Cork's Top 10 Study Distractions

10th May 2017

Exam season is already upon us and the distractions are only fierce! Here are the PROC’s top ten things that get in the way of keeping your head in the books…

The Sunshine
When there was no exam pressure in February it was bucketing outside but now that it’s exam time Mother Nature, an expert practitioner in Murphy’s Law, has turned up the heat and packed away the clouds and there do be old dolls everywhere showing skin, boy!
 

Crunch Games Sport on TV
The Munster championships, the F.A. cup, the Champions League, the PRO 12 and of course the thrilling late night Indonesian under-21 lightweight backgammon finals. Can Sawak Al Sinjin win it again after bagging the minor championship last year? There’s no way anyone could study with this level of entertainment on the box.
 

How can anyone study with late night Armenian backgammon championship highlights on telly?

The Draw of A Few Pints
Big fat tasty pints of ice cold happiness with the gang are just one snapchat or Whatsapp message away. This mid-nineteenth century economic history of the Balkans is losing the battle for your heart and mind quicker than a racist French politician in a presidential election.
 

You're only young once.

Shadow Boxing
Not the metaphorical kind – there’s no better way to spend an evening than skipping around your bedroom doing a Conor McGregor on an imaginary late night bottle-swinging opponent instead of trawling through biology notes on changes to E.U. regulations on insect counting techniques.

When you read recent stories of mass broad daylight brawls outside the Peace Park you wonder how you might have reacted if you were caught up in the melee. Sting like a butterfly, float like a flea….hmmm…if there’s a section on writing headlines for badly defeated boxers in your microbiology exam that gem you just came up with could get you first class honours.

Actually Cleaning Your Cesspit of a Flat
Studies have shown that students’ brains are unable to see items like decaying upside down pizzas that have been mashed into their living room carpet until the pizzas themselves become so mouldy that they grow legs and walk out the door.

Similarly, if you’re a college student, only when rotting food in the fridge grows tentacles big enough to interfere with the your flat’s WIFI signal do you become aware of the toxic environment you actually live in. There’s no better way to avoid studying than deciding to finally evict the maggots that have been building villages under your gaf’s couch just when you should be knuckling down with the books.

Cutting the Grass for the Landlord
The sound of summer lawnmowers humming while you cower indoors with your head in a book discussing granite formations in the Mongolian plains are far too taunting - the jungle that has become your house’s back garden is suddenly a challenge you can’t resist. It also just happens to be beautiful and sunny and freshly cut grass has to be celebrated with an hour long game of penalties with your flatmate….and a few cans.
 

Your Wan in the Skirt
Maybe you’re one of those students who can only study in the library – seeing everyone  with their heads down in the books keeps yours down too but then….there’s your wan. The flah - in this weather an’ all, like. This ten out of ten Cork beauty has sat next to you two days in a row. Is that cos she likes you or because she likes that particular spot? You spend most of the day working on the answer.
 

She's definitely giving you the eye.

Browsing Airline Websites
You should be building that mini website for your final computer science project but the lure of cheap flights to the U.S. for a summer of fun is just too much. Hours and hours can go by as you pour over search results and try to squeeze the last out of your student card. You tell yourself that all this website browsing is just research for the project.

Rumours About What’s Coming Up
Instead of actually revising what you’ve been taught since last September the impending exam tension has you rumour-trading with the rest of the class on Whatsapp. The lecturer’s face definitely twitched when one topic was mentioned – that’s “a sign” according to one of your classmates so no point in studying any other section, right?

Hours of pouring over past papers has turned into giant excel sheets where you download specialist software to look for trends hoping to see a pattern that will tell you exactly what’s coming up on this year’s exam.

August in Cork is Just Grand
You know what, America isn’t what it was. Maybe staying in Cork for the summer to repeat exams isn’t that bad after all. For a start you’ll be in Cork and sure Cork is daycint. Anything after that is a bonus – like passing your exams. And these photos of Cork beaches on google images are far more interesting than the dross you’ve been struggling to read all morning.