The importance of remembering

Last week was particularly tough with the death of first year law student Kate Fleming. Attending Kate's funeral really opened my eyes to the strength we can have in numbers. Huge amounts of people travelled from near and far to attend in the small church on the hill in the small west Cork village of Timoleague. The community rowed in to make sure everyone found parking, and got to the church.

Kate's dad told a really beautiful story of her life, always positive, always composed, no regrets. I really despise having to go to students funerals, not because I don't care, but because it's not fair that generally I'm there giving the condolences of ULSU and the student population at large to a family that has lost a child, a brother, a sister, a father, a mother in horrific circumstances. Kate's dad understood this. He quoted the first words from a favourite movie of Kate's, The Lion King "Life's not fair". Even sitting here writing this I'm welling up, it was the one on of two parts of the service where I could not contain my tears. The second was during the prayers of the faithful; Kate's little brother Bill prayed that we could all find inspiration from his sister's life. It really isn't fair for a teenage boy to have to do that, but he did and he did it with a strength and class that many adults would struggle to do so.

Kate's family could give a class in how to cope through the funeral of a loved one. They spoke to everyone who queued to sympathise with them, not just a handshake, but a "who have we now" followed by a memory.

I didn't know Kate, but I left Timoleague last Wednesday evening almost feeling that I did, and that I had missed out. I spent 2 hours on Thursday with two of Kate's housemates, Sarah and Pamela. They had known Kate such a short time, but have fantastic memories that they will always remember her by. Talking about Kate gave them a chance to grieve.

On Sunday Sarah and Pamela lit Kate's candle at the mass for deceased students. So many bereaved families came to remember. The pain will never go away for them, but sharing their memories with others does help.

On Sunday following the mass I spoke with Shane Courtney's mother. Shane's death was equally tragic, he was hit by a car when out on his bike training. The grief was there as she remembered, but the openess and willingness of families, friends and relatives to remember helps them and it is everyone's responsibility to help them to remember, not to tell them to put it to the back of their mind.

When anyone dies, we know they'll never walk through the door again, never have an argument with us again, never crack a joke again, but we will always have our memories of them and it is important that we don't avoid those memories. These memories are what made them our friend or our family, so it is up to us to do them justice.

6 Weeks since I last posted!!

Wow! It really has been too long since I updated this. WAY too long. So what's been happening since Week 4?

I think I'm going to have to break it down into maybe 2-3 blogs. One will just get too crowded.

So this week is SHAG Week with Tara and Paddy putting in huge efforts so I really hope that it goes well. It's also Rainbow Week and I'm being married off as well as it being a good chunk of a way through Movember. It really is hectic with all of that going on, but this time of the semester is when iot starts to quieten down for me.

We'll be doing the usual exam drop in tea and coffee in the next few weeks and putting you at your ease. Remember to take breaks during study and that blocks of 40-50 minutes are the best way to study. Think of the way you break down time during an exam and take a break for 10-15 mins every hour

I had a huge blog written here about Kate Fleming and remembering our friends who have died, but I'm going to post it as a separate blog. It would just bee too long.

Lip-Dub

So a date has been cast for the Lip-Dub. It's going to be recorded on the 7th of March, Wednesday Week 7. This is the route and concept. I have to say this isn't my idea and that the credit for pushing this goes to Lily Carroll.

I really hope this goes well and before people ask why they haven't been told about it, there have been two, yes TWO emails about it.

Elections
So we've had progress on elections with ITD and we're on course to get them up and going for departmental councillors next semester to be elected for the 2012/13 academic year. There were some serious concerns over this, but we've managed to put those concerns to bed and ITD is now happy to proceed.

Student Centre
We've put up a survey on this HERE to ask your opinion on student facilities. This follows a meeting with the chairman of the Campus Development Committee. We're keen to guage how much you would be willing to see the Student Centre Levy increase to to provide top class facilities.

This debate has opened in response to the expected completion of the payments on levy projects a number of years ahead of schedule due to increased numbers of studetns attending UL. Many have cited sports facilities and storage for clubs and societies as major issues, whilst others have been affected by lack of groupwork space and break out rooms. In addition from monitoring the use of the SU Common room we feel that it is too small.

The location of the Students' Union has also been thrown into the mix by us as it was central when opened in 1997. However the Foundation building marked the corner of campus back then, there was no Arena and the Schuman Building was the most isolated and there were no bridges, and certainly no North Campus. Over €400 million has been invested in new buildings since then marking a distinct rebalancing of where the centre of campus is. We want to know what YOU think about this.

I will be travelling to New England next week where I will see some of the world's most modern and advanced student centres as part of a conference tour.

If you agree to extend the levy, the Student Facilities that will be developed here will shape student life not only for 2020, but hopefully towards 2050 and beyond. When the Student Centre was completed in 1999 there was no concept of how much student life would develop and how restrictive the space would be. Societies are starved of rooms to hold meetings, clubs have nowhere to stor large items and the building itself isn't the most inviting.

Stayed tuned for the second installment and in the meantime you can follow me and ask me questions on twitter by clicking the tweety bird!! D