Noreen Brennan Donoghue from Tubbercurry, Co Sligo, has just started as a mature student in general nursing at GMIT in Castlebar, Co Mayo.
6 a.m. - The house is still silent but I am awake, indeed I slept little all night, the thoughts of what lie before me making my brain incapable of sleep.
7 a.m. - I am dressed, with a lot of my mornings work completed, lunches packed, breakfast on the table, the dog fed and all the documents I need to take with me packed in the smart black bag that the children gave me as a present.
8 a.m. - I start my car for the journey to Castlebar, the odometer is back to record the exact distance. I listen to Morning Ireland and then switch to Midwest Radio; there are no children's voices to drown out what the person is saying, so for once I can listen in peace. The time-checks make me think of all the thinks I should be doing at home. I have to remind myself that I am no longer what I was last Friday, today is the start of another chapter in my life.
8.45 a.m. - Castlebar is looming in the distance, the good roads of Mayo shortening the journey. I drive into the car park of the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology and spot a vacant place.
8.50 a.m. - The main reception area of the GMIT is thronged with people, all strangers. It is at this point that I want to turn around and escape back to my home, to wash the breakfast dishes, pick up the discarded socks from the bedroom floor, look for the dirty cereal bowls that are missing and I know are hidden in the sitting room. I feel the sweat break out all over my body. Who did I imagine I was that I could leave behind years of housework and childminding to come and mix with all these young people and think I could compete and actually learn something?
8.57 a.m. - Yes, I know I could not do what thousands of others are doing today, so I am going to take my bag, stand up and walk quietly and quickly away from this building.
9 a.m. - Just at that moment a lady arrives and tells our group, "Nursing Studies 2001, follow me please." I am swept along and find myself in the Bernard Lecture Theatre.
There seem to be 100 people present but as the day wears on I learn I am one of 50. From the first moment of greeting, we move at rapid pace to issues of occupational health, registration with B≤rd Altranais, coffee, and familiarisation of the newly open rooms in the college.
12 noon - In the canteen I listen to them say aloud all the doubts and fears I have in my heart. I did not know others would have the same fears as I, and realising they do has lightened my load.
3 p.m. - An afternoon where we learn more about each other and of the things we will have to do in the coming years has just come to an end. I am glad I did not go home this morning.
3.45 p.m. - I am three miles out of Castlebar homeward bound when I think of all the housework that awaits me - and where will I get time to take the dog for a walk?
