Published in the WOW! supplement of the Evening Echo
Camping is one of those things that seems a lot more fun when you’re planning it than when you’re actually doing it. We were heading to France for my sister-in-law’s wedding, and as we’d be away anyway, we decided to turn it into a family holiday. A few days at a high-spec French camp site (NB. High spec campsite – not a high-spec website) seemed like an ideal way to start the trip.
And so it proved: the days were great… plenty to see and do, and loads of things to keep the kids occupied. It was the nights that were the problem. We have one of those big family dome-tent contraptions – one bedroom for the kids, one for Mum and Dad and a central “living” space. Again, great on paper, but more challenging in practice.
Trying to get the three children into their sleeping bags, settled and off to sleep on the first night was little short of torture. The initial excited chatter soon descended into heated debate about territory, and things went steadily downhill from there. You must have been able to hear them on the other side of the camp site… a fact made worse by the fact we were surrounded by older couples in camper vans who were keen to get an early night. It was gone midnight when, at our wits end, we finally got them settled.
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Published in the Wow! supplement of The Evening Echo
Technology does a lot of things to make our lives easier. Every day we use our mobile phones, our computers, ATMs, credit card machines, POS systems (or computerised “tills” to you and me) digital television systems that automatically record the programmes we like… without tapes. The list goes on and on and on, and everything is talking to everything else over myriad global communications networks.
(image by Homer Township Public Library)
If you think about it for too long your brain starts to sizzle gently in your cranium… but that’s okay, because you tend not to. Most of us aren’t that interested in how it all works… we’re just happy that it does, because all of this digital wizardry makes our our lives just a little bit easier, allowing us to squeeze more into our busy lives. There are times though, when technology makes life harder, and that can be especially true for parents.
Why? Because technology is everywhere and our children are often better at using it, and embrace it more readily than we do. Mobile phones and the internet are obvious examples… while many parents struggle to understand them, to the children of today they’ve become practically second nature. That’s worrying on lots of levels – but mostly because it means we’re incapable of keeping up with them… let alone keeping track of them.
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Written for the Evening Echo Career Moves section
There are all sorts of reasons why people don’t go to college straight from school. There are also plenty of reasons why, after a while, those same people feel they’d like to broaden their educational horizons and explore the opportunities a third level qualification can offer.
But making that transition back into education can be daunting. Where do you start? Do you have the right qualifications to meet the often stringent entry criteria? Isn’t there a complex application process to endure? Too many questions, when what you need are answers.
One of those answers could be a joint initiative run by Business Information Systems at UCC, CIT and Cork City Partnership. The Diploma in Applied Business Computing has been specifically designed to offer people a path back to third level education, ultimately leading to employment in the vibrant arena where business and technology overlap.
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“Dad!” shouts the little one.
“Yes,” I say, taking a sip of coffee without looking up. She grabs my arm, commanding my full attention.
“Y’know this baby,” she waves a small plastic doll in my face. I wonder what’s coming next. “Y’know what her name is?” she continues. I admit that I don’t. “Well, her name is Melina…” she pauses for dramatic effect, “… but for short you can call her Jasmine.” Pleased, she beams at me.
My brain wrestles with the concept for a moment, and then gives up… something it does with remarkable regularity when confronted with the bizarre logic of a four-year-old. The four-year-old mind is a law unto itself… or at least our four-year-old’s mind is.
There’s also a short circuit somewhere in her nervous system that links her brain directly to her vocal chords, bypassing the usual filters and balances. She never shuts up, and says whatever pops into her head as soon as it occurs to her. One minute she’ll come out with something incredibly perceptive and insightful that has you reeling; the next she’ll utter a stream of incomprehensible gibberish… but with all the conviction and authority of a seasoned expert. It’s entertaining and exhausting at the same time; sometimes you just wish she had an off-switch.
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Camping is one of those things that seems a lot more fun when you’re planning it than when you’re actually doing it. We were heading to France for my sister-in-law’s wedding, and as we’d be away anyway, we decided to turn it into a family holiday. A few days at a high-spec French camp site (NB. High spec campsite – not a high-spec website) seemed like an ideal way to start the trip. 
