I CAN COUNT TO 10!!!

So this week I started taking the Irish class, which I previously had called the Gaelic class, but they don’t call it Gaelic here. They call it Irish. Why? I have no clue I missed that class. Due to things with my schedule I missed the original registration day for the Irish class and then every time I went to the office the lady I had to talk to wasn’t there. Also the phone number that they gave for her, she apparently never responds to cause she never answered my calls or called me back. So I spent a week trying to figure things out and track down Professor Ni Shuilliobhain (very Irish, very cool last name, I can’t pronounce it though). So I was pretty much a week behind when I found out one of the other American student I met was taking the class and was in a group that worked with my schedule. So I pretty much just joined the class on Monday and the teacher has figured out that since I showed up all 3 days I’m another one of his students.

Monday was great. He started off the class by saying “Dia dhuit” to all of the students, it is a traditional greeting that means “May God be with you” and the response to that is supposed to be “Dia agus Muire dhuit”, which means “May God and Mary be with you”. If he were to decide to say “Dia agus Muire dhuit” as a greeting instead the response would be “Dia agus Muire agus Paedraig dhuit” meaning “May God and Mary and Patrick be with you”. So pretty much if the greeting is said you repeat the greeting and add the next saint on to the end of it. They only learned up to Patrick, so hopefully that means that we won’t really need to know anymore past him. When the teacher got to where I was sitting he said the greeting to me and I kind of just shook my head at him and he realized I was new. So he spoke to me in English for a moment and then moved on to the rest of the class. Since I already knew one of the girls I sat with her and she got me caught up on things and the teacher pretty much left me alone for the class since I wasn’t used to hearing him speak Irish to us.

Wednesday’s class I was in a bit of a sarcastic mood, but it was much appreciated and Sean got a good laugh out of it. Apparently he’s a very informal teacher and we call him Sean. I have no clue what his last name is. On Monday we had learned to talk about the weather which got really funny when he asked me on Wednesday where I was from and then what the weather was like there. I was able to tell him Is as Connecticut dom. Tá sé ana-fhuar agus tá sé ag cur sneachta. I felt pretty accomplished that I could even tell him that. It means I am from Connecticut (which he just knows to mean somewhere in America). It is very cold and it is snowing. I appreciated learning how to say that. We reviewed talking about the weather and a few other things before we got to the question of the day, which was, do you understand? (An dtuigeann tú?) The responses were either I do understand (tuìgìm) or I do not understand (ní thuìgìm). We were reviewing the question and how to respond when my sarcasm decided to come out. Sean asked us what do we respond when we understand and we all said tuìgìm, and then if we didn’t understand, and I was a little loud in saying “you give a blank stare and shake your head no.” Haha yeah Sean greatly appreciated that response, he laughed and said he appreciated my efforts but it was no longer the first day I can’t get away with that anymore. He got a good laugh out of it and I’m glad that I have at least one teacher with a sense of humor. Then again this is my only non-lecture class. It has turned out to be a lot of fun. Despite the fact that it has turned out to be my only Thursday class and it is at 5pm, but I’ll deal, it’s a class worth going to.

Thursday we learned to count. I can now say I know how to count to 10 in four different languages. I have to say that I feel quite accomplished now. I was even able to recite numbers back to him, which with the ways these numbers are said, is not easy. My favorite number is zero (a náid) because when you say it, it comes out as annoyed. I think the laughter from the class put us all in agreement that it would be the most enjoyable number to say. So we really did learn a lot in this class and now you all know some. I might take the time one day and write out a bunch of sayings and how they are said phonetically. For now this is it.

With Love Always

I'm a Rebel with Illegal Berries.

Haha so before I get questions about the title of this post, let me explain. For the semester I am a Rebel and a Husky. Make sense?? Haha I was actually confused for a while because I hadn’t seen anything about a school mascot or symbol anywhere, even at sporting events. Then I found out they are the UCC Rebels and their symbol is a skull and cross bones. Of which Katie and I agree would be much cooler if we were the Pirates. Either way we’re the Rebels. I’ve asked why and I have yet to get a real answer on that. All I’ve gotten is something about the revolution and being rebels and something a really long time ago. So now that I’m actually curious about it I’m sure I’ll manage to find out the real reason behind their school mascot. I don’t even know if it’s really a mascot to be honest. There are just skulls and crossbones on things.

As far as the illegal berries go, Monday night our Study Abroad program took us all out for a “welcome” dinner. Basically their way of saying sorry we ditched a few weeks ago, hope you’re still alive, and if it makes you feel any better we’ll feed you. So we went to Wagamamas. Haha yeah I pretty much laugh every time I think about that name. It’s a ramen/ noodle place, I really don’t know how else to describe it, I want to say it was Asian or Thai but honestly I’m clueless about things like that, so I’ll just stick to noodles. They are really good. I had fried greens and beef teriyaki soba, which I had never even heard of before. I’m pretty sure it’s also the first time I’ve ever had asparagus. I really don’t know but I enjoyed dinner. For dessert they had their own fresh made ice cream with in season berries. The two kinds of berries that I recognized were strawberries and blueberries. Then there was another berry that made me think of holly berries, which I know are poisonous, so I was really confused. Suzy was sitting next to me (she’s kind of like our handler, she attends UCC as well and makes sure that we’re all still alive every few weeks) so I asked her and she laughed and goes, “oh those are illegal in the US.” Apparently they were red currant berries which were banned years ago from the US because they were considered a threat to the US logging system. I really don’t know what that means, I feel like it has to do with economics and I had my share of that freshman year. So we were all proud that we can say we ate something that back home is illegal. I have a feeling that may happen a few more time while I’m out here, but that’s okay. I’m curious enough to at least try things.

Speaking of trying things, I am currently attempting to understand the sport of Rugby. All I can say is that I’m completely lost. A few of the girls I know play on the UCC team and we went to see their match. It was certainly interesting, I don’t understand much of it but it’s definitely something different. The parts that I did get is that to score it’s pretty much like a touchdown in football, except it’s not about running across the line, it’s about the ball  touching the ground on the other side of the line. So you have to make it across the line and with the ball still in hand touch it to the ground. Also while a bunch of other people are running after you to stop you. Then you get a field goal attempt, except the kicker is the only person on the field for that, the rest of the teams have walked to their respective sides and are out of the way. Then there are throw-ins, which are like soccer, which I kind of understand. But really that’s about it. I can’t explain to you anything else about the game. There are things called Scrums, of which Casey I appreciate your effort to help but you don’t yell scrum. It’s really still confusing to me even though the girls tried explaining it later. There will be more rugby matches to go to and be confused at, and maybe by the time I leave Ireland I’ll have actually learned something about rugby.

Besides going to see the match this was seriously a do nothing weekend, which was nice, we don’t really have those too often since we’re always making plans to be elsewhere. But staying in Cork this weekend was nice. So there really isn’t much else here to tell. I will attempt to post things on a more regular basis. I write them in word and then just wait till I find a time to sit down and post them. Which it would probably also help if I remembered half the time about the blog.

With Love Always

A day of Blarney.

Disclaimer: I know that I'm not the most intelligent person in the world. Let's just all agree on that and laugh together at my stupidity because, honestly, we all know it's hilarious and I guarantee you nothing bad happened.
 
Last night we all agreed to meet up at the bus stop for 11:15 and catch the next bus that came after that into town. Well not knowing when that bus was I had no real sense of urgency while getting ready this morning, granted it only take me about 15 minutes anyways, but still I had no real reason to rush. Then at 11:10 I get a text saying that the next bus would be there in 5. The bus stop is only 30 seconds from the apartment and there were a group of them that I was meeting so I knew I would be all right, but it meant grabbing something to go for breakfast. I had just bought a few kiwis at the store, so on my way out I grabbed all 3 kiwis (it was easier than opening the bag to just take one), and the paring knife. I just threw it all in one of my pockets and went out to the bus stop. Not thinking anything of it, I pull out a kiwi and the knife and start cutting it up, which apparently was not okay because Claire and Colleen kind of flipped out about the knife. So I put it back in my pocket and it had to stay there because they were afraid that I was gonna get arrested for having it on me. Which we all agreed was hypothetically a really entertaining way to spend the day but not something we really wanted to do. So it was in my pocket when we got on the bus but I forgot to zip my pocket closed and it fell out. I just nonchalantly picked it up and put it back in my pocket which I zipped up that time and sat down. While Claire and Colleen were entirely convinced that I was going to end up getting arrested, Danielle and I acted like it was perfectly fine and left it alone. It certainly made for an entertaining start to the day.

 We needed to get to the bus station so that we could get on the bus that would take us to Blarney. We figured that every bus has to go to the bus station so we would get on the 8 bus and ride it to the end. Well we passed the bus station and watched the city get smaller below us as the bus started driving up a hill. It was a general consensus that it was time to push the stop button and make our way back down the hill and hopefully find the bus station in time to meet up with everyone else and catch our other bus. We made it with a bit of time to spare. We meet up with everyone and a couple of the girls were talking about how they had to walk because they didn't realize that the street they were on is one way and there was no bus for them to take into the city. Then all I hear is Colleen laugh and say, "well this one decided to bring a knife with her," as she points at me and I just laughed. Honestly, I thought it was hilarious that I didn't even think about the fact that it's not normal to just grab a paring knife and walk out of the apartment with it. I just laughed every time they brought it up. After we got on the bus and were headed into Blarney I very discreetly pulled out the knife and another kiwi, cut it up, and ate it. It really wasn't that big of a deal that I had the knife with me. I was using it to cut up kiwis, that's it. The ride was only about 15 to 20 minutes long, which really isn't bad, as long as you know where to get off. There were 7 of us in the group and at least 3 people had looked up all of the details for the trip so that we would know where we were going and where to get off. Well the bus stopped and one of the girls said it was fine we could stay on and a little Irish woman looks at us and tells us we should get off there cause that's the stop for Blarney Castle. Haha yeah we're Americans, it's all right. She was a really nice lady though and we made it to the castle so it's fine.

Once we got into the gates and had bought our tickets we walked by a Garda office (the Garda is their equivalent to our police) and I gladly informed Colleen and Claire of the fact that I ate another kiwi on the way up and still had yet to get arrested so it really wasn't anything to worry about. The knife pretty much just became the joke of the day, it was great. Even though it was a little after 12:30 there was still quite a bit of fog in the air and half the ground was still frosted over. Actually I believe that a lot of the ground here stays frosted and the plants have learned to grow through it all because the sun doesn't really seem to be out much to begin with, and it certainly doesn't hit everything when it is out. It was really cool though and I had a lot of fun taking pictures of the frost on everything. There are also tons and tons of pictures of plants for Ash. I hope it helps with the fact that there is a major lack of actual plants outside at UConn due to the massive amounts of snow covering the ground. :-) We got to explore pretty much the entire castle, there are hundreds of pictured of all of our roaming and adventures from today. Of which after about 400 pictures my camera wasn't feeling very loved and died on me. So I ended up being handed someone else's camera because she doesn't really like taking pictures and I took a bunch with hers. So there will be another couple hundred pictures being added once I can get them from her. I take pictures of EVERYTHING so there are probably a lot of random pictures of just nothing. I did get to kiss the Blarney stone and there was a really funny video of it but the audio and video don't line up right now so I'm going to attempt to fix that and then put it up. The little old man was really nice though and while we waited for the camera man to put the camera back together we had a nice little chat about why I was in Ireland and it was great. He must really enjoy his job. He gets to meet people from around the world who go to visit the castle and kiss the stone, which is meant to grant the gift of eloquence.

After we all had our urn kissing the stone we made our way back down the really steep stairs and out to the castle grounds and rock close. There were so many interesting things out there to see and we went through and saw it all. There were the wishing stairs, which you have to go up and down with your eyes closed while thinking of a wish, in order for it to be granted within a year of you making the wish. You can even go backwards, which I was going to attempt to do, but the stairs were way too wet for that. Marching band teaches you wonderful things like marching backwards on your tiptoes which comes in handy when walking backwards in general. The steps were wet though and that just screamed bad idea. No, I'm not saying what I wished for cause that defeats the purpose of making a wish. There were a lot of different spots we walked through that had different superstitious meanings to them. I realize I am being slightly vague about some things and honestly I'm just going to say let the pictures talk for themselves. One of the spots we found though had a sacrificial altar at it, and of course you can't go without taking a picture of a sacrifice up there haha. So Rebecca climbed up and laid on the altar and then we had to decide who was going to be the person to sacrifice her and with what. Rebecca had a pocket knife, someone had a fork, and then there was me, with the paring knife, the big huge joke of the day. So I get volunteered for the job and I couldn't keep a straight face, I guess it's a good thing you can't see me laughing in the pictures. It was just ridiculous and then the other girls all acted like they were other members of the tribe/cult/group (whoever it was that the altar belonged to) and were around the altar "praying." It was really funny and I'm glad that you also can't really see the knife in the pictures either. After working our way out of rock close we made it out to Blarney house which, honestly, I think is the real castle. It's absolutely gorgeous and looks like it should be the actual castle. Unfortunately it's closed until the spring so we only got to see the outside of it, but even that was just magnificent and I can't imagine what it would be like to actually live in a house like that. I feel like I would be constantly getting lost. Behind the house is a beautiful lake that we made our way out to and we found a few swan there as well. They we're just minding their own business and I'm sure they were eating so we just left them alone, but it was really cool to be able to see them up close like that.

By the time we made it back to the castle we had spent a good 4 hours walking around and had been able to see everything. We all agreed that we should go to the Wool Factory and then eat dinner before heading back home. I guess it's a good thing that they don't have a no touching rule in the Wool Factory because i touched EVERYTHING! They had all different types of wools and different things made of wool and everything was so soft and really warm. They had everything from winter clothes to blankets, scarves and teddy bears, and just about anything you could have made out of wool. It was all just so soft and we even found a pile of sheep furs in a pile on the ground that I'm pretty sure are a lot softer than an actual sheep is. On the other side of the Wool Factory there is a jewelry shop and also a crystal place. I took a few pictures of the crystal that I really liked. Unfortunately the saxophone was the only musical instrument they had there. I wish there were other instruments or musical things. It was really neat though and one of these weekends when it's too gross to do something outside we're going to take a trip down to Waterford and tour the Crystal factory. It's amazing what they can make with the crystal, it also just looks so beautiful. Once we were done there we went to a little pub near the bus stop and ate dinner while we watched Munster vs. London Irish in rugby. A game that I can't say I understand in the least bit, but I do thoroughly enjoy watching it. It's quite interesting. Actually two of the girls with us play rugby back at their home university and they were attempting to explain it, but honestly I just enjoyed watching in amazement as the game was being played and listening to the reaction of all the men in the pub.

That's really it for our adventure filled day. I still had 1 kiwi left at the end of the day and when I got back that went back into the fridge and the knife has been cleaned and placed back in the drawer. I don't think I plan on taking that out anywhere ever again. It just seems a lot safer not to. Well tomorrow is a relaxing day and then we're doing a pot luck dinner type of thing. I'm excited, I went out and bought fresh potatoes and meat to make a shepherd's pie. I like making food that I learned from my mom. All I have to do now is figure out what temperature I have to use in Celsius to cook it. The temperature conversion thing is a bit annoying and I usually just turn the oven on and keep an eye on what I'm cooking and take it out when it looks done. So far so good, but I prefer not to burn this. I would feel bad about that. It'll also be really fun to make mashed potatoes with a potato masher. I haven't ever done that before, but it's exciting. So we'll see how all of that turns out. Until the next time.

With Love Always <3

Drunk Food, Singing, and Dancing. A Typical Thursday Night.

So I really am not a fan of the whole going out every Thursday night thing. I'm not really a huge party person to begin with and going out for hours, getting wasted, and walking back at 2 am does not exactly seem like a great time to me. Right now Thursday nights have turned into go out and chill with drunk people, or hang out in the apartment alone and then waking up to drunk flatmates. It's very much a lose lose situation right now, but I'm beginning to learn who I enjoy hanging out with on Thursday nights, so it isn't too bad. Last night I spent it with Claire, Colleen, Rafaela, and Katie. I'll go through and label pictures so that there can be faces to put to those names. We all met up at Claire's cause they all wanted to pre-game and honestly it's a lot cheaper to buy your own alcohol and drink before going out and getting drinks at the pub. Since I only live in the building next to Claire's I showed up first and of course get offered a drink to start pre-gaming. I think that people are starting to remember that I don't drink though which is nice cause then it means I don't have to continually tell them every time they decide to make drinks for everyone. By about 9:30 everyone was there and at least tipsy. They all still wanted to go out to a club at some point in the night but we were all just fine with hanging out at Claire's. We had strawberries, raspberries, and Belgian truffles out and a very drunk Claire asking us if we wanted even more food because she wanted to cook for us. Letting a drunk person cook does not exactly cross my mind as a very intelligent thing to do. I have this tendency to be very much like a mom with a lot of things. Claire wanted to cook and was convinced that she was going to make us home fries and got out the potatoes, cutting board, and a rather large knife. I'm very much the kind of person who would rather be safe than sorry about something. So she got to cook her potatoes, even got to cut them up and I watched just to be safe. I will give her a lot of credit. She can cook while drunk. I was really impressed and glad that she was perfectly fine cooking and didn't cut off a finger or burn herself. So we had home fries as well.

One of the tv channels that they get here is a music only channel and it plays nothing but American music. So it got turned on and until about 11 it was pretty much a karaoke dance party, which is always great fun with drunk singers. It really was though, I enjoyed that and wish I knew what my camera did with the videos we took because they were hilarious. After that they still wanted to go out to the club like they had planned, but Claire decided she was done for the night so it ended up just being Collen, Rafaela, Katie and I. As much as I really don't enjoy being at the club I'm also not the kind of person who lets 3 drunk girls walk 20 minutes into town, drink more, and then walk themselves back. So we went and it was fine. It reminds me a lot of what high school dances were like except this has alcohol and drunk people. Yay! We ran into a whole bunch of other girls that we knew though and all of us hung out for the rest of the night. I'm not much of a dancer when it comes to parties and what not. I'm usually the person standing awkwardly in the corner with another person just talking and staying away from the dance floor. When the one person who will do that with you isn't there that doesn't become an option and staying out on the dance floor is really the only thing to do. So yeah I stayed with all the girls and danced, which ended up being a lot of fun. They play a lot of American music here so we knew a lot of the songs and we just had a great time.

The night ended with more drunk food. We went out to a place called Tasty Kebab and split a meal between the four of us. They talked about good foods to have while drunk and whether or not any of it is good for you, which was really funny cause the guys working were just kind of listening in since they had nothing else to do at 1 in the morning. The quote of the night ended up being "All drunk food is healthy." It seriously was just a fun night out and it is now 9 am and I have yet to sleep. I guess it's a good thing I don't have plans or classes today. So it's off to bed for me.

With Love Always.

Shakespeare, Blackboard, and Heaters... It's been a fun week

So things just got so much better this week. First I spent 3 hours on an assignment for a class that 1. We didn't even have to hand in, 2. The professor didn't even talk about it, and 3. There was no real reason why we had to do the assignment. I love Shakespeare, he was a wonderful writer and I love reading his work, but this class is killing me. For one thing we do pointless assignments like rewrite the entire index of his plays in chronological order. The book we're using for the class had them categorized into comedy, history, and tragedy. Which with Shakespeare seems a little weird seeing how some of his plays can be put under more than just one of those categories. So instead of just using the index how it is the professor asks us to use that index and re-list all of those plays chronologically. Which takes a while when there isn't a clear date on when certain plays were actually written by him and instead there are a couple possible dates on them. Just makes me love this class so much more. I'm also convinced that the professor teaches with the assumption that we have read all of these plays before. We haven't actually read any of the plays. He asks us to read certain soliloquies from plays and then lectures on the entire play. -_- Needless to say this is the most annoying class right now. If I can handle doing it, I may spend part of my weekend reading through a bunch of Shakespeare.

For UConn people you'll understand the frustration behind this. UCC has it's own version of HuskyCT called Blackboard. For those who don't know what HuskyCT is, it's UConn's way of trying to help our professors give us information, post announcements, power points, give us assignments, etc. without having to spam our wonderful huskymails. It is pretty much the easiest thing to forget about checking on a regular basis. So I have that, except for UCC and I also got a separate UCC e-mail that I'm supposed to check on a regular basis, so that makes 4 e-mails and Blackboard... not really making things seems much easier. I know I probably shouldn't do it but while that e-mail account exists I might as well forward everything to an e-mail account I remember to actually check out of habit.

So in quite a few ways UCC is turning out to be similar to UConn, it's fantastic really. (I mean that in the most sarcastic way possible)

This whole heater thing is apparently a point of interest for some so I ended up asking the guys what they did. First off there's a switch on the wall above the desk (at least 5 feet away from the heater) that kind of has a box of its own with a little red light on it. You flip that switch so the red light is on. Then you go to the heater which has 2 switches and 2 dials (there's a picture of this somewhere). You turn the dial all the way on the left to the number 4. Then you flip the switch to the right of it to the 2 dots instead of the 1 dot. I really don't know how else to really explain that, except I'm pretty sure that at some point I flipped the switch the other way. I really have no idea what that does. Then there is the dial to the right of that with a bunch of numbers on it. Don't touch it. I don't know what would happen if I decided to turn it and I prefer not to find out cause if something goes wrong I don't want to have to deal with fixing it. Then there is the switch to the far right that you just slide all the way down. Once all of that is done the red light on the heater turns on and you get heat. Honestly it is the most ridiculous thing I believe that I have ever tried to understand. Most heaters have temperature settings and an on/off switch. It is aware though of the temperature in the room and it turns itself off and on to maintain whatever setting it's at. Sometimes I turn it up to 6 on a really cold day but I usually leave it at about 4. Lately the weather has actually been really gorgeous and I know that at home it has been full of snow, ice, and for some, no school. I'm just hoping that if it decides to rain this weekend it doesn't also decide to add thunder, lightning, and wind so that a group of us can finally head out to Blarney Castle. Which I was looking at the tradition of kissing the stone. You are held by a really old man, bend over backwards, and lean over a huge space in the castle wall to kiss the stone. Oh and the stone is also located at the very top of the castle. So while we're all hanging upside down to kiss the stone we might get a great view of the ground below us. It'll be great!

With Love Always

So much to see and very little time for getting lost.

Okay, so first of all just to clear this up, Uncle Sean, I do NOT know how to turn the heater on. The guys came up and did whatever they did and then told us how to turn the heat up or down. The dial that turns the heat up and down is the only thing I touch on the heater. So sorry to disappoint but I don't know how to turn it on. Just for you there is also a picture. The dial on the left is how you turn it up and down. I don't know what any of the other switches or dial do. I attempted to turn the heater on using those the first time and nothing happened. I hope you feel better now that you know that. =)

So this week was the first week that I went to classes and honestly I don't know how this is all going to work out. For one thing everything is a lecture class, which is fine for some subjects, but for English and language classes where you're asked to speak it's actually really intimidating and also awkward. Then there's the whole issue of the fact that they talk really really fast. So this week I'm going to attempt to see how recording the classes go and then working off of those to get anything I may have missed. They have the teaching style of we talk, you listen and take notes. They use power points but only as outlines of what they're talking about. So yeah that's all sorts of fun.

Other than than that this week has been pretty good. Slept Thursday away which will probably happen every week since I don't have classes but every one else has them. Today I saw the National Monument, St. Fin Barre's Cathedral, Elizabeth Fort, and St. Nicholas Church. After seeing the National Monument it did get dark though so the pictures are all kind of dark of the other things, but they're absolutely astonishing. Well Elizabeth Fort not so much. It's just a fort aka a giant wall, but there was a little canon in there that I thought was really cool. I'm not going to lie I've always wanted to see a really big cannon and just shoot something out of it. Highly unlikely that it's going to happen, but still it's a really cool thought. St. Fin Barre's is actually the only Cathedral that I was able to go into since St. Nicholas was closed for the evening. It was so beautiful. I think I spent about an hour in there just walking around and looking at everything. I also saw the South Gate Bridge, I guess that's kind of like a site to see in Cork. I'm not really sure. After being at St. Nicholas the roads on the map and the actual street signs weren't lining up. After trying to back track and find something familiar I gave in and accepted that I was lost. So the easiest thing to do was follow the cars. I know it sounds stupid but it was actually the right thing to do because they went out to the South Gate Bridge and right there was a map and I was actually only a block away from the main road that I live on. So it worked. I highly doubt that it will work every time but this time following the cars was the right thing to do. I'm pretty sure that the two Irish men sitting outside of the pub drinking were getting a good laugh as I looked at my map and then the map by the bridge and tried to figure out where I was. Actually I decided that I would at least take pictures of the bridge and water while I was there. I have the tendency to take pictures of everything. Then after waving to the two guys I crossed the bridge and walked back to the apartments. This has seriously been the most eventful day of the week. It was just so much fun lol. Depending on how late we decide to sleep in Vanessa and I might head out to the Cork City Gaol and see what's down there. For now it's time for bed.

With Love Always.

Mindless Monday...

It’s Monday morning and I’m sitting in the library. I think that sentence alone just explains how much of an off day this is. I don’t like sitting in libraries. At UConn when people want me to go there and study with them I will gladly apologize and explain to them that I can’t. There is something about being in the library that makes it impossible to focus, especially when there are other people around and they’re all doing their own thing. It just gets frustrating so I don’t go. Actually I’m getting pretty antsy just sitting here so I might go find the books for my classes soon and then leave. I’m not sure where I would go if I left now. It’s raining today and I have another 2.5 hours before my last class of the day and I don’t want to walk back to the apartment just to have to come back. Why I picked the library to spend my time in… when I can answer that I will.

Today has pretty much been a mess so far. For one thing the English department for some reason believes they are special enough to have their own class registration time that is completely separate from general class registration. Why? I have no clue. I feel so bad for the two ladies who were doing all of the registration stuff because I’m pretty sure that as soon as they started talking to me I just gave them a blank stare. For the most part it has been fairly easy to understand when Irish people talk to me, but this one lady had such a thick accent and she spoke really fast and I’m pretty sure she was getting slightly annoyed with me. Especially when she wanted to know what English classes I was planning on taking and I couldn’t even come up with the name of them. Every time I’ve had to fill forms out I can just check the classes off myself or see the class names and just point them out. She just asked me to tell her the names and I drew a blank. Of course the first thing I decide to say is that I’m taking three of them and she pretty much said that’s nice and rolled her eyes. I feel so bad but my mind was just not connecting this morning. Once that was done I had to go do the general class registration thing which was really funny because there were a bunch of us kind of lined up in this little hallway and we were standing pretty close to each other. Then this girl walks in, looks around, and then asks us all to move even closer together because there wasn’t room for her at the end of the line and no one moved for her. There were other people who opened the door, saw the line, and decided to wait outside. She was getting upset because there wasn’t room for her in the line so that she could stand inside. I was standing with Vanessa and the two of us just cracked up. Once we were done with that I had my first class.

So seeing how we had orientation on their first day of classes I obviously missed the usual review of the course and what not that happens on the first day. Apparently I also missed the first lectures of my classes. Their classes meet twice a week and last week most of my classes only had the chance to meet once. Well they certainly don’t wait to really get started with anything here. Day 1 of class and I’m already an entire book behind in one class and a play behind in the other one. They don’t really get specific assignments with their books. They’re kind of just told go read and we’ll talk about this book for this long and then move on. Granted they do only have 3 months to do everything in so I can see why they choose to move so quickly, but right now I don’t even know how I’m going to read an entire book in a week while also doing everything else for my other classes. The play isn’t so bad because it is fairly easy to get through a play in one sitting. In one class my mind was completely blown, the teacher went through and laid out the entire plot, explained the crucial themes, gave us key points to focus on while reading, and explained half the book. That doesn’t EVER happen. Those are usually things that the students are told to figure out as they read the book, but she just gave it to us. As much as that makes it a lot easier to know what I’m looking for in the book I also feel like it takes away so much from the reading experience. It’s so different to just be handed all of that within the first couple of days of the class.

I realize that I’m mindlessly rambling on about things right now. I should go find my books for class and start getting caught up on all of this reading. Hopefully my music class tonight will be a lot easier to get caught up with. Time to go wander the library, yay!

With Love Always

If only drunk people knew how to be quiet...

Disclaimer: My flatmates have the same names as 2 of my sisters, just so there's no confusion on that.

Rebecca actually went home this weekend, I guess she has a job on the weekends that she goes back for even though she lives at least 2 hours away. So Vanessa and I have the apartment to ourselves this weekend and decided that today we would actually be productive. We went and found the gym, which is about 5 minutes away, and we looked around it just to see what was there. I thought UConn had a fairly big gym, double that and you might get the size of this gym. After our self tour of the gym we headed to campus and checked out the school library. In the three semesters that I have been at UConn I have never checked out a book from the library. I can't even say that I know how to do that, but being an English major I really don't get enough down time to read anything outside of my assigned readings so it doesn't make sense for me to take out any books. After figuring out their system, Vanessa and I found our way to the 3rd floor and started searching through all of their books. They have this really weird system and sort books based on classes. So NOTHING is in alphabetical order. The numerical system that they have just confuses the heck out of me. There will be hundreds of books with the same exact number but they'll have different authors and titles and after a while I gave up on looking for specific books. I did manage to find James Joyce's Ulysses and Charles Dicken's Oliver Twist and I decided that for the time being those will be my free time reading books. What I didn't realize though is that you have to actually open the books and scan them before you actually take them out because you can end up taking out a book with essays on the book you wanted to read, and not the actual novel. I found that out the hard way when I opened Ulysses, but it's okay, I found a website online with the full text from Ulysses on it and I'm reading from that. So I still get to at least read it.

When we got back to the apartment and made dinner we turned the tv on to find Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace playing. Not the greatest Star Wars movie but Vanessa and I both agreed that it's the best out of the newest 3 that they created. It was a great way to end our night.

I also found my map of Cork and spent about an hour planning out what I'm going to do this weekend since I have 4 days. Thursday will potentially be a homework day depending on how classes go this week, Friday Vanessa and I are heading out to the Cork City Gaol, Saturday is another work day, and Sunday we might head out to St. Fin Barre's Cathedral and Elizabeth Fort. I'm excited for our adventures. It's great because everything is within a reasonable walking distance from here so we can do a lot on weekends. Well it's finally quiet from the drunk guys that were on the floor above us so I might try to go back to sleep.

With Love Always

Is it seriously Friday??

So the past couple of days have probably been the most laid back days that we’ve been able to have. I was able to sleep in yesterday and get rid of the rest of the jet lag. Around 7 I met a friend on campus and we went to a meeting for a class we’re planning on taking together. The professor for the class is so funny. First of all her outfit looked like a little kid took crayons and just drew scribbles all over it. It was completely adorable. It was a short meeting, really just her way of letting us know how the class was going to work and about the trip that she always does as a part of the class to the Ring of Kerry. The rest of the night was a little interesting. I have never been to a bar before. I’ve seen them, but never actually been in one. So I went with most of our group and we went to the pub that they have on campus. I’m not a drinker; actually I usually can’t stand the smell of alcohol so I try not to be around it. For the sake of hanging out with my group I’ve just kind of dealt with it the past couple of nights. There are all sorts of pictures of different alcoholic beverages and what not in my photos but I guarantee you none of them are mine. I’ve had a coke, 7up, and ginger ale at the pubs and I’m completely content with that. I will say that I had a sip of a Guinness just because I had been told a million times that I had to try one before I even left for Ireland. It was very strong and bitter and was a great reminder to me as to why I don’t drink. Today was pretty calm as well. It’s really cold and raining outside so I mean if we didn’t have to leave our apartments then we haven’t. These really haven’t been very eventful days to be completely honest. I still have some paper work to finish dealing with for Monday so I’m going to go deal with all of that.