this. It's spring. And I also notice the smell in the air and the different quality of life. Am I projecting an optimistic enthusiasm onto those birds? Are there literally enthusiasm in the bird song? And similarly, in September, when the swallows are congregating on electrical pylons like I know what they're doing, they're having the last meeting before they are migrate to South Africa.

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There are meeting, getting ready to leave. But yet when I hear those swallows in September singing on a pylon, I feel insecure and I feel like I'm being rejected by those birds. Are they like are they actually rejecting me? Are they up there going, yeah, fuck, man, let's go down to South Africa. It's going to be class. It's going to be pure UAM. Look at that prick down there. Look at that fucking prick down there.

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Look at him. He doesn't have wings. He can't go down to the warm South Africa. He has to stay here in Ireland where it's freezing.

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Does that exist in their partisan? Are Mike projecting human emotions into their song? So I'm struggling a bit with him. I'm struggling a bit with the pandemic at the moment because I can't run. My fuckin. We're all in extreme lockdown, lads, we're all in extreme lockdown here in Ireland, and I have I have one thing in my day that I thoroughly enjoy, one thing that I really look forward to, and that's my role. All right.

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I do a 10 kilometre run. Every day, which is really sad, I shouldn't be doing the 10 kilometer run every day, but I need to get out of my gaff. I can go to the gym. I missed the gym desperately. I can lift weights at home if I want, but if I exercise for mental health. Rather than physical health, physical health is a symptom of my exercise, but really I'm doing it for emotional wellbeing exercise give me a very pretty beneficial brain chemicals.

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That's all I can say. And exercise is very important to me. So I can lift weights at home, but it doesn't do the trick for my brain. So I've been finding myself running nearly every day. For endorphins, what that's done, unfortunately, is I haven't been my Achilles heel rest and now I have a sore Achilles heel any time I run, even if I try and stay off it for a day or two. So right now I can't run.

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I think it would be very foolish of me. To Iran right now, because the Achilles tendon is you don't want to fuck that up, you don't want to fuck that up. And I really, really love running and I want to be able to run until I'm as old as possible. So I have to mind my legs. I have to really mind them and stretch properly and do this. So if my Achilles heel is saying to me, I'm sore whenever you run, you don't fucking run on it.

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But an unfortunate yeah and unfortunate consequence of this is I'm projecting human emotions into Bardes.

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And instead of simply enjoying the sound of birds in a here and now present fashion, I'm wondering if I can translate if I'm wondering if I'm I'm projecting enthusiasm into their song and was thinking about if sparrows in September are rejecting me. So that's how things are going for all blind by. And I did find a little bit of ironic joy. In the fact that my Achilles heel is is literally and figuratively my Achilles heel. If the running is what was keeping me.

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Saying and help me to cope, then my Achilles heel is my Achilles heel, and now I'm going stone mad, annoying Grant. I'm Grant. I'm just disappointed that I can't have my regularly scheduled run. So if you are a brand new listener, you might want to listen to some earlier podcasts. If you're a regular listener, you know the crack. Last week I gave it to you got to podcast last week. You got to podcast, he got two big heartaches.

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One episode was about the Japanese electronic group Yellow Magic Orchestra from the 1970s, and another episode was about Irish folklore history. The history of Irish outlaw characters from the Paintless over a type of superhero and how they went on to influence the fight for workers rights in America. So this week, I don't have a big giant heartache because. I didn't have the I didn't have the time to put research into doing one, because last week I did two podcasts and I'm also working on a different projects.

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I only had a little bit of time to prepare for this week's podcast, but I'm going to do a companion podcast, the companionship podcast where. I'm just going to answer some questions. That I asked on Instagram. And navigate through them. And hopefully we'll get a little bit of a podcast, OK, and I never answer enough of your questions anyway, I get fucking tons of questions. And if you've ever tried to send me emails. Twitter males are on Instagram are unpatriotic.

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Just no, I get I get over 100 miles a day. So I, I answer what I can, but I don't get to look at everyone. Everyone's male, unfortunately, even though I'd like to, I'd be added all day if if I was to respond to every man. But when I want to see ones that I like, I respond to it if I can. And if not, I take note of it and I say, maybe I can answer this on a podcast.

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So here's what I got from a lad called PJ. And P.J. says, I'm a 16 year old and I listen to your podcast weekly, could you do a podcast on your secondary school experience, if you wouldn't mind? So thank you. I love hearing. I love hearing that like someone who's 16 is listening to my podcast because I don't associate my podcast with people in school. I always think that it's people who are like college age and over listening to this.

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So thank you for that. Speaking of the youth I've been I've been trying to use ticktock this week, because Tick Tock is a it's a new app and it's huge, absolutely huge with teenagers. And I kind of just have to have a presence on it. Like my job requires the use of social media and. As I mentioned last week, I fucking hate Twitter, I don't like Twitter anymore, it's such a negative place, it's such a negative place where everybody is is no, it's not people's fault.

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Twitter as a platform. So Twitter, the platform rewards a combative, hostile and negative behavior. So it's a hostile and negative place and not a particularly fun place to be. But Tic-Tac actually isn't bad once you get your algorithm going, it's not actually not that bad. So I've been enjoying Tic-Tac and I put up a little snippet of one of my videos from Twitch, and it actually did really, really well. I put it up like 11 o'clock at night and I woke up the next morning and it had 50000 plays and I got 6000 followers.

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So I was thrilled with that. That's a pure sign of me being an old man there. Now, someone just mentions that they're 16 and in school. So then I immediately start talking about Tic-Tac like a fucking under undercover Guarda at a festival when I was a teenager wearing dark shoes and a Nirvana T-shirt, bringing up text messaging for no reason just because it's a thing that young people do. So there you go, APJ. I'm on Tic-Tac. I'm a grown man on Tic-Tac.

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Right. Because I know that that's what's cool with you 16 year olds. So what was my experience like in secondary school? What was my experience like in secondary school? Am I failed my leaving cert and I was expelled from school, so technically you'd think that my experience was bad or that I remember it negatively, but I don't I I actually really enjoyed being in school, i.e. the experience of it was. Very fun and very exhilarating, so I didn't go to school every day and feel miserable.

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And the reason for this was, is. I was most definitely. I was failed by somebody, I was definitely failed by whether it be this, yet the system, the system, I was failed by the system, without a doubt. OK. I shouldn't I shouldn't have failed my fucking leave and I shouldn't have been in a position where I'm getting kicked out of school, I was a child and I found myself in a position where. The education system in the cold, that the school system simply could not meet my needs, help me to identify what my needs were and made me excessively feel like a failure.

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I was a failure within the system of Irish secondary school.

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I was a failure. And I don't fully accept personal responsibility for that. I think I was failed. So one of the things with me is.

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I was born into a family of eight people and when I was born. All of those people were adults, like my youngest brother was like 16 when I was born, so I was effectively born into a large family of only adults. And the thing with that was, is as a child. I was I was then raised to speak to adults as simply other human beings, a power dynamic exists whereby sometimes children are raised to look up to adults and to speak to adults, as if to put on an extra layer of respect when you're speaking to adults.

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A lot of children are you know, they're they're born into a family where there's other children their own age and the adults in the family teach them. When you meet an adult, a big person, you must be really polite. You must refer to them as Mr. Dismissed or that. And you've got to show them this extra level of respect. I didn't have this because I'm born into a family of a lot of adults and they were young adults and they were married and having crack.

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So I never was told. It's call adults, Mr. Card, adults are our mess, I was never told to treat adults differently. Adults are simply my peers and this was really beneficial for me as a child because I was quite curious and it meant I would ask the adults in my house any question I wanted. And discuss things and all this stuff, and there wasn't this silly barrier of be quiet, you're a child, have respect around the adults that didn't exist, the barriers didn't exist.

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So that gave me that made me as a child very, very confident, very confident and very outspoken. And I didn't have a performance. I was I wasn't trained in the performance of how to speak to adults, adults, which those are human beings. But when I went outside my house and I was with my peers, now I'm talking when I'm six or seven and my friends are also six or seven, I would notice that when they met like a neighbor or when they were speaking to someone in the shop who was an adult, they had this extra layer of performance that they would do when they're speaking to adults, what they call the Mr.

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or Mrs., they're really, really quiet and they're being fake. They're being false. That's what I saw it as. I was like, why the fuck? Why are you talking to the neighbor as like, that's why you got all quiet and why are you pretending to be really nice, as if butter wouldn't melt in your mouth just because you're talking to a really tall person? I didn't understand that. I found it strange and it was and it is fake.

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We raise children to be fake when it comes to adults, we raise children to be. When you speak to another if you speak to the fucking neighbor, you got to be really quiet. You got to put your hands behind your back. You got to refer to them as Mr. and Mrs. and speak when you're spoken to and do all this. And parents teach kids to do this with adults because what it's the parent injecting fear into their own fear into the child.

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When you meet the neighbor, you must be really, really, really polite and put on this performance of how you speak to adults, because if you don't, they will think I'm a bad parent. They're going to think I'm a bad parent, so perform a fake niceness when you speak to adults. So the other kids had that, but I didn't because everyone in my house was an adult and there was no point in teaching me, teaching me that there was no point.

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I was allowed curse because my fucking brothers were like 18 or 19, cursing everywhere. So when I was five, I was allowed, say, content, fuck. Because there was no point. There's no point in my mother saying to me, you can't say I can't because I'm like the point of my brother saying it and they're 19. So of course they're going to be saying all the time. So I was a child who might flippantly say the word cunt to my neighbor and not not in a mean way.

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It's just I would speak to adults as if they were my peers. And the problem with this is, is that. Some adults like this in a child, some adults see that as they view the behavior in its context, it's like this child isn't calling me a cunt, they're not being rude. They're just refusing to engage in the performance of fake niceness that children do when they usually speak to me. And some adults think that's funny and they're really cool with it and they're grand.

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But then other adults. Get a little bit of a power trip when children are really polite to them. Some adults get that power trip. And I would then when I when I met adults that were insecure and got a power trip out of children, being polite to them and being excessively nice, when I didn't do that, I was labeled as cheeky. So I was now seen as cheeky because I had the audacity to refer to the adult by their first name, are asked the adult a question.

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Ah, I would initiate the conversation with the adult rather than speak into being spoken or speaking when I'm spoken to. And this became a big issue then when I would get to school. So then when I'm in school. I didn't really understand the authority dynamic, but with teachers, because teachers to me were just like you're only a couple of fuckin years older than my brothers, I don't see you as a big fancy teacher at all. You're just not a human being.

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So I very quickly found myself getting chastised excessively for behaviors that I considered to be normal, like a big I remember getting dragged off to the principal's office, dragged up like the nuns when I was seven or eight, dragged up to the principal's office and my mother being dragged into because teachers had been reporting that I was using foul language in the schoolyard. And I was. Because I grew up in a house with a lot of older brothers who are saying, fuck Pichette shit cunt every two seconds, not in an aggressive way, just that's how you speak when you're a teenager in your early 20s.

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So I was flippantly carson because I didn't know any different. And and then fucking my man had to come in and explain to a non. Where did he learn all these words? Where did he learn these words? And then, of course, my man was mortified, really embarrassed, and instead of my my kind of gone, he's got a lot of older brothers who are adults and this is how they speak. And I can't do anything about it.

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But you know what? They're just words. And what's the context and intent is using it in is the question that should have been asked. And anon, is he using these words to bully other children, to hurt other children, or is he simply simply flippantly using words that we label as bad? So the nuns then went pure fucking judgmental and basically treated my mother as if I was being neglected. So I received major chastisement from a young age in school simply for not treating adults, not treating insecure adults, how they expect to be treated by children.

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But it got me a bad reputation in school and fortunately in in baby school. And then all the way up to primary school, I was seen as really cheeky, disruptive troublemaker.

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And a lot of it wasn't I was a child. A lot of it wasn't. I just simply spoke to adults as peers. And I was also excessively curious. So a company labeled as troublemaker. So then what happened is that when I got the secondary school.

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I remember being in secondary school and in first year, so the thing is my secondary school in Fokin, first year, everyone's thrown into random classes. OK, so I'm like I'm like 12, 12, 13, first year of secondary school and we're all in random classes. And the thing is, I do not think the same now, but back in my day when you went in the second year, you were put into a class based on your academic performance in first year.

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And I really wanted to get into one of the classes I wanted because my brothers who'd been in the school said to me, you need to get into the classes because that's what the good teachers are. The teachers who enjoy their job, who are really interesting, who are good. They teach the classes, but then the B classes, that's where they put the teachers who are really fucking bad. So in first year of secondary school, I made a decision, I'm going to be a nerd.

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I'm going to work really, really hard at every single subject, and I'm going to behave myself in class and use because I was excited about secondary school, because the thing is, with primary school, you're not really taught subjects, bit of English, Irish water and maths, whatever the fuck. And then they touch on something like history or geography. But I was really excited by the fact that, wow, I'm in secondary school and at nine o'clock I've got maths and then I go to a different class and there's Irish and then I go to another class with a different teacher and it's history.

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And this made me feel like an adult and it was really exciting. So for first year, I worked my fuckin arse off and I behaved myself and I really prided myself on being studious and getting results and treat in school professionally, treat in school with a bit of maturity, with the goal of if I just stick my head down and do the work, I'm going to get into an ER class next year. I'm going to get into that er class and I'm going to have all these really good teachers that care about their jobs and that are my brothers had told me about, were like really interesting teachers.

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So I did it and I got really good results, I got a lot of A's in my summer exams. So then on the morning, a second year when I'm like 13, they divide all the students in the whole year and they're calling out the names of who gets to go into the there was like three air classes and three B classes. One everyone wanted to know one A one, a one and one and two. And then there was three B classes.

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So as they're cutting out all the fucking students names now, remember, I got a lot of A's, so I got the actual results because I worked my ass off in first year and I got the results that would get me into an air class. But then when the classes actually get called out. I got thrown into a class called 2B to. Which. Which was the worst class that you could get put into, it was the worst class, it was for the people who scored the lowest and also for people who had behavior problems.

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Now, what broke my fucking heart was. I wasn't well behaved in primary school, now I was a child. We're talking now about my behavior between the ages of seven and 11. I was not well behaved in primary school. I was a troublemaker. I was a mess. I was outspoken, I was cheeky because I'd been called fucking cheeky by teachers since the start.

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But when I got to secondary school, I was told I was going to have a clean slate. That's what they said to me. You're going to have a clean slate when you get into secondary school. You have a clean slate. So when I get into first year, I had this pride of I'm not going to misbehave, I'm going to do my work, I'm going to get the results. And I did it. And they still fucking threw me into Toby to.

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The worst class. And the thing with Toby, too, is that it was such a bad class that. You were almost a pariah. When when they announced the Klatt that the students that are going to be that the whole auditorium would go quiet and that then felt kind of shameful. And it was I was fucking furious because I got a lot of A's, I got the results, I put in the work, but clearly I was being put into Toby too, because I had a bad record of behavior from my previous school.

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So my school basically said, I don't give a shit about these results. He was a disruptive student when he was a child. So we're putting them into this classroom.

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And what made me angry, I wasn't angry that I was in Toby, too, because I was actually in there with a lot of people who are my friends anyway, who I hung around with. That was the auditing. They identified who the groups were. And my my friends were troublemakers and I was in with my friends. But what made me angry was I put in the fucking work. I got the results to get into another class. Why am I not in any class?

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And the unfairness of that felt fucking terrible. And also what made me really, really angry. It not wasn't it wasn't even anger engelhardt's. It wasn't anger because what anger there's motivation. It was a deep sadness and unfairness. I wouldn't have had the self-confidence for anger. It was a deep sadness and unfairness. I wouldn't have identified in his anger what made me feel what broke my fucking heart at 13.

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Is most of the lads that got into their classes. They got there because they worked hard and they got great results, but then there was other lads in the classes because I asked them, I obviously had all of my results and I was like, I got an an English got to be in history. All this really good results. And I went around to lads I knew who got into the upper classes, and some of them were like, fuck it, this this fella got a load of A's, OK?

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But then other lads got way worse results than me and they found their way into these classes. And I didn't understand that at the time, but it was because of like who their parents were, it's because of some of them, like, you know, their dad might be a solicitor or a barrister or a college lecturer. So the school put them into the class because the parents had clout and influence. And I didn't have that. My parents were just regular working people.

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Simple as that. So that was that felt deeply unfair and what it did is it. It made trying seem pointless, it made trying and working hard at school, it made it feel pointless because, A, I'd also been lied to. I'd been told you have a clean slate. It doesn't matter that you got in trouble in primary school. It doesn't matter if that happened. You have a chance to try it. A new if you just work hard.

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And that's not how it worked out. And I got thrown into the fucking worst class. The problem with being in 2B two is I'm talking this was this was the this was the late 90s. All right.

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And I don't want to be shitting on teachers, but. There were teachers. In in my school in the late 90s, these teachers were very old. Some of them were deeply, deeply troubled people, deeply troubled people who really had lost any passion for teaching at all. And it had gotten to them. So they were. Violent, reactionary. Not interested in teaching us, and then worst of all, because we were in Toby too, and it was a small class, it was only like 14 people.

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So it was like 14 of who's considered to be the worst students in the school. The worst. These teachers then hated you because you were in this class, so because the class had such a bad reputation, these alad teachers come in and they fucking hate you. So my first day of being in 2B two, so you have to remember half an hour previously, I think I'm getting into another class because I got these good results. And then then it's like, fuck that, you're going to be two.

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So I'm now there and to be two. And our first teacher comes in and he's in all out of about 70. And he, in his mind, has it made up on the carriers they used to call as carriers. I'm going into the class full of carriers now. Now I know what these carriers are like. So I have to. I have to. I have to show them who's boss. So now, for the first time in my life, because I'm like 13, I now have a grown man screaming in my face, scream at that, like with all the anger that you can imagine a grown man.

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Can get out of his body without hitting you. I now have a grown man screaming in my face and I haven't done anything wrong. It's simply because he's walked into the class, has his mind made up about who I am because I'm there and is now showing me who's boss. And and that was fucking horrible and it was demoralizing. And I had never been screamed at by an adult like that. And that just became normal. I don't know why.

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My parents didn't go down to the school and go, the fuck is he doing until we got a lot of A's, why isn't he in an air class like he deserves? They didn't do it because my parents came from a generation where priests and teachers are right and you don't question it. So I fucking gave up. I gave up at that moment in secondary school and second year I literally gave up. I really, really didn't want to. What what's the point now in trying and the other thing then when you're going to be to there, the teachers are deliberately pushing you towards doing pass rather than honors for the junior cert.

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And unlike subtle things like. So I still know lads that were up in the air class, and the thing is, when you're in 2B two, you're not getting out of us, you have to stick with that until junior cert. So then when it gets to three, two, which is the next year, in third year, that's when career guidance starts to happen. And the teachers were going into the air classes and they were talking to them about a serious business now.

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Next year you're going to start to leave and start cycle. Now, you might want to be thinking about going to university in Limerick, and you won't want to think about being accountants, are you want to think about being solicitors, professional careers. But then when they come down to us and I remember it was my fuckin vice principal speaking to us as a class. And literally saying to us, domain, jeno, domain, domain, this this leave and search, stop for a lot of a lot of, you know, might want to get trades.

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You might want to think of getting trades now next year. And what they're doing is that the vice principal was basically suggesting to our class that we don't come back to school next year, that we quit school at about 15 or 16, get your junior cert, but don't come back after that. Go and get a trade because you're in the what the school considers to be the worst class, the bottom class. And when the teachers are screaming at you on the first day and you're clearly in the worst class, your sense of values change.

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So the thing is about being in 2B two and three be two was you still require a sense of self-worth and self-esteem and a sense of identity. But because you're in this quote unquote, slow class are quote unquote gorier class that young flies in the air, the air stream, they they kind of laughter behind your back that you're kind of sniggered at going either fuck in the Ticos and to be too. But what you had to do then is, is your you have to find self-esteem in our class.

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You shape your identity differently. So we would say to each other those fucking day age, it's up in the air class. There are swats and nerds. They're fucking nerds and swats. Fuck them. And you start to identify as I'm fucking Coleman, fuck the system, I don't give a shit about studying. Fuck them, man. And then you start smoking fags and you start smoking hash and you you start to identify with being disruptive and then you start to find a weird sense of pride in I'm a fucking rebel, I'm outside the system.

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Toby, too, is like being in jail. We've got the hardest cons in our class. And then for me within the class, like I'd given up on studying, when you're also when you're in 2B two and three be two, the teachers don't ask for your homework because they've already given up on you. So I. I stopped doing homework and second year I stopped like at 13 years of age. I simply stopped doing homework because nobody was asking me for it.

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I'm speaking of homework, that's what the ocarina has not done with homework, really. Let's have a little ocarina, because I'm going to play a Spanish clay whistle and you're going to hear an advert for something.

[00:37:13]

That was the acronym was The Hispanic community is the nation's largest racial and ethnic minority. It's time health research included your voice. That's why the All of US research program exists if you participate in all of us. Not only would you help your community, you can also receive your free genetic ancestry trait results. With this information and more researchers may be able to conduct a variety of studies about health and diseases that affect the Hispanic community. Visit. Join all of us.

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[00:38:35]

This podcast is my full time job. This podcast is How I Earn a Living. And I have full editorial control over this podcast. No advertiser tells me what to speak about. I can do what I want. Podcast is also a huge amount of work to do. So if you're enjoying it, if you like it and you're getting something from this and I'm providing you with comfort and entertainment, just please consider paying me for the work that I'm doing.

[00:39:02]

All I'm looking for is the price of a cup of coffee or a pint once a month. That's it. If you like this podcast, would you buy me a coffee or a pint if you met me? If the answer is yes, that's what you can do if you can't afford. To if you can't afford that, don't worry, you can listen to the podcast for free, that's fine. But if you can afford this, you're paying for someone who can't afford to listen.

[00:39:29]

So everyone gets a podcast. I earn a living for the work that I'm doing. What more could you want? It's a model that's based on soundness and kindness, and it's how I earn a living. And thank you to all of my patrons like the podcast share at. And and also catch me on Twitch once a week, Thursday night at Half a Twitch, that TV favorites like The Blind by podcast where you can talk to me live and I'm making a live musical to the events of a video game.

[00:40:01]

I have some new equipment this week and I'm really looking forward to Thursday. So now let's go back to my experience of secondary school, which I didn't I didn't think I was going to be talking about it at this length. But I'm uncovering quite a lot of memories and I'm realizing this isn't something I. Think about a Las. And it feels a little bit therapeutic for me, to be honest, to be uncovering these feelings that I don't think about are these memories that I don't think about a lot.

[00:40:31]

And then. So the thing is within the culture then, of the students and to be to none of us, consider ourselves to be academic. And so what happens is the value system in the class is you can be one of two things, you can be hired or you can be a mad bastard. So if you're hired, that means that you're strong and you're prepared to get into fights and no one will fuck with you. And anyone who is going to slag you certainly isn't going to do it to your face because you're a hard cunt.

[00:41:09]

And that became a value system with within the class will say now this is an all boys school. Now, I'm not hired. I'm not a violent person. I'm not good at fighting. This was never something I had any interest in. So I had to go down the route of Mad Bastard. So in order for me to have any degree of respect within the class and to get respect essentially from the hard lads, I had to be fucking mad.

[00:41:37]

It didn't give a shit about authority, didn't give a fuck about rules being as disruptive as possible, locking the teacher out of the class, smoke and fags at the back of class, telling the teacher to fuck off. At lunchtime, Sniffen links to a school jumper at lunchtime, making sure everyone sees you, so it's like, oh, man, look at him, he's fuckin sniffin links at lunchtime. What a mad can't. Holy shit, he doesn't give a fuck about anything.

[00:42:06]

And then all of that feeling good because my peers now have respect for me because this is why those are the parameters of respect. When you're in three, Beto, and what are you going to do? What were children? We don't have emotional maturity. We don't have the ability to think critically.

[00:42:30]

We're in a space where you're supposed to be making mistakes, but there's no one guiding you otherwise showing you alternative routes for self-esteem or self-worth. Now, I was I was fortunate because I was going home to a house where at least in my house, music, art, education, these things were valued. So for my family, they were gone. What the fuck is he doing? He loves listening to music. He plays instruments. He he draws and he paints at home.

[00:43:03]

He's such a passionate, creative young fella. Why the fuck is he in school? Sniffing solvents and smoke and fags and acting like he wants to get expelled, and the thing is to when I was speaking earlier about the the type of teachers that were teaching us, so the vast majority of the teachers that were teaching to be two. I think they were kind of they were kind of nearly given our class as as a way to encourage them to retire.

[00:43:33]

It was that vibe. I don't want to be really I don't want to be mean to them, to these men. They were just older and they should have quit long ago. And they were very, very angry, aggressive, contemptuous men. But anyone who's related to this experience in school, if you had a similar experience to this where you're kind of labeled and pushed into something. You always know that there's one teacher who's going to be sound, and for me there was there was one teacher to all this shit in second year and third year, my English teacher, Mr.

[00:44:14]

Crow, and he was young. He would have been in his 20s at the time. And he used to like the crack of teaching us. He used to like that we were bald. And he was also he was the teacher that was sound. So you'd never mess in his class out of respect. He used to give me praise academically and encourage me academically in my written English and that then he I do homework for him like he identified that I was creative and used to love language so he would get me on a Friday.

[00:44:47]

My homework was write a short story and have to me for Monday. So I used to write short stories for him and I'd write them all weekend and I'd get creative flow. I used to fucking love it and he used to let me write short stories about whatever I wanted and encouraged me to be really funny. And I remember one in particular. It was a short story about the vice principal and it was about the vice principal. Going to his golf course that he goes to, but then getting down on the ground and eating magic mushrooms off the ground to the point that he grows a beard of mud on his face.

[00:45:28]

And I remember describing his trip, the vice principal psychedelic trip after he eats the mushrooms off the ground with his beard. And I got crayons, colored crayons and all the bits that were psychedelic. I wrote out and colored crayons and and then Mr. Crow would read this story to the class. And it's like reading a story that I'd written about the vice principal playing golf, eating magic mushrooms in in in cassiterite golf course.

[00:46:00]

And then that being OK and the teacher reading it out and going. This is really, really good. And then everyone else in the class laughing their asses off and loving English and love and creativity because the teacher is being sound. The teacher is being sound, and that really got me through, that absolutely got me through. That was the. It didn't matter how many other teachers were dickheads who taught that we were who called us carriers to our fucking faces because that Mr.

[00:46:33]

Cole was so fucking sound and encouraging and that really got me through it. And I remember. One of the fuckin proudest moments of my life would have been second or third year because it got back to me, Mr. Crowe was also teaching some of the classes, and while I was teaching one of the classes, they were doing creative writing. And he said to them, there's there's a young fella down and three Beto, and he has the best command of the English language in this school.

[00:47:03]

And I heard that. And I went home and fuckin cried. Because it was the first time in that anyone had said that I was fucking God in that school, that was that was 24 years ago. But I know. I know for a fact. That's that same teacher now when he. Over and over, I would say the past 10 years, if he has a class full of students and they might be disruptive or he's trying to get them to listen, he said to them, I used to teach Blind Boy, you know, I used to teach blind by then I go, fuck off.

[00:47:40]

No, you didn't. What was he like? And he, like, withhold stories about me as a dangling a chorus of like, if you behave yourselves now, I'll tell you this. I'll tell you that, which for me is lovely to know. That's lovely to know. Because it it means that like. It's like having a positive impact on kids that are in there now, if you know what I mean, although I don't think it's a really different school now, there'll be no tribute to and there now it's gone more of a kind of a prestige school now at the moment.

[00:48:13]

And that was a little glimmer of light. But other than that, I was identifying as a mad bastard being as disruptive as possible. And that's what my most of my peers would have considered me. It's like, oh, him. He's a mad bastard. He didn't give a fuck about anything. He'll do anything he will to simply have a sense of self-esteem, self-worth and identity. In my peer group, in a system like what? These are the things that are valued.

[00:48:38]

One thing that I do feel would have been very helpful to me, possibly helpful to me, would be if I had have been able to do a year. That's called transition year. So after Tardieu, after your junior cert, there's an optional extra year called transition year, and this year it's not fully academic. This is a year where you get to do work experience. You get to learn real world skills. If you're interested in art or creativity, you can actually have an opportunity at about the age of 15 to work in a theater are to to do something with music or painting.

[00:49:18]

It's an extra year for you mature and explore your interests before you do your leave leaving start cycle. I applied for transition year and wasn't allowed to do it because of my reputation and behavior and because I'd been in three 3.0. I applied for it just like we can't trust you to do transition year.

[00:49:42]

This is this is a year for where students are responsible for their own schedule and things like that. Not a fucking hope you'll ruin it for everybody. Just do 50 or get out of the school as soon as possible. So transition year was denied me, which again broke my fucking heart because I'd have been perfect for transition year. I could have explored my talents and abilities that were outside of prescribed academic curriculum. So then by the time fifth year comes around, you're no longer in these shitty classes anymore when it gets to 50 or it's a little bit more egalitarian and it's not as you kind of choose your honors subject or you choose your past subjects and you're put into classes that way.

[00:50:28]

But because I was in. The B class, is that the worst because I wasn't really getting access to any of the honors subjects, even if I wanted them and leaving cert because I was doing pass subjects and I'd been had and had to do homework since second year. So I go into fifth there and it's too late by that stage, it's fucking too late, doesn't matter. I'm a disruptive little chef who challenges authority at all points, haven't a hope of doing anything academic because I've fallen too far behind.

[00:51:03]

So I had to find an identity around being a mad bastard. And there's no such thing as a clean slate because I remember going into fifth year, I can't remember the class that it was. I can't remember the exact class. But I'm sitting down in this class, first day of fifth year teacher walks in, the teacher doesn't know who I am, I don't know the teacher, but he's aware that my name is on his list of students.

[00:51:27]

I'm sitting down in my new class, but a lot of people I don't really know. And he walks in the door and the first thing he does when he gets in the door, he screams my name out at the top of his lungs, really angrily out into the ether. And as he's doing it, he grabs a small little desk and grab and pushes it towards his desk at the top. So it's this desk that's not sitting with the other desks in the class.

[00:51:54]

It's this special little desk beside his and screams out my name and says, Where are you? And I stand up and I says, it's me. And he goes, Your reputation precedes you. You sit there, you sit there and you don't move. So he'd obviously been told by the fucking. The other teachers, you've got this fella in your class, you have to watch out for him, he's very disruptive. So he he makes a point to say, and at that point I'm in fifth year.

[00:52:25]

So that didn't hurt. I felt like a legend. That's how fucked up it was. That's a bad thing. That's a teacher coming to a classroom screaming a student's name and then separating that student and putting them up at the front of the class beside his desk to go. You can't participate in the class like the rest because I already know you haven't got a hope. So sit up here underneath my nose. But I felt like a legend. I felt like a fucking legend when that happened because everyone in the class who didn't know who I was was like, wow, who the fuck is this guy?

[00:53:00]

This guy must be crazy. And it felt amazing. And now, as a grown adult, I think that's that's really sad. That's really sad. That's my identity had shifted towards having a really high sense of self-esteem because I'm so unruly and disruptive. That myself is at any hope that I'd had of achieving self-esteem or self-worth from achieving goals, are engaged in what my study are simply engaging with the here's the thing about that breaks my heart about fucking school that I had the opportunity to learn about history, poetry, economics, all these things, geography, science, stuff that I fucking love.

[00:53:50]

I'm a curious person. I had the opportunity to learn about all those things and I didn't take it. I didn't take it. And I'm not going to sell flagellate over not taking that opportunity because what was I going to do? So pipe in 50 are all I give a fuck about was being the class clown. I wasn't by 50 or I wasn't I wasn't smoking fags in the class or doing any of that.

[00:54:16]

I was a little bit older. So instead my my disruptiveness became about how can I add any available opportunity, say something to the teacher that makes the entire class laugh out loud. How can I do that? And that's all I give a shit about. And that's when I say what school was fun. I used to get up every morning and going to school and going to class and all I cared about was making everybody laugh and would 50. It's a little different.

[00:54:46]

The teachers teacher would a bit more maturity. Teachers tend not to scream at you when you're 15, 16. They don't do that. Instead, what they just say is just get out of the class, just leave the class. So every class what what happened was I would take the risk of I'm going to say something. Everyone's going to roar. Laughing. I feel amazing. And then the teacher is going to go get out. So I get kicked out of every single class.

[00:55:15]

I'd get kicked out of three classes a day. And when you're kicked out of class, you're expected to stand outside the door of the class. And the problem was, is the principal used to she used to walk up and down the hall. So she saw you standing outside the class. She'd suspend you, which you couldn't have because three suspensions equals expulsion. So as soon as I would get kicked outside the door, I disappear. I go into the toilets and smoke fags.

[00:55:42]

But eventually what I started doing was. My art teacher, my art teacher was really, really sound, so when I got kicked out of a class, I just knock on the door of the art room and even if there was other classes going on, he would just let me sit at the back of that art class and just draw. So that's what I used to do. When I was in fifth year, I was an attendant, barely any classes at all.

[00:56:08]

I was getting kicked out are sometimes simply not turning up and just go into the art room and drawing, drawing, drawing, listening to music, because that's all I wanted to do, but at the same time falling behind massively in every one of my subjects because I'm not present. And the thing is, it's not like I mention it's it's not like I'm not in the school. I'm in the school. I'm just up in the art room. And no one no one stepped in and stopped.

[00:56:39]

The principal didn't come in and say, what are you doing up here in the art room? You should be back in an economics class. It was like an agreement. It was like if he's up in the art room and he's drawn and he's got his earphones on, he's actually quiet. He's not disrupting any classes. And he's not mentioned he's not walking around town in a school uniform, he's in the school, so this weird compromise emerged. But again, now as an adult go, that's fucking horrendous.

[00:57:13]

I'm 16, what the fuck are you doing? Why the fuck are all the teachers OK with me spending most of my time in an art room drawing, not attending classes? The adults are essentially failing me because I'm a kid. If someone's going to let me draw and listen to music, I'm going to do it. So then. Then by 54, I almost got expelled and 50. I can't even remember what it was for. I can't even remember what I was ordered to go to the disciplinary committee.

[00:57:46]

And the disciplinary committee is it's the last step before you get kicked out of the school where basically three teachers have to go over your written record and the interview interview you. And based on this interview, they decide whether you stay in the school or not. And one teacher, again, he was one of the class teachers. Doc was his name. He's a legendary teacher in that school known as being an absolutely fantastic teacher. I think he died a few years ago, but I was in front of the disciplinary committee.

[00:58:19]

They were looking at my record and they were gone. You have one of the worst records in this school we've ever seen. We don't see a place for you in this school. We don't see where you should be here. I was like, fuck it, grand. And then. Dark turns to me and says. What do you want to do in 10 years? And I've never been asked that, and I just turned around and I started talking about I love painting, I love I love writing things, and these are the bands I'm listening to.

[00:58:52]

I love listening to Bob Dylan. I love David Bowie. I love Wu Tang Clan. And all of a sudden now. My entire demeanor is change in how articulate I am is changing. And I'm speaking about shit that I really deeply care about and like the stuff I was going home to my room to enjoy, I'm now speaking to teachers because someone said to me, what are your interests? What are your actual interests? And based on that dock, the teacher said, well, your record is horrendous, but you clearly have a lot of ambition.

[00:59:30]

Even though this ambition doesn't appear to be have anything to do with school, so we're going to give you a second chance, so they give me a second chance and then 60 IRCAM around. And I'm 16, 17, and then I finally got expelled in sixth year in February of sixth year and I can't remember what I got expelled for, probably just a lot of different things. And it was it was it was an agreed upon expulsion. The principal basically said to me.

[01:00:01]

I'm not going to officially expelled from this school. It's February, so what I want you to do is don't come into this school until the leaving cert. Do not step foot in the door of this school until your sit in the leaving cert. And if I see you in this school, that's an automatic expulsion on your record. And you're going to have to find a new school to say to leave in certain. So I left school in February of next year.

[01:00:29]

I didn't come in. I stayed at home. And what I did was as a thank you to the principal because I was like, ah, thank you so much for not literally expelling me. I spent those months between February and June, not starting from my leaving cert because I didn't give a fuck about my leaving cert, I spent those months. I did a huge painting. I'd gotten an air brush because I was learning how to use an airbrush to paint.

[01:00:56]

So I got this huge canvas and I painted this massive painting of the school and it was in the style of Salvador Dali. And it took me months and months to do and I put so much effort into it. And my plan was, is that I was going to present this painting to the school at our graduation mass because before we graduate for six year, which I was allowed to attend, we'd have this big mass in the church. And I said to the principal, I'm doing going to do this lovely painting as a mark of gratitude.

[01:01:32]

I presented at the mass and she goes, of course, again. But what I did was just above the school, I painted this huge penis in the clouds, but hidden in such a way that you could only see it from a certain angle. The way that I'd shaded it, you could only see it from certain angles. So there's not you couldn't look at it and correctly identify a penis unless you were at a certain angle. So I could never be accused of putting it in there.

[01:02:00]

I could say, that's just your eye. You are seeing a penis in the clouds. Why are you seeing a penis in the clouds? But I told all the lads. So finally then on the graduation mass, the principal calls up my name and I get to go to the top of the church. All the students and everyone's parents were there. And I got to stand beside the principle, what my giant painting beside the principal and the priest in the church.

[01:02:29]

With my giant painting of the school and a huge cock in the clouds that all the students know about. And that was my that was my final fuck you. That was my final fuck you to the school, to be honest. And I don't know if they even found out about the I think the painting is in the school somewhere. And it was in the staffroom for a while, I believe. And the thing is, is that the penis was there as a rumor.

[01:02:57]

You could never you could only see the penis in the painting from a certain angle, so you have to find that angle first, you can correctly identify it so. It existed as a rumor, I don't know where the painting has gone now, and I love that permit for that to be like the end of the fucking story, because that's like a high to live on. And it felt great because it's like. There's the final fuckin act of the mad bastard.

[01:03:26]

The pain is in the painting and. Then then I have to set my fucking leaving certain zone, which was awful, which was horrendous because I hadn't done any fucking study, I hadn't thought about it. I just turned up. I I'm not able to do maths. I'm barely able to count. So I had to do foundation maths for my leaving surprized.

[01:03:55]

I was the only student in the school doing foundation maths, foundation maths.

[01:03:59]

Is that the lowest level of of maths? It you you can't even pass foundation maths no matter what result you get in foundation maths. It's not even considered a pass in the leaving cert. And I wasn't even able to do it. And the saddest fucking moment of my school years was we're all in the giant hall and this is 60 or so.

[01:04:24]

I'm like 17, everyone else there is 17, 18, some people 19, so we're adults effectively we have the maturity, you know, and. We're all sitting down doing our fucking maths exam. First off, I'm the only person getting the foundation paper that gets a little giggle. And then. I couldn't do it, I couldn't do. I was so bad at maths, I couldn't even do foundation maths, I couldn't even do it. And I just I got up and walked out of foundation mats in the Leaving CERT after five minutes, I'd say easily after five minutes.

[01:05:06]

And the whole place erupted in laughter like it was a joke, like I just don't a funny joke, and this was another, like, performance that I was doing. And it wasn't it wasn't at all. And that felt like fucking shit. That really felt like shit to have the whole place laugh, thinking that I was joking because I walked out and foundation mats after five minutes and that felt like fucking shit. It felt like shit walking out of the living.

[01:05:33]

Sartore like that. So I felt my leaving start filming even start. Couldn't get into any college. And then locally, via a policy course, was able to get into art college because they got 600 points in my art college portfolio. But the thing is Ladd's. A month or two after I walk out of that leaving cert exam like a month or two after, and I'm no longer in school and now I'm in the real world and I'm looking at my 18th birthday, that's when I start to present with my severe mental health issues.

[01:06:11]

I didn't really have mental health issues in in school. I had a touch of depression, what I now see as depression in the summer of fifth year. But as soon as I got out of sixth year and I didn't have school to go to anymore, and now I, I had to face off, OK, I'm an adult. I'm an adult in the real world. And there's nothing next year. There's no school to go back to next year.

[01:06:36]

That's when I started to experience intense anxiety attacks. Agoraphobia. Bad depression, thoughts of suicide. That's that's when that presented itself and. Like, why, why wouldn't it? I had to I had to survive through secondary school using very heavy defense mechanisms on a day to day basis. I didn't I don't think I lived authentically through secondary school and like it had a deep impact on me. I don't get recurring dreams, but I have one recurring dream and I get about once or twice a year.

[01:07:23]

And that dream is.

[01:07:25]

Me as an adult now having to put on a school uniform and go back and sit down with a bunch of 16 year olds in school and to have to feel the way I felt in school. To have to feel the shame of failure that intensely now as an adult in that uniform, that's my recurring dream. That's my recurring nightmare. And it's happened every year since I've left school. I'm I'm someone who was capable of being a good student. I'm someone who was capable of getting a good leaving cert.

[01:08:07]

I was I was someone who was capable of turning up to school every day, engaging with the curriculum and finding a sense of meaning from it and doing all the positive things that come from that setting and achieving goals. I did six years of not achieving any goals, to be honest, like. And. I like identifying as a class clown, are identifying as a mad bastard. That's a defense mechanism because the system is telling me that's all, you're a piece of shit in tribute to your.

[01:08:46]

And the teachers are calling you Gregoria. And then I have to cope by forming a new identity around being a mad bastard, and that's where my self-esteem comes from, their heavy duty defense mechanisms there. So I've no doubt that. The amount of lying to myself on a daily basis that I had to do contributed to my massive mental health issues and school was fun. I had loads of crack.

[01:09:15]

I enjoyed it. But the summer after leaving cert, I felt deep, deep shame. I felt so much fucking shame at having let myself down, having underperformed, because when I was 17, 18 out of school, I wasn't. I'm able to look back at that now as an adult and look back at my time in school and identify bits of where the system failed me. And I'm able to have self compassion because I'm in my thirties so I can be very compassionate towards myself when I'm 12, 13 and I'm able to go.

[01:09:52]

Sure, I was very immature then. So I it's not fair for me to expect so much of myself at that age. The adults should have been helping me out. But when I was just out of six years at maybe 17, 18, I didn't have the maturity and wisdom to have that type of compassion and allow that much fallibility for myself when I was 13. So when I got out of secondary school, deep, deep, intense shame of going, you are fucking smart, you're actually really smart.

[01:10:27]

And you know, you're smart and you know that you love knowledge and love writing and are passionate about things and you just fail. You leave insert. So I would have blamed myself really fucking hard, which didn't help my mental health issues. And there's a separate timeline, a separate timeline exists where I got a good fucking leave and start and maybe had more opportunities, like I went to college and love this. And I'm very happy right now, but it would have been nice to have more opportunities, like I couldn't I wouldn't have been able to study music, I wouldn't have been able to study film.

[01:11:12]

All these things weren't available to me because I'd failed my insert. But luckily, with art college, that didn't require you to pass maths and you could make up for it with portfolio points. So that's how I got into art college. So I answered one question. They are now a young fella called PJ, who's 16, who's in secondary school, asked me what was your experience in secondary school? That was it. Their APJ. And I wasn't expecting along allowing it to dedicate to the entire podcast, but that felt therapeutic, that felt a little bit therapeutic for me to explore memories like that.

[01:11:52]

And I'm sure that's not the worst experience in school. I'm sure there's people who had fucking far worse experiences than that. Far, far worse, I'm just saying it's my experience, it's my experience. I had a huge laugh because. I was definitely I was let down, I was let down, the system doesn't work for everybody. All right, I'm going to be back next week with a hot take, most likely because I have the time to research a hot take.

[01:12:27]

The few things I'm thinking about my undersells. Enjoy the fucking bedwetter. Let's enjoy the first 10 days of Martorell was dodgy. But once once the first 10 days are done, it's clear sailing from their evening is getting longer. Different smell pods appear on entrees. A lot of positivity in the air, so embrace that and embrace it, don't miss it. Be mindful of it, that that's, uh, it's a lovely thing to look forward to.

[01:13:00]

What what winter? No, it's over for winter.