SOME KIDS ARE born to do extracurricular activities.
They thrive in a creative and/or competitive environment, live for their after-school activities and spend all week looking forward to their weekend classes or training sessions.
And then some kids are like me.
I hated swimming lessons, resented that Irish Dancing classes were eating into my TV time, and couldn’t get my head around the whole Scout thing.
Full disclosure; I quit all of the following: Piano, Tin Whistle, Swimming, Camogie, Basketball, Irish Dancing, Speech and Drama, Beavers, Cubs, and Brigins.
I even quit summer camp… twice. Oh, and playschool.
And here are just some of the more ridiculous reasons I did that.
1. I didn’t like how cold the GAA changing rooms were.
Cold hard cement floors, exposed brick walls and a bag of oversized jerseys. Would it have killed them to throw down a rug or two?
2. I didn’t like one of the girls on the basketball team.
Seriously, I thought she was too roughhanded. We’re on the same team, like.
3. Saturdays were for me-time, not team-time.
Saturday mornings were for re-runs of Clarissa Explains It All, not for camogie blitzes in Rathcoffey.
"what do you do in your free time?" "homework and sleep..." #nohobbies #cornellproblems
— Cornell Problems (@Cornell_Problem) March 22, 2013
4. I was tired after school.
I had very little left to give after a six-hour day, so why did I have to recite poetry in a bandy prefab when I could have been at home watching Home & Away and eating Spaghetti Bolognaise?
5. Playing piano hurt my back.
No seriously. Stress of that.
Why do I mess up at every concert? #soembarrassing #quittingpiano
— Paige Carter (@paigeth_x14) April 19, 2012
6. I didn’t like the songs they sang in Bridgins.
‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ gave the 9-year-old me the absolute creeps, and I refused to return after that one was wheeled out.
7. Irish Dancing gave me a headache.
Yeah I know; all the buck-lepping left me feeling like a bout of Tinnitus was coming on.
Oh my good...... I realy should look for hobbies, like dance. But no. #HateHobbies
— Azul Pettigiani (@AzulPettigiani) September 15, 2013
8. Swimming was traumatic; end of story.
And I was shite. My mam ended up teaching me herself after five years of formal lessons got me nowhere. Oh, and I saw a kid actually gnaw on a float, so I was peacing-out after that.
9. The term ‘find a partner’ was my Kryptonite.
Why did I have to find a partner? Why can’t I do it by myself? Or why couldn’t you just assign me a partner and take me out of this godawful social limbo where I’m forced to sidle up to someone and ask them to love me.
Oh and the quitting playschool thing?
They offered me baked beans for lunch on my first day, and I knew it was never going to work out.
