I remember my first day at college, I had just moved to Northern Ireland with my parents, needless to say I was scared shitless. "You'll do great Lucy." My parents encouraged.
I nervously entered the class room and looked around. The tables were all set up in a big 'U' shape around the teachers desk and the whiteboard.
I took a seat on the left side of the room and quietly started unpacking my notepad and pens, and the course text book from my bag. I looked up when I heard the chair next to me pull out. "Hi I'm Roisin," the girl stated.
"I'm Lucy," I said smiling. The tutor entered the room then and introduced herself to us all and gave out a sheet that had 5 questions on it.
"Now then what I want you to do is team up with the person next to you and ask them the 5 questions on the sheet," she explained, "You have 10 minutes to find out all about the other person and then you will be called to the front in pairs to introduce your partner to the class."
Roisin turned to me and said "shall we be partners?" with an expectant look on her face.
"Yes," I replied.
I glanced down at the sheet of paper in front of me and studied the questions.
1-Tell us a little about yourself. 2-Have you ever met a famous person. 3-Tell us an interesting fact about yourself. 4-What do you want to do in the future. 5-Tell us about your hobbies.
After discussing the answers to each question, I got to know Roisin quite well and found out she had a wicked sense of humour. I could tell we were going to become great friends.
She was a pretty girl, slender but not too skinny, she had chin length white blonde hair that hung in waves and she had the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen.
I don't consider myself to be pretty, cute maybe, I have dark brown hair that is shoulder length, and straight, and green eyes which I love. We sat and chatted for 10 minutes learning all we could about each other and taking notes on our sheets.
When our time was up the teacher stood from behind her desk and said, "Okay, who is brave enough to go first?" She moved her eyes around the room studying us each in turn.
I looked at Roisin and she nodded so I raised my hand and said, "We will go first."
As it was technically my idea to go first I decided I should introduce Roisin to the class before she introduced me. So I cleared my throat and began.
"Hi everyone. I would like to introduce you to Roisin. Roisin is 18 years old, and has lived in Toome since she was two years old. She was born in the Ulster Hospital on 15th June 1987. Roisin has a sister and a brother who are three and five years older than her respectively," I began.
"When she was younger, she and the rest of her primary school met Julian from UTV which she was very excited about, but now she is embarrassed that she met him." Roisin started giggling as I said this which in turn made me laugh as well.
"An interesting fact about Roisin is that she can play the flute, the clarinet, the bass guitar and the piano. She loves Irish dancing and has been learning it since she was 5. When she was younger and she was asked what she wanted to do in the future she always said 'be part of River-dance," I laughed.
"But now she wants to be a nurse, which is why she is doing childcare, so she can do her nursing degree when she is finished. As for hobbies Roisin loves dancing, obviously, shopping, R+B music and movies." I finished and looked at Roisin who was smiling encouragingly at me.
"Okay Roisin, it's your turn to introduce us to your partner." The teacher prompted.
"Hi there, this is Lucy-Mae. Lucy lived in a town called Leyland until she was 18. Leyland is where a lot of the trucks were made just in case you're interested. She was born in Chorley Hospital on 24th July 1986, so she is 19. Lucy moved from Leyland to Bellaghy when she left school, she moved with her Mom and Dad as her three sisters are all married." She started.
"Two of her sisters live here in Magherafelt and one still lives in Leyland. When flying from Leyland to here after a holiday visiting her sister, at the start of the summer, Lucy sat next to one of the boys from the TV show Hollyoaks on the aeroplane. She managed to pluck up the courage to talk to him, and they chatted the whole flight, keeping her cool she didn't let him see how gorgeous she thought he was." she started giggling as she explained.
"They exited the plane and went through to baggage, and as Lucy only had hand luggage she said goodbye, exchanging phone numbers with him, and went out in to the arrivals section, she quickly got her phone out and rang her sister back in Leyland as she entered the shop in the terminal "You will not believe who I was sitting next to!!!" she excitedly said to her sister just as he came around the corner to buy a bottle of water grinning from ear to ear as she blushed beet red and ran out the exit." She was hysterical as she tried to finish the story.
I was bright red again, not my finest hour, I can't convey how gutted I was when I realised he had heard me after playing it cool the whole flight. Needless to say we never met up again, I was way too embarrassed to face him.
When Roisin had calmed down she continued, "Something interesting about Lucy is that she does a lot of fund-raising for different charities including comic relief and children in need, but on world book day last year she raised money for Macmillan Cancer Care, by dressing as the mad hatter from Alice in wonderland for the whole day, doing all her daily tasks including going to work in the evening!" She paused and looked me in the eyes.
"She is definitely a game girl this one. In the future Lucy would like to own an after school club for primary school aged children, so she plans to do her advanced diploma in childcare and education after finishing these two years of early childhood studies and then do a business management course." She continued.
