If time is money, can I buy some?

What a week - the hours just keep increasing. At the moment I have 36 hours of lectures, practicals and tutorials. If I do the maths correctly (as I should, after all it is engineering I'm studying), a five-day week has 120 hours.

What am I complaining about, I've got 84 hours free! Now minus 48 hours for the recommended eight hours' sleep a night - I should be so lucky - and another four hours for time spent travelling in and out of college. Right so, the count is now at 32 free hours a week, but minus the two-and-a-half hours spent getting up in the morning and the two hours in Irish class and the six excess hours spent in the college between lectures as it would be a futile and insane effort to do the "Galway walk" home or rely on a bus to be on time for you.

Thus my free time is contained within a 21-and-a-half hour period. So much for the kayaking, Gaelic and running, I have to shop, eat, study (the notes are fairly piling up now) aaagh!!

One of the major appeals of NUI Galway is the congruity with the Irish language throughout the college. The dean gave us a welcome talk in Irish then continued in English. You have the opportunity to work for your degree through Irish and, like me, if you would not like to do that - because I think I'll just about manage it through English - you can take voluntary classes or study for a diploma in Irish over two years like I am doing.

I have to say I have just had the most unpredictable weekend of my life - in a bad way. It all started around 1 p.m. on the Friday. Well, I could say earlier, at 9 a.m. when I had to get up after only coming in around 3 a.m. because Thursday night is clubbing night - but that was my own fault. I was cold, hungry, tired and getting wet as the rain was getting heavier when I found my poor bike, Exo.

Some despicable low life had detached my front wheel from the main frame in their efforts to steal it from the railings it was locked to. However, the fool failed to notice that the back wheel was also locked, so they hadn't a lobster's chance in a restaurant's aquarium of getting away with it. Unfortunately they did manage to wreck my brakes. So in a very irritable state I found Peadar, the maintenance man, and he put the wheel back on.

Finally, I arrived back in the flat, after cycling against the rain and gale-force winds with no front brakes, to find a can of peas, a can of tuna and jar of Bolognese sauce, yum. Needless to say, I'm still getting over my cold.

And just when I thought it was not possible for life to be worse, the Mayo ladies lost in the last two seconds of the All-Ireland in Croke Park on Sunday. I was there in the Cusack Stand, absolutely gutted.

Back to my college saga, poor Exo was attacked again on Monday. When I returned from my first chemistry practical, I found Exo beheaded, sitting desolate and saddleless, victimised again.

So now every day I do the Galway walk in to college, because I'm afraid I'll have nothing but the handle bars left if I don't.