Apologies to anyone who celebrates a birthday in January, but it is safe to say that it is definitely the least favourite time of year. Living in the shadow of its more attractive and over-achieving brother, December, January can just never live up to the fun and festivities that went down the month before.
PRAISE THE LAWD IT IS ALMOST OVER.
WHY IT IS THE WORST:
You overindulged over the Christmas period, and you packed on a little bit more weight than you would like to admit. The holiday season is like having a free gaff as a 17-year-old: super fun while you’re drinking the contents of your parents’ liquor cabinet and having ALL the craic, but super depressing when you have to deal with the mess and emotional turmoil that it leaves behind.
WHY IT WILL GET BETTER:
You can use the Yuletide pudge to motivate yourself to become a better and healthier person. Be realistic – don’t sign up for a year’s membership to a gym you will go to all of two times. Try walking to college and work, or going for a cycle in the evening, eat more green stuff and stop using every vaguely stressful opportunity to binge eat chocolate. (Unless it’s the death of your favourite celebrity *cough* ALAN RICKMAN *cough*. Then you can eat yourself into a Dairy Milk induced coma guilt-free. Always.)
WHY IT IS THE WORST:
Exams. Why are some universities so cruel as to have tests AFTER Christmas, when you are supposed to be having a BREAK from the world of third level education? You’ve gotten accustomed to sleeping in ‘til 2pm and binge-watching Making a Murderer on Netflix. Your brain is essentially mush. How are you supposed to ace that marketing test when you’re currently struggling to write your own name?
WHY IT WILL GET BETTER:
There will be a time in the not-so-distant future when exams will be a thing of the past. Forgotten about and irrelevant, much like this season’s Celebrity Big Brother contestants. If you don’t do great, you will learn from your mistakes. If you fail, it is not the end of the world – you’ll get a second chance in August. Stock up on the Redbull and the bananas and just do YOUR BEST.
WHY IT IS THE WORST:
You feel like you have nothing to look forward to. Nil. Zero. Zilch. The months that follow the Christmas season are like staring into an eternal abyss of nothingness, devoid of all excitement. Valentine’s Day? Pfffft, commercial and lame (especially if you are single and bitter…) St Patrick’s Day? All a load of touristy hype. Easter is alright but after they made the Cadbury’s Crème eggs smaller last year, you find yourself questioning whether or not Jesus died in vain.
WHY IT WILL GET BETTER:
You need to MAKE stuff to look forward to. Book a trip with friends or family. Start a new hobby and work towards a goal. Delve into a new series of books and don’t emerge from your room until you are guaranteed the warm embrace of the summer months.
WHY IT IS THE WORST:
The weather. January is the original fifty shades of grey and it’s a hell of lot less sexy. It poses a lot of questions: WILL IT RAIN? DO I NEED AN UMBRELLA? WILL A HAT STAY ON MY HEAD IF THE WIND STARTS BEING PSYCHOTIC AGAIN? Please, Teresa Mannion, help a brother out here.
WHY IT WILL GET BETTER:
Spring is looming, and hopefully the sun will decide to grace us with its presence for a while. Realistically, we are always going to be subject to the pissings of rain all year around, but at least it’ll be slightly WARMER rain we experience, a nice lukewarm shower on your way to a nine o’clock lecture to make your day that little bit brighter.
WHY IT IS THE WORST:
Bidding goodbye to 2015 has made you that little bit closer to becoming an actual grown-up human being, and you reeeeally don’t know how you feel about that prospect. You wish you could just stay in college forever, funded by SUSI and your parents. You like the luxury of drinking daily in the student bar without being judged for it.
WHY IT WILL GET BETTER:
2016 is full of new opportunities. SEIZE THEM. Get a part-time job and earn some dolla bills, start an internship and gain some experience that may help you after you graduate. Build up the courage to phone and make your own doctor appointments. Who knows, maybe 2016 will be the year when you DON’T frantically call up your mom asking what you should do after spilling a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon over your fab new coat from TK Maxx. Maybe this year you will KNOW.
Here’s to the rest of 2016 x
Jade O’Leary