Quote or motto
Introducing
What is your name?:
Maeve Claire Dolan. 'Bout as Irish as they come, eh?
What do people call you, though?:
Mostly just Maeve. Some people that I'm close with just call me M. My sisters call me Mae sometimes but that might have stemmed just out of laziness and not wanting to say the 've'.
How old are you?:
Seventeen
Where were you born?:
I was born in Dublin, Ireland, but the family moved to Boston, Massachusetts when I was only four years old.
Are you a male or female?:
I can't tell if you're kidding or not. I'm a girl.
Reasons
Why do you want to go on the trip?:
The better question would be why don't I want to go on this trip? My entire life has been centered completely around helping my family pay the bills and helping my family keep the house and helping them do this or that. I'm sick of always helping someone else. So, yeah. I'm doing this for selfish reasons. I want to get out of that crappy little apartment and finally live. But I guess I'm also doing this so that I can maybe come home and get a scholarship at some college and become an engineer or something. Then maybe I can pay to drag my family out of the hideous quality of life we've been living in. But... it's mostly for me.
What are your opinions on traveling?:
I haven't done it very much, but when we occasionally go back to Ireland to see the rest of my family, it's a blast. But other than that, I don't really leave Massachusetts much, let alone the United States.
Do you have any illnesses that could affect you while traveling?:
If I'm being completely honest, I'd say that I have a bit of a drinking problem. It's under control, trust me. But I'm mentioning it as an illness because it literally runs in my blood. I don't think that I could have prevented it if I tried.
Um... I don't know if you'd consider this an illness, but I sometimes get migraines or get depressed for a few moment as symptoms of having a eidetic memory. The migraine thing is from the fact that my brain sometimes just gets overloaded with information (but this doesn't happen as much anymore) and the depression thing is from the fact that I can remembered ever bad thing that has happened to me... ever.
What is the 'best' place you have traveled to so far?:
Well, I haven't had the chance to travel much, but I'd say most of Ireland's countryside is pretty beautiful... I'd say that if there weren't so many bad memories in that country.
Little Things
What do you like?:
I may love to exercise and stay healthy, but that doesn't mean that I don't love pigging out on occasion. I love junk food despite knowing how bad it is for my health and I love anything spicy. Other than food and eating, I love warm, sunny days and being able to do everything I love outdoors. I especially love playing and tinkering with machines and coming up with little inventions. Since my mind is constantly at work, it keeps those cogs at work. I like big cities, art exhibits, and listening to music. I also love everything shiny and valuable. My family has never had very much money, so I've always had a thing for valuable goods.
What do you dislike?:
I really hate cold weather because it means that I can't do many of the things that I love including running, swimming, and any outdoor sport. I also dislike people who flaunt their money. I don't really care how rich a person is, but when they start to show off their money and brag about how rich they are, that really irks me. I absolutely despise being told what to do. I'm fully capable of knowing when to do what I'm told, but that doesn't mean that I don't dislike it any less.
Do you have any hobbies?:
Of course I've got hobbies. Exercising is one of them. I'm constantly jogging or doing yoga or some other form of working out. It's not just that I like to keep in shape. Exercising also just makes me feel good.
I guess another one of my hobbies is... how do I say this... learning things? I really love reading up on random subject. I have something of an eidetic memory and that makes it really easy for my to learn how to do things. I'm currently learning to play the guitar and I dabble in piano, saxophone, sitar, mandolin, banjo, violin, and drums. I don't really play much though. I love music, but there are two things that hinder my learning and playing: 1. I only own a crappy guitar and electric keyboard and 2. I don't really love playing music as much as I love listening to it. I only do it when I'm bored.
The one thing that I'm never bored with is machines and just building things. I love inventing and tinkering with mechanics. I wish that I could someday become a mechanic or an engineer so that I could just build things and think of inventions all day.
Do you have any phobias or fears?:
Of course I don't have any fears... Well, besides fire. After what happened in our house back in Ireland, I think that my pyrophobia is justified. I guess I also have a fear of commitment, but that's the only time you'll ever hear me say that.
About You
What are you like as a person?:
One thing I can tell you is that I hate talking about myself, so this might get a little hard for me. Anyway, I know that I'm a person who is able to see my strengths and my flaws. I know that I'm hotheaded and strong-willed and I know that that can sometimes get annoying to people around me, but I can't help it. I can get a bit snarky and sarcastic when I get annoyed and that's alright because I rarely let much annoy me to that point. I'm independent and I hate doing what other people tell me to do, but I'm willing to make exceptions.
I like to have fun and play jokes on people that I like, but I can sometimes get carried away with my partying and my jokes -although I pretty much have the partying thing under control. I have a photographic memory and I like to use that to my advantage when remembering things that other people cannot. However, having this memory comes with a price. I used to get migraines a lot when I was younger simply because my mind was constantly working at a mile a minute. I guess that's why I originally got into drinking. It kinda calmed my mind down for a little bit. Although I now know that drinking was more damaging than it was helpful.
I'm a very flirty and generally friendly person -except for when someone peeves me in which case I usually become rather snarky. In any case, I like to have people around me all of the time, but I also like to keep them at arms length. I have something of a issue with commitment. I've had a lot of relationships with guys, but I never really get too close to them no matter how nice they are. I don't know where these commitment issues stem from, but I feel like I've had them since I was a kid. I know it sucks that I can't really commit to anything, but I really try... Can I just be done talking about myself?
Other
Like I said, I hate talking about myself... especially my past. So, I'll make this short. I was born in Dublin, Ireland to my drunk-ass father, annoying Irish mother, my two sisters, and five brothers. I was the youngest of them all and I think that that they still think of me as the little baby of the family. Anyway, my oldest sister may have been a full fifteen years older than me, but the eight of us were still extremely close. We bonded over the fact that we were dirt poor and we shared the misery of having a pushy, nagging mother and a drunkard father. We kinda had to protect one another and we found that there was strength in numbers.
Anyway, the first four years of my life were in Ireland and I always hated living there. When I go back there now, I realize how beautiful the rolling hills and jagged cliffs are, but the lush green field and gorgeous farms were boring for a lively little girl such as myself. I constantly wanted to move some great and exciting place like London or Paris or New York! I never really realized what exactly my wish would entail until I was four years old and our Irish farmhouse burned down. I don't exactly know why it burned down and I never cared to ask. All I know is that me and three of my brothers, Patrick, Matt, and Brendan, where still in the house when I came crumbling down. Patrick ended up going blind, Matt nearly lost his leg and still to this day walks with a limp, and Brendan and I nearly lost our lives. That fire ended up scarring me for life... literally. I was left with a scar down my back.
I suppose at that cost, I got my wish to move out of Ireland. We ended up moving all the way to Boston, Massachusetts. Where I had expected a big house like we'd had in Ireland, we got a little crappy apartment in the city. Some of our family in Boston and some back in Ireland tried to help us, but there was only so much that they could do. I guess that I expected our money to go as far in here as it had in Ireland, but what I hadn't realized was that the big farmhouse we had lived in had been my grandfather's and my parents didn't have to pay for the house because my father had inherited it. So, we lived in a rundown, relatively cheap apartment in Boston, but with my father having to quit his job in order to move, the rest of us had to start working. Luckily, I got another few years since I was still two young to get a job.
Eventually, I had to get a job at a very young age. I went to the crappy city public school while I began working illegally at a cigar shop for an old man who gave me errands and sometimes made me sort the cigars. I hated the job, but the man, Mr. O'Connors was very nice to me -not in a creepy way, but in more of a grandfatherly way. I eventually grew up a bit and got a job in middle school waitressing at a pizza place and I just recently got a new job apprenticing for a mechanic at a local car garage because the guy is my mom's friend.
Today, my father is still a drunkard -although luckily, we don't really see him much around the house anymore- and my mother is a nurse at Mass General. My oldest sister, Colleen is working at some paper company in New York, but she still calls often. Three of my brothers, Connor, Liam, and Matt have crappy office jobs -I always get their jobs mixed up though because they all sound like the same job- and they also call just about every other day. Two of my siblings, my brother Patrick and my sister Rachel are in community college on scholarships -they are the only two in our family to ever go to college- and just me and Brendan -who is also looking into possibly going to college- still live at home. Ya know, I always used to hate having such a crowded house, but now that just about everyone is gone, I kinda miss the closeness off the eight of us. It's weird to miss something that I used to hate so much. In any case, I hope that one day I can also go to college and maybe get a good job so that I can actually give some real money to my family... Although that does not include my father.
Tell me about your family.:
Well in order from oldest to youngest, there's my father, Stephen; my mother, Patricia; my oldest sister, Colleen; then come three of my brothers, Connor, Liam, and Patrick; then comes my other sister, Rachel; and then my other two brothers, Matt and Brendan; and then there's me. Now, I come from an Irish family, so I'm going to spare you the pain of listening to me recite the list of extended family members.
Other:
Languages are something that I've studied extensively, even though I've never really needed them. I know Spanish, French, Chinese, and Portuguese along with some Irish, Russian, Scottish, Greek, and Swahili. Although, the latter five are languages that I have only dabbled in, but I can't really fluently speak.
Theme Song:
I Will Remain || Matthew & The Atlas
Further from my widowed home take the road that sets it to the sun,
Waiting for my skin and bone to return and see what I've become,
Summer has not yet been here though my days are long,
Take me back to when the night was young and another song was sung.
What of all those pretty tales the ones that took me to this door,
Is it comfort in the salvers way is it comfort upon this wooden floor,
Tell you is it a failure to forget the ones that self it,
And I tried to remember but my mind is no longer clean.
Oooh! You recognize me,
Oooh! I follow from, far from the trees,
Oooh! The woods came out, on to my knees,
Oooh! I twisted round,
I made no sound... No sound.
I'll wonder till my frittle bones has come and pulled me to the stone,
Further from the towns you've known I'll remain from where I have begun,
Summer before I start I was kicking home stones as a child,
In the meadow when the storm came through and I followed straight back to you.
Oooh! You recognise me,
Oooh! I follow from, far from the trees,
Oooh! The woods came out, on to my knees,
Oooh! I twisted round,
I made no sound... No sound.
Would you ever doubt my love when my day is done,
I'll lay down my body within this earth I've won,
Would you try to follow the roads I had to walk,
There's a whisper in the willow for they all hear me talk.