No really, I am. Wednesday saw the start of the madness with the M.A.D Ball taking place in the Forum, Waterford. Where most college societies have black-tie balls in hotels, the Media and Design society elect to have a giant fancy dress party instead. I’m not in the Media and Design society, in fact I’m not sure if there even is such a society but when the words fancy dress, not optional and forum are all in the one sentence you can be pretty certain that I’ll be there somewhere.

I had decided to go as a Gorilla, the Cadbury’s Gorilla at that. I collected the costume on the day and bought a few fistfuls of Cadbury’s chocolate to stick into an mountaineers satchel that I found in the house. I found my Guitar Hero drum sticks and the look wad complete. I wasn’t able to try it on before the ball because I was meant to be in work. I really wish I did though. Actually, I really wish I thought the whole thing through!

It really only dawned on me when I got there that I was going to be like a lobster in a pot for the entire night! The suit itself was made out of 100% acrylic, which isn’t exactly the best fabric to allow for air to flow around. I only realised just how dire my situation was when I started drinking as I’m pretty sure I was sweating out the alcohol on the spot. I had about 6 drinks and nothing but sweat pouring out of me to show for it and even that was concealed under layers of synthetic fur! Being able to actually drink was an achievement in itself though as I struggled for a good 5 minutes trying to maneuver the glass into my mouth without snagging my mask and having it spill all over me. I then remembered that there’s such things called straws. I was Method acting. Obviously….

People soon caught onto the fact that I was like a portable patio heater and if they were cold after coming up from the smoking area they’d just latch onto me for a minute to warm up. I didn’t mind though because after all, you don’t dress up as a gorilla to go unnoticed! With alcohol sweating out of me at a ridiculous rate, I decided to really go for it and get some doubles in the hope that at least some of it would be absorbed into my body and not my costume! Also, the possibility (however slight) of actually being able to say I had Drunken Monkey sex was something I had to shoot for! I had just bought another drink when someone comes up behind me and wraps their arms around me. Gorilla hands aren’t the best at holding onto glasses. The girl apologised, but that honestly didn’t stop me from wanting to go all gorilla on her ass!

I took that as a sign that alcohol just wasn’t going to work for me for the rest of the night so from then on I just drank water which I suppose did ensure that I wasn’t going to collapse in a dehydrated mess on some street corner on my walk home.

I did get some free bananas in Centra though. That makes it all worth it!

Cadburys Gorilla

On the subject of being mad, I spoke to my course leader during the week about the possibility of repeating second year of Marketing in September. I’ve been all over the place with college this year and put simply am in dire need of divine intervention so to speak! I have two realistic options available to me. I can either go hell for leather between now and the repeats in August in an attempt to try pass the 10 or so subjects I’ll have to do. I can fail up to 2 of those and carry them over to third year. The advantage of doing this is that if I am successful, I can go into 3rd year and not waste a year. The downside is that in order to give myself any chance of passing them, I’d have to sacrifice working for a good chunk of the Summer.

Unfortunately work equals money, money that I’d need to be able to pay to repeat should I fail more than 2 exams. My other option is to just write off this year and focus on September. Major downside to that is it’ll cost the bones of €5k to repeat and I’d also lose my grant for the year. Now if the prospect of a degree and a job aren’t enough to motivate me then surely having my entire net worth invested in my education should be enough to make me put in the work second time around!

I think it’s worth mentioning that I can avoid the fees altogether if I register for exams only. Say if I give it welly between now and August and manage to fail 3 subjects then that means I have to repeat just those 3 subjects next year. If I go that route it means I can’t officially attend any lectures which would effectively mean I’d spend a second year running without going to classes. I don’t really want to do that because I feel that if I’m off the wagon for too long, I’ll never get back on.

Am I crazy, mad even, for preferring to repeat the entire year over every other option available to me? Am I crazy, mad even, for thinking that this option is the only one that allows me to finally do things right and not stumble and struggle forward having to carry subjects and repeat exams every semester? Is paying €5k my only chance at a clean slate?