It is hard to believe that I have been in this beautiful place for a month now. Every day brings new experiences and new challenges. I have learned more here about different parts of the world than I ever could at home. I have met people that I will never forget and that have changed me personally. Of course I am still learning, and look forward to the coming months that I spend here. This week was probably the hardest, but also the best one that I have had so far. My patience and ability to accept things that are beyond my control have been especially tested. I figure that the best place to start is Monday.
Monday was the first day that I had to attend my extra classes or tutorials. I mentioned them in the last post, but tutorials are an extra hour or two of each class in a smaller group setting. Monday is my longest day now, with six hours of lectures and tutorials. My very first tutorial, which turned out to be an important lab, I ended up missing. This was my first test of patience during the week. I frantically emailed the professor about making up the lab during a different time slot, which she graciously agreed to allow me to do. In my second tutorial of the day I learned that I had a presentation to do on the following Monday that was worth 30% of my grade. This was also a moment that caused me a bit of stress. Despite my full and trying day, I had a great night with my roommates. We had our traditional pizza night that included ordering more pizza than anyone could possibly eat and a rousing game of the Hungarian version of Uno.
Tuesday was not as busy thankfully. I had one class and one tutorial (or so I thought). The class was great, because I found out that I could do my required project on American Sign Language and Irish Sign Language. This made me pretty excited. After this class I went to the small farmer's market that was located in the Student Center on campus and bought a pretzel, a tart, a scone, and a chocolate covered marshmallow from the vendors. I headed towards my next class, but walked into the wrong classroom and ran out in embarrassment. I ended up joining a different tutorial session later in the week due to this mistake. That night I went to the Anime and Manga Society's annual meeting to choose new board members. I enjoyed the laid back way that they went about this. I was considering running for a position, but the competition was pretty fierce near the end so I did not participate.
Wednesday was a full day for me. I had two classes in the morning, and my make-up lab for Chemistry in the evening. During the afternoon I met my Irish buddy that I was paired up with through the Buddy Programme on campus (it is spelled this way). She was assigned to a girl from France as well, so the three of us got some food at a place on campus and talked for several hours. Both of them turned out to be fantastic people who I had a lot in common with. We made plans to have a night out the following week. That night I went to the anime screenings for the Anime and Manga club. I stayed very late, so I ended up going to bed as soon as I got back to my house.Thursday I had my first tin whistle lesson! I was absolutely stoked for this tutorial, and learned all of the notes as well as two songs (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Rattlin' Bog). I also spent the day studying and doing research for my presentation. That night I played cards with some of my roommates and spent time with them.
Friday was packed with events. I had classes until 2 p.m. and then headed back to my house to try to take a nap. That did not happen, however, because I ended up having a jam session with a fellow tin whistle player (my roommate) and we did that for several hours. I took a short nap before 6 p.m. and headed to the Anime and Manga Society's Lock-In. I sat outside the building that the Lock-In would take place in with two other people (a guy and a girl) for two hours. We assumed that it was going to start late (we were wrong), but we had a great time talking about life and our own countries and lives. They were both from Ireland, so I learned a lot of new things. The girl asked a ton of questions about American politics, trends, food, and things about my personal preferences. Once we were able to head in we saw that they had been watching some anime while we were outside socializing. We then had a few more hours to socialize with each other before beginning our first game. I learned quickly that I was the only person from the United States there. The Irish people began to recommend some things that I needed to watch, foods I needed to try, places I needed to go, and phrases that I needed to learn. The first game that we played was called "Werewolf," which is exactly like "Mafia" back in the States. we then played a game where we had to move around and there were two "Mafiosa" that were trying to kill people without being caught by slitting their throats. It really was not as gruesome as it sounds and was my favorite activity of the night. The event ended with some more showings of anime, which I regrettably slept through. I left at 8 a.m. and found out that one of the girls that was in the club was my next door neighbor.Saturday and Sunday ran together a bit. I slept in until 4 p.m. or so due to the all night party. My roommate Selke recommended going to the Munster Rugby game at the stadium in town, so we tried to catch the bus to get there on time. Once we got to town we realized that we would be too late to make spending the entrance fee worth it, so we headed into a pub named "Mickey's" for some Irish coffees and finished watching the game there. The people in the pub were very sociable, and became quite passionate near the end of the match. Munster ended up losing, but it was a very close game. Sunday I spent my day doing laundry and some homework for the coming week.
Fun Facts Time! I learned a lot this week, so this one is jam packed:
#1: Irish people usually do not pronounce the "h" sound in words like "thanks" and "three." Instead, it sounds like "tanks" and "tree." This is not always the case, but the people who have the thickest accents usually leave out the "h."
#2: Euros actually cause people to carry more coins than if they used the American dollar. Why? There are eight different coins: 1 cent, 2 cent, 5 cent, 10 cent, 20 cent, 50 cent, 1 euro, and 2 euro. Besides this there five different bills of different sizes: 5 euro, 10 euro, 20 euro, 50 euro, and 100 euro.
#3: Bacon here has a thicker form that has less fat on it and is called "Rashers". It is absolutely delicious!
#4: American food has much more sugar, fat and salt in it than any of the food over here. The closest thing is fast food items like those from McDonald's, but even these use ingredients that are from local places and are better for you. In reality we have a lot of foods that are strange and gross sounding to people who live in other countries. Examples of these are canned cheese and Twinkies.
#5: There are many different phrases and words that Irish people use that people in the US would not usually use. One of my favorite words that Irish people use is "ye" instead of "you."
#6: Many Irish people have a great sense of humor. During my Lock-In I was teased for being an American (all in good humor) and told to learn how to spell color (colour) correctly and use the metric system.
