Now where is it that I am supposed to start with this? Well, I do love the sound of my own voice, and how I do enjoy being outdoors and camping and the rest of all of that; but what is it that I do best? Well I would venture that writing would be my strength. Not necessarily long, drawn out novels -never mind that I am writing one now, mind you- but writing in general. Poetry mostly, and mostly anything to do with romance, and at least a few women I once knew... very well... may admit to a much more carnal success at writing. I am a flirt naturally, and writing, whether it be to a specific person or for the sake of artistic creation both, require a type of flirting. Many a time I remember myself sitting with pen between ink stained  fingers, cursing at my desk as I tried to force words to come to mind; let me say this, forcing them out does a whole lot of nothing good; so where was I? Ahh yes, forcing writing out, it leads to many things, but certainly not writing. What most people come up with would be equivalent to the Irish addition to the new Twilight Movie. Well, to the nationalistic additions in generally to the movie, flights of bloody meaningless fancy. When a writer gets gripped by inspiration, he or she, let us not be sexist now, cannot help themselves but to write. When you get thrown out of bed because an idea catches hold of your mind, an idea so forceful it is almost tangible, you cannot do anything but to write it out for fear of it destroying your mind, or worse, losing the idea and forever. It boils down to that urge, I guess I could be described as somewhat impulsive, or reactionary, but to write, no matter if the idea is in the bad, you need to write it out, get it out and just go from there!

Speaking of going from there.. I may need to rewrite this later on! Hah!

All right, well for starters what I do for work: I am an English teacher. I have taught classes, tutored one on one, and pretty much done all manners of instructing and guiding when it comes to teaching the English language; regardless of whether or not that teaching came across through literature, grammatical instruction or simple run of the mill instructional design, I.E: teaching base level English to second language French students, I have done it. The one thing I have come to realize from a teaching perspective is best illustrated by the comic below:

Needless to say the above illustrated comic, though funny, is bloody true! As a result we've got a whole hell of a lot of pre-pubescent students running around as though they are Kings and Queens who know much more than they actually do, and they have their parents continuously acting as their yes-men entourage!  Now where was I, ahh yes, not only is teaching becoming increasingly difficult, but the pay compared to the rest of Canada, well North America really, and please excuse my French but, it sucks! Anyway, back to the issue with students now-a-days; the semi-colon for instance, according to the Quebec rubric is supposed to be taught by grade 6; that grading schema is according to the last time I looked at the rubric, and the last time I did that was after looking over one of my secondary 3 student's essays. The paper consisted of a page and a half long sentence that barely had any punctuation at all!

Imagine trying to read a four page paper where the writing style is bland redundant and utterly cantankerous (okay I threw one big word in there) and try to grade it properly fully well expecting that any bad grade the child garners is your fault no matter how early on they should have already learned the rules and should be employing them by the time they reach your level!

Now I offset that little paragraph of sorts because it is seriously lacking punctuation and pretty much reads like one long stream-of-consciousness that needed no air to continue streaming its own consciousness! I was even tempted to remove all the spaces, though that would have been a gross over exaggeration, and God knows we don't want any of that.

Though I may seem to be going off on one long rant, I assure you it is not that pedantic, nor that trite. Though sitting in the library, clacking upon the keyboard and having to double-tap and back space almost every other word is a little of both by way of the film noir, journalist/teacher/student late night, homework completing tropes. In any event, I do love teaching, the act of teaching, of helping students better their understanding or comprehension of the English language. My next step by way of teaching is actually doing what many white, North Americans have been doing as of late: go overseas in order to help what the British government started so long ago, spread the English language (with my own Irish flare of course!). In any event, the esteem and respect afforded to teachers in those other parts of the world tends to be much better compared to here. As teachers, we do hold the fate of many youth in our respective hands, to mold the minds of the future, to help teach ethics though the mind, and in my case, emotional attachment as well, depending on what book I may be teaching. Though, were I to have to teach Marx or Bakunin... Ethics may very well be skewed when compared to our current type of government... hmm food for thought, could shaking the fondations of our government be that bad? After all, teachers should be strengthened according to Marx...

My lesson for the future: I think therefore I am... hmm Nah! It is time for a little more respect: WE THE... BLOODY... PROLETARIOT! ... I had to keep a little of the Irish in there, just for some craic!

Yes, teaching English is not my only skill, defacing previous governing symbols and flags to suit my own needs is also an apparent skill of mine, hah! 

  What is it that your, my, our personal identity that makes it so important? Ah yes, it's bloody personal! Hence the "possessive" pronouns; now my personal identity was called into question a few years ago right here actually between Concordia's Library Building and the Café Depot. Before I get into the questionable incident, a wee-bit of context is required I think.

                    Despite having been born in Montreal, I have always been strongly attached to the Irish roots that run through my family all the way back to Donegal Ireland, and before that France. Apparently i'm a descendant of thieving, drunken adultrous Frenchmen who eventually, after having gotten thrown in prison for theft, political dissent and adultry, the adultrous one used his wiley skills to get the woman whom he was using to cuckold some other man, to aid in his and his brother escape. Now I have no idea which was which, but one died enroute to Ireland if I remember correctly, and the other's son in Ireland, actually because the equivilant of the surgeon general. Fun times!

                    Therein lies my problem however, aye I know I am Canadian, but I have always considered myself Irish, and was always if the mind that I was. The particular event that I am getting around to letting on about was a rather public screaming fit that involved exactly that.

"You're not Irish, you're of Irish descent! You were born in Canada" The lousy git said.  Now I am still not sure why it upset him so much but it was enough for him to incite a screaming match. At the same time, factually he was right, and I don't care how bloody cheesy this may sound but, "Tá mé Gaelige ag croí."

In any event, one other by-product of having my family and the way I did is that I have a particular lilt in my voice; one that I may add gets thicker when I get flustered. So imagine what happened when the little shite accused me, or rather forcefully insisted that I wasn't Irish? My temper flared, the brogue thickened and the argument commenced.

The argument itself I realise in hindsight was a tiny bit ridiculous especially given the context, but it certainly did the trick. Generally I can let irrational comments slide off my back with no issue, unless I really can't understand the underlying cause; in this case his pointed attacks ended up beyond irrational and nonsensical and they degraded from there. Honestly, mine were probably not much better as I was furious. Anyway, the argument itself ended with both of us dissatisfied as after the prolonged round of screaming and headache inducing lack of understanding on my part, I simply walked away mid one of his inane arguments.

It was a childhood friend who witnessed the altercation that ended up turning my mood. Having known me most of my life, as she put it, if I was no Irishman, she was no woman! Even she did not know... hmm, oh shite, come to think of it she did find out and tell me what he was going on about! The night before, courtesy of that lilt I spoke of earlier, I ended up taking home a woman who he was keen on. Ahh, that explains it all now...

That does paint me as the "bad guy" I guess, but in all honesty I only discovered he liked the lass after the fact! Wow, well I can't help but feel bad... a little. It did reaffirm my identity of who I was however, and couple that with the sweetest complement my teacher did pay me regarding the way I speak and, well, all I have left to say is though I may have been an unwitting ass that night, it's good to be Irish!

David Fuzes-Daithí i nGaeilge-is a happy-go-lucky Montreal born Irishmen; to say he is proud of being Irish would be a gross understatement.  He has an interesting up-bringing and particular joie-de-vivre. He has a very old, yet positive perspective of the world; though he can often be found ranting about the current state of affairs with ink stained fingertips from his fountain pen. Though he was somewhat resistant to the whole online aspect of social media--twitter, pinterest and the like-his admittance of the serious lack of Celtic culture in Montreal (despite Montreal having one of the LARGEST Irish communities in North America!!) has spurred him to engage with it fully. Currently, he is finishing up his degree in Honours English literature, with a major in Western Society and Culture (Liberal Arts) and a minor in Canadian Irish Studies. He enjoys playing the fiddle, writing poetry and prose, and has only recently completed his E.S.L certificate. He now intends to go overseas to continue teaching and, no doubt, writing. Currently his writing ambition, his prevalent Irish gusto, and his socializing attitude has lead to the creation of a Celtic NPO, note the picture that just so happens to be the logo for said NPO, the Montreal Celtic Society or MCS. He and 3 other friends created the Montreal Celtic Society in order to revive interest and general curiosity about Celts in Montreal; the MCS is not just for the Irish, but for all Celts and those with a Celtic Itch!