School's Out!

So St. Patrick’s Day came with its pros and cons. We had a wonderful time and everything, but I also missed a day of classes. Considering the fact that the following week was my Irish Language exam it was kind of a huge deal that I missed the first of 2 review classes; especially since Sean was still teaching us new material for the exam. So the following week was spent studying my brains out for this exam. There were two parts, the oral and the written. The tough part about the oral was that we were expected to talk about our family which we were still learning 2 days before the exam. Our teacher was also all over the place during the semester so a lot of times in my notes there would be answers to a question that we learned later. So I didn’t really know what a lot of things were going to sound like when he asked us and pretty much I was stressing out so much. Thankfully Rebecca and I had that class together so we were able to work on things together and she had also convinced weeks ago to go see STOMP with her.

It was the best study break ever. The night before the oral exam I went over to Rebecca’s place, which happens to be on the other side of town from me, and I met all of her flat mates. They were making buffalo chicken pizza for dinner and then brownie sundaes for dessert. So they invited me over for dinner and we went to the show after it.

I remember always hearing about STOMP and I do recall the Sesame Street episode that they were on, so I kind of knew what to expect when we went to see them live. They blew our minds. It was one of the most incredible shows I have ever been to for anything. That night was seriously the most enjoyable study break I’ve ever taken. We just had so much fun and the STOMP crew even got the audience involved in helping make some of the beats. It was a blast.

The next day for the oral exam I was supposed to go around 2:30 and I had a class at 3:00 so I was kind of pushing it on time. So I showed up early figuring that if the 2:00 people finished I could just slip in quickly and be on my way. When I got there around 2:00, there were still people from the 1:00 and 1:30 slots who hadn’t gone yet. So they were running a little behind. Around 2:30, since I had to be somewhere, they were all willing to let me go first and get to my class. By the time I had gone in they were trying to get us all in and out as fast as possible. It actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I will admit though that I made sure that I knew how to say “I don’t understand” or “I don’t know” since I figured I might need them at some point, and I did. Although of course I said the wrong one first and then corrected myself. So when I didn’t know or understand what Sean wanted me to say, I said both and he figured out which one I meant.

On Thursday we had the written exam. Right before the exam Sean was holding one last review session for us. I figured I would go and that it would be helpful. We spent 10 minutes going over body parts and the difference between his and hers and then he pulled up youtube videos of Irish singers. I ended up leaving and meeting up with Rebecca outside and we got our Dr. Peppers and then headed over to the exam room. We sat in the same row and we were going over things until we got the exams. I looked at that exam and my first thought was “oh no the questions are in Irish too.” It never crossed my mind that they would give us the questions and instructions in Irish and I was so lost. There was a paragraph that was fill in the blank about Barack Obama, I’m sorry but I didn’t even know half of those words. I totally guessed, the only thing I could say was that he is a black man, he lives in Washington D.C., and he has two girls. I’m sure I just took all the other words and threw them wherever they sounded right, which in Irish is nowhere. There was just a lot of vagueness all over the exam. I did what I could though and to be completely honest, there’s no way we could have failed. Between attendance and the 2 parts of the exam we only needed 40 out of 100 points to get a C in the class. We automatically got 10 for attendance so we knew we were at least good enough to get more than 30 points between the oral and written exams. So it was fine. The rest of my exams aren’t until May so I’m not exactly stressing out just yet, but I did turn my computer into my study guide. It has every book, poem, and play I had to read this semester and it also has all of my notes on it. So now it’s a matter of pulling it all up and reading through it all as April is passing by. This last week I literally had no classes so I was making sure that I had all my notes and I was putting everything up on my computer. When I wasn’t doing that I was cleaning things up and getting ready for my trip this weekend and for when my mom gets here.

In about 5 hours I’ll be getting on a plane for Scotland and I’m spending the weekend there. When I get back I’m in Cork for a couple days and then my mom is going to join me. We’re going to spend a week traveling around together until she has to return home. The rest of April will be spent around other parts of Europe and then I’m going to see family in Spain, which will be great because I haven’t seen my cousin in forever. So I actually won’t be around a whole lot and I’ll be getting back in the very beginning of May, in time for my first exam actually. Ryanair is an easy and cheap airline to use but they messed up my last flight back to Ireland and it’s now for the day right before my first exam instead of 3 days before. So I’m working on getting it all fixed hopefully, but worst case scenario, I end up back in Cork about 3 hours before my first exam. So having all of my study materials always on me is extremely useful.

I think I am officially caught up with everything. Although as much as the airport says it has wi-fi it isn’t exactly connecting to the internet. So this may not even get posted till tomorrow when I have to find wi-fi for the sake of checking in with people. Originally Scotland was supposed to be something a few of us were going to do together, but things didn’t exactly work out with the scheduling of things for everyone so I’m actually doing this trip on my own. So it will be an entertaining and enjoyable few days on my own. Everything is pretty much set up though so there isn’t a whole lot to do but wander around Scotland and take pictures. It will be fine.

With Love Always