Post-mortem

Okay, I know I only asked for a few days but you know how things are when I get home! I go into a characteristically Ashley hiatus. BUT I'm back and I'm ready to talk about the biggest changes of this semester.

I think what I needed above all else was some time away from everyone to really figure myself out and Ireland was the best place to do that.

I had to bond with an entirely new set of people and I love everyone I became friends with. They're all spectacular people and each of them is totally unique and I would have never been able to grow so close to them if I didn't put my anxieties aside and just put myself out there.

One of my main problems is dealing with awkward or embarrassing situations, and this semester had many, many of those. I used to avoid trying new things because I was scared of failing them and being humiliated but seriously, everything was a new experience this semester! If I let that get in the way I would have never had any fun! While I'm still not great at dealing with them, I'm doing a lot better (I even went ice skating).

While I had made a lot of new friends, it was a little while before I could really confide in them. That left me in the rather difficult (but as it turns out, incredibly fortunate) position of having to deal with my problems on my own. This semester was sort of make or break for me and, thankfully, I met the challenge.

Speaking of challenges...
I'm finally assertive enough to stand up for myself when a stranger (or more accurately a crude male) makes me feel uncomfortable. Unfortunately, that WILL have to change now that I'm back in Trinidad because we all know what will happen if I make the mistake of responding aggressively here...
Also, I won't lie and say that I've started standing up for myself in a friendship but at least I've figured out that it's something I need to do!

Okay, that's all I'm really comfortable disclosing right now but that's quite a lot so be happy!
I really hope that when I return to ND next semester things won't go back to what they used to be like.
What's the point of life if we don't make some sort of progress?

Home at last

Okay loves, please cut me some slack over the next few days. I just returned home and am completely exhausted. I have a lot of small stuff to deal with over the next few days (including calling the people in Customs and giving them one hell of a cuss out).

So, give me a few days to catch myself and then I'll try to do a post mortem of my semester abroad. It will, hopefully, be worth reading.

For those of you in Trinidad - if you don't hear from me soon please don't be offended, I don't even have any phone numbers right now. Just give me a call and we'll arrange a lime.

Italiana? Spangola? Americana? Inglese?

Ohhh Italy! Home to gelato, pasta, pizza and creepers.

After extensive "research" I have decided that I don't really like Italy.
Rome is great for many reasons but most of them have to do with food and churches.

Florence, I am sad to say, I seriously don't like. Really. Everyone I know loves it there but I was hugely disappointed by it and spent 90% of the time annoyed/creeped out by some of the italian men you come in to contact with. All you can do is ignore them while the try to figure out where you're from (Italiana? Spangola? Americana? Inglese?) and run as far away as you possibly can when you're on the same street as four guys and one actually tries to put his arm around you when you're ignoring him. I mean really? Creepy enough???

Italy is all of Trinidad's worst qualities rolled into one giant mess of loud arguments and fights for no good reason, overly loud sirens and incessantly blaring car horns.

Cinque Terre, however, is fabolous. Great people, great sights and I'm sporting a new sunburn thanks to it. Definitely one of the most worthwhile day trips in Europe.

K. Off to bed to catch an early flight over to my favourite major European city, London.

super quick update

Okay, change of plans.

Most of you know that I should be in Rome by now but my Sunday flight was canceled due to volcanic ash. The next available flight to Rome was Friday so we did the next best thing and booked a flight to Pisa for Wednesday night (tonight).
So we're leaving Dublin in a few hours, camping out in the airport at Pisa for about six hours until we can take the first train out to Cinque Terre. We'll spend one day there and then make a mad dash back to Pisa where we grab a connecting train to Florence.
After 3 days in Florence we will somehow find ourselves in Rome where we'll eventually catch a flight over to London, spend a few days there and FINALLY head home.

I hope this sounds as crazy as it actually is. I'm pulling an all-nighter in an Italian airport so tonzees can get some sleep (because someone has to watch the bags) then getting an hour of sleep on a train and hiking all day. Still, I'm sure in retrospect these stories will be awesome.

Sadly, Venice had to be dropped from our itinerary because we lost so many days.

Can't wait to be home!

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine.

If you've never read my blog/watched my videos this is the only one I beg you to pay attention to because this one is to all of you...

Also, apologies for tearing up a little in there.

The "I should be studying now" post.

Well, this is me running out of ways to procrastinate. I really mean that. Today I should have studied (and after this post I swear I will do enough studying to make up for all the lost time earlier today).
Today I woke up at 6:30am to start studying and now know for certain that I am incapable of being productive for long periods of time until the clock hits midnight. So instead I will now study by staying up until 6:30 and sleeping til noon. Being nocturnal suits me well.

Anyway, I thought I'd amuse (or in my parents case - annoy) you with some of the better methods I found for procrastinating today. Advanced warning, some make me sound quite loony.

• I taught my roommate chemistry a few hours before her final exam (yes I remember chem).
  
• I learnt over 60 synonyms for the word "procrastinate" (my personal favourite is "boondoggle").
• I cooked three meals but only actually ate a bowl of soup and many many bowls of Rice Krispies.
• I spilled a handful of said Rice Krispies and counted them 3 times and found the average of those three times (123).
• I played every new game on addictinggames.com
• I cut the margins of the paper I was using for study notes so they would be "more presentable" when I eventually took notes on them.
• I googled myself.
• I looked my birthday up on wikipedia and realised that,apart from Catherine Zeta-Jones and Will Smith, I share it with William Faulkner and Eric Williams (my first prime minister and one of the most respected historians in the field of slavery).
  
• I caused a heated debate between two Irish people about the partition between them and N. Ireland.
• I had a personal revelation while watching an episode of In Plain Sight
• I read "The Little Black Book of Beer"
• I staged an impromptu ballet in my bedroom.
• I blasted the Jedward version of Under Pressure just because it's THAT BAD. I also decided that Vanilla Ice is WAYYYYY hotter now that he's older. Jedward are decidedly not hot, like make-me-bang-my-head-into-the-wall-not-hot.
  

Okay those are the best ones I've got for you for now.
I am actually going to get to work...Oh Chaucer. *sigh*

Love you all ;)

Paris: Take Two

So I FINALLY made it to la Ville-Lumière!!!We had just one short weekend but we managed to do so much in that time. It was really exciting and I'm now a lot more confident in my ability to navigate a big city, handle myself when creepy gypsy mobs want to kidnap me and what little French I had left was sufficient to help us through the whole trip.
We saw the majority of major tourist sights in Paris, ate at Rue de la Huchette at least four times, had a "piquenique" under the Eiffel Tower at night, saw the vast majority of the Louvre and still had the stamina to do the Musée d'Orsay. Talk about draining. Here's a picture with me and a painting from my favourite artist, Elizabeth Vigee-LeBrun.
I'm a particularly huge fan of her self portraits and this is the second one of hers that I've been able to see in Europe. My very favourite painting of the moment is one of her self-portraits and I got to see it in London.

We even made it across to Pigalles, the Moulin Rouge and found the Cafe des Deux Moulins used in Amelie.

Actually, as most of you know, my absolute favourite saint is St. Therese of Lisieux and by some weird chance her relics were on display for a few weeks at Sacre Coeur. So I walked in there to the sight of hundreds of roses and people kneeling in prayer. I was so excited I nearly cried. That alone was worth not going to Paris a few weeks ago.

Also, as I mentioned a few posts ago, each of our trips has a few theme songs that either apply to the place we're in or just happen to be stuck in our head.

This trip also had three songs -
Sky - Joshua Radin - what can I say...the song is absolutely beautiful and so fun to sing when waiting at the metro.
Aux Champs Elysees - Joe Dassin - this one is just obvious. Plus it's SO HAPPY.

The third song was a bit complicated. See, it was stuck in our heads ALLLLL weekend but it was soo not what you want to be singing out loud in Paris. I'd keep catching myself singing the first line and slapping my hand over my mouth to shut myself up. I think I'll leave this one a surprise for those of you who made it this far reading. Here you go - SONG NUMBER THREE

Okay people...off to either bed or studying. (Wow, as I typed that I almost felt like I was being given Cromwell's orders of "to hell or connaught" - talk about between a rock and a hard place).

You can get all A's and still flunk life.

I think I need to make the title of this post into a song...

Anyway, I know you're all tired of me talking but this story really needs to be told.

1st things first - Friday was the UCD Ball - a 10 hour long concert on campus where you can't leave once you enter. So far the descriptive terms for the Ball that we've come up with are "freak show" and "parade of humanity."
Really...people wear the most ridiculous outfits (and I realllly mean it). The Irish also have no concept of pacing themselves which means that by 4pm people were passing out on the floor.


But really, here are the highlights of the ball for me - (mom, dad and aunty em please don;t freak out).

1. I hit a guy -In fairness, he was trying to pry open the door to the port-a-potty while a girl was in there so I yelled "don't be an asshole" to him. But then he pushed in front of me and tried to break into the one that my roommate was in so my instant reaction was to protect her and so I slapped him as hard as I could and told him to "feck off." I'm still impressed he didn't hit me back BUT SERIOUSLY, what kind of perv tries to break into a bathroom when a girl is using it. And it's not that he needed to pee or anything...he was actually breaking into it to see the girl inside. And the worst part is he was with another guy and a girl and they didn't do anything to stop him. *shudders* THIS is why girls go in groups.
2. By sheer accident we ended up at the very front when one of the performers came on (Vengaboys) and it was insane. So much so that the Gardai threatened to shut the party down early. Anyway, we were more of less trapped there (me, 2 of my roommates and 2 ND guys) and people were shoving so much that a huge mass of people fell at once. And yup, you guessed it, I ended up right at the bottom of the dogpile. Scariest.Experience.Ever. Thank God there was a guy down there with me and his knee was up (at an incredibly painful angle) so that my face wasn't crushed and I could breathe. My arms were pinned. After 5 layers of people got up I managed to get out. I was not thrilled to say the least. It still hurts every time I move my left shoulder.
3. After a few more minutes of that insanity we decided to get the hell out and so one we all linked hands and I went in front basically faking an emergency to get people to move (I deserve an Oscar for my wide-eyed look of panic). THEN just as we make it out of the mass of people and are in the clear and allll safe, this guy swings his arm out to throw his coat over his shoulder and elbows me straight in the nose. The irony is staggering. That still hurts too by the way, but only when I touch it.
   

Anyway, since I clearly survived that traumatic experience we spent Saturday at the Cliffs of Moher. Despite the horrible weather we still had fun and got some awesome photos.
We saw a bunch of other stuff on the way but I will save that for when facebook is letting me upload photos again.
For now here's one of the rocky landscape of the Burren.
One from Lisdoonvarna which is famous for its singles festival in September. Apparently the guy who owns this pub is a full time matchmaker.
And of course, many many many photos of me at the Cliffs of Moher. Note of course that in each of these photos we are well past the safety ropes. Actually in most cases we're a 10 minute walk outside of them (onto private property).




Now, if you'll notice the look of fear on Kristin's face on the realisation that the rocks just come apart in layers...well that's because we're currently standing on a rock ledge overlooking the water. Woops.

My Weekend in Paris (and some music)

Well, as I'm pretty sure most of you know, this is not Paris.

Due to circumstances beyond my control (I just edited out a 2 paragraph long rant about a certain Volcano) we could not fly out to Paris this weekend. Sometimes it's easy to forget that Ireland is, in fact, an island.




Our flight has been rescheduled for the 30th of April and hopefully by then this will have all blown over (literally) or else I'll be out a considerable amount of money on hostels/hotel rooms as they've all decided that they're not responsible for the volcano and will keep everyone's money.

Anyway, instead I went down to Cork with Allison and Kaitlyn to have a girls weekend. We have a habit of choosing "the song" for each trip we make and this time there was atie between the following -
Beach Boys - Good Vibrations - because it played two nights in a row in two different pubs.
The Glee version of Hello Goodbye - It has NOTHING on the original but it's much more fun for a girl to sing along to.
All American Rejects - Gives You Hell - Glee inspired but the original is angrier and won out

Oh, to the trinis, I visited Pres' founding school - Presentation College Cork)

Anyway, to those of you who know me well will know that Cork is one of my favourite places and that I very very nearly ended up at UCC instead of Notre Dame for college. Because let's face it...UCC is breathtaking. Just to prove my point I'll include some pics.



Speaking of breathtaking - you can't go to Cork and not visit the Blarney Castle!
The weather was brilliant and I kissed the blarney stone (for the second time).

And of course, walked up a set of dangerously eroded stairs backwards with my eyes closed.

Wouldn't you?










But the very best part of the day was when we simply lay on the grass taking in the sun (and a bit of an afternoon nap). I'm so glad Allison got a pic of this because it's slightly epic.



Finally, would it really be me if we didn't stop in a few pubs? Of course not. We went to a few small ones but the best was the microbrewery where we had what were undoubtedly my favourite beers so far. It's pretty depressing that I can't find them anywhere else. Maybe I should ship a keg home...haha.


Anyway...we'll see if the volcano decides to be nice and let me go to Paris. I'll keep you updated.

Since I moved to America...(and Ireland)

This post was inspired by a similar article by Janique and seeks to highlight some of the more interesting/curious experiences of my Univeristy life.

Since I moved to America

• I use the words "epic," "awesome" and "über" more than I think any human should be allowed to.
• I "hang out" with acquaintances, but my close friends all know I "lime" with them.
• I have developed a gag reflex to any tomato based pasta sauce courtesy the Morissey Tomatina
  
• I alternate between "soccer" and "football" so frequently even I don't always know what sport I'm referring to.
• I have discovered there are worse things than being super pale - like being fake-tan orange.
• My accent has become indecipherable. And I miss it.
• I have developed an intense rivalry with Jamaica, Barbados, Haiti and the Bahamas as they are the only islands people seem to know about. My country is in none of these islands.
• My accent is constantly imitated but never accurately so. At the hands of others I sound English, Indian, Irish and many things that can't even be classified.
• I learnt about cricket in order to explain it to others.
• I learnt more about my country and culture than 17 years in T&T ever taught me.
• I have been to countless interesting places and made many loyal and caring friends.
• I appreciate my Trinidadian friends so much more and miss them daily.
• I am constantly sleep deprived and a borderline nervous wreck but I'd do it all again anyway.
• I have become less radical in my views on international politics (which I think is an improvement).
• I met the most amazing young man and lost him but found the grace to thank God for the time given to me.
• I realised that my country's pledge outlines everything I aspire to become. (See end of note).
• I have discovered how little I actually know about myself - like what I want to do after college.
• I've become eternally grateful for all my parents have done for me and can openly acknowledge that they are, in fact, ALWAYS RIGHT.
  

Since I moved to Ireland

• I think it's grand that you can have great craic without getting locked.
• I know now that umbrellas are useless and nothing warms you better than a hot whiskey. (See recipe at bottom).
• I now appreciate the American system way more and don't know how I used to be able to lay it all on the line with a make or break 100% of your grade final exam.
• I have traveled all over one of the most beautiful countries in the world and while I love Dublin for how all it has to offer, I will forever miss the simple, friendliness of the people in Irish towns.

The National Pledge -

I solemnly pledge to dedicate my life
To the service of God
And to my country.

I will honour my parents,
My teachers, my leaders and my elders,
And those in authority

I will be clean and honest in all my thoughts,
My words and my deeds.

I will strive, in everything I do
To work together with my fellowmen
Of every creed and race
For the greater happiness of all
And the honour and glory
Of my country.


Hot Whiskey -

2 1/2 oz Irish whiskey
1 slice fresh lemon
4 cloves
1 tsp sugar
hot water

Pour the whiskey into a whiskey sour glass. Add cloves into the fresh lemon and gently place into the whiskey. Fill with hot water and dissolve in the sugar. Serve immediately.

The State of Things

So today I realised that I'm a total idiot. Okay, not really, I'm just such an optimist I tend to overlook more obvious explanations.
That statement (and this entire post) comes about from an experience I had on Henry Street today.
After Jonathan and his friend left to return to London I spent a lot of time walking around downtown and sort of just doing my own thing because it was SUCH a beautiful day. The sun was out in full force so I was in a T-shirt and jeans and there were buskers everywhere.

Then I saw this beggar on the side of the road and he was shivering and I can't tell you how much I pitied him. I said to myself "if he's still there when I get out of Tesco I am marching straight into Penny's and buying a blanket for him."
Okay, now how many of you just thought "wasn't it a warm day?" Well yeah...totally didn't occur to me at the time (and sadly he wasn't there when I came back so I couldn't get him the blanket anyway). But do you really expect my first reaction (even on a hot day) to be 'this guy is going through heroin withdrawal.' I don't think it should be.
So I may be an idiot, but I'm really glad I am because (in this case) it means I just expect the best from people.

Also, on another slightly related note - literally 10 minutes later I saw a boy who couldn't have been 7 years old yet sitting on the side of the road with a rosary around his neck and one of the most defeated facial expressions I've ever seen. Isn't it tragic that in a developed nation we have little boys living on the streets and begging for money?
So then I thought "I wish I was rich so that I could take care of children like him." Which made think of the song "Sparrow" from Simon and Garfunkel. In particular the following verse:

Who will take pity in his heart,
And who will feed a starving sparrow?
"Not I," said the Golden Wheat,
"I would if I could but I cannot I know,
I need all my grain to prosper and grow."

Suddenly the "if I was rich" excuse just doesn't seem to cut it, because I may not have a lot but I have more than him and that means I have more than I need. Every single person reading this does. So what do we do with the little that we have? Do we sit there thinking we need it all and don't have any to spare or do we get up and use it to help someone?

I think the answer is obvious.

"The Closest Thing to Heaven on Earth"

Believe it or not, the title of this post does not apply to gelato (though three scoops of gelato does come pretty close to Heaven).
Instead, it;s all about the amazing, inspiring feeling that comes from seeing thousands of people gathered together to celebrate the Church's most jubilant holiday.

Anyway, I'm a little swamped with work (as the end of the semester is rapidly approaching) so I'll try to keep this short.
We did many many things, walked a lot and saw more churches than I can count, potentially every obelisk in the city, the Trevi fountain, Spanish Steps, Colosseum, Roman Forum etc.

But, more importantly, we had mass on Holy Thursday with the pope at San Giovanni in Laterano (St. John Lateran) and stations of the cross outside the Colosseum with the pope on Good Friday. Finally, on Saturday we had a tour of the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's and on Easter Sunday we had mass with Papa Benedicto!!!
Seriously though, we were sitting in dresses in the pouring rain for 5 hours and were literally so cold we couldn't stop shivering but it was SO WORTH IT. It was an amazing experience - especially hearing the pope deliver Easter blessings in 53 different language (I can personally say that his French is flawless and I've heard enough to know that his Hindi and Swahili both sound spot on).





And I got to see Fr. Matthew on Monday which was awesome! It was cool to just hang out with him and be shown around Rome. I'm really glad I got to see him. And he introduced us to a friend of his who is an Irish Augustinian brother... very cool, fun guy. :D
It was a great day!




Finally, we may or may not have had pizza and gelato twice a day, everyday. ;)

Belle of Belfast City

Hi hi everyone!
So if you're wondering about the title of this post here's the inspiration - this is my fav version but they change the words to Dublin...still the REAL song is about Belfast - I'll Tell Me Ma

Belfast was AMAZING!!!!!! I'm adding the link to the photos at the end of this post and most of them have captions that explain what I was up to this weekend. But just in case I'll give you a quick summary now.

We left early Friday morning and drove to the border where we stopped off at InterTrade Ireland which is one of the companies created in the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (depending on what you prefer to call it) that are meant to sort of overcome the borders and unite the two sides of Ireland to create well...the slight contentious term of a "One-Island Economy" (the Unionists aren't fans of that term).

Anyway then we went to Belfast and had lunch before jumping back on the bus to go to Stormont, the home of the Northern Ireland Assembly where we were given a tour and had a Q&A session with a representative of the DUP. They're the VERY biased Unionist party (sort of like the Unionist version of Sinn Fein).

Next we went up to Portrush for dinner and then headed over to our hotel. At the hotel we had a crazy dance party in their bar and headed off to bed (after watching Lady Gaga's Top 50 Patry Songs Countdown).

The next morning we went to Giant's Causeway Kevin gave us a lecture on ummm....everything under the sun. A lot about folklore though.
Next we crossed the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge which was awesome!!!! And I wasn't even scared! Yayyyyy! I felt so cool. lol.

Finally, we returned to Belfast where we had lunch in the City Hall and then were given a tour of the city by a man who lived through the troubles. It was crazy, a lot of the stories we had learn t in class with Kevin actually happened to friends of this guy. Some of the most FAMOUS storied out of the troubles he was there for. It was....amazing. However, it was also one of the most depressing things I've ever gone through.

What scariest is the fact that you still need a giant fence to keep the peace. The houses alongside the Peace Wall have heavy duty gratings over the back of their house to protect them from bombs etc. How terrifying to raise your children in that environment.

Anyway...I'll maybe talk about this later but I know that relaying any of the stories would make this post go on forever.

So I'll just shut up and give you the link to the photos
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=216209&id=504857518&l=a8c8e2d54c

Just so you know..

Hey everyone. This is just a quick quick update to tell you what I'll be doing today, tomorrow and Saturday.
Today I WILL write my psych essay (not even kidding. I HAVE to cuz I have to return the books to the library today grrr).

Tomorrow and Saturday will be spent on a programme trip to the north (YYAYYY BELFAST)
So hopefully when I come back I'll have 500,000 awesome pictures from there to share with you (along with a few good stories).

Hopefully I won't get shot for being Catholic ;)

Sleepy video rants

Hey everyone. So I decided to spare you the long essay and just do a video instead.

Advanced warning though that I was REALLY sleepy when recording this so I go off one this longgg tangent about stale baguettes.

I actually re-recorded this about three times because of my angry rant at the end of it but then I just ranted for even longer each time...so I decided to stick with the original version.

Also...when I go off on that rant about Americans and voting I was unclear - I was only referring to those people who vote for a party just cuz their parents and parents' parents did. etc. etc. etc.

So without further ado...

Best St. Patrick's Day EVER

Hey heyyy

I'm totally exhausted so I just wanted to (boast??) a bit about my day! :P

Mass this morning was great! As part of the mass (this is apparently tradition) they blessed a bunch of shamrocks and we pinned them to our lapels and wore them all day. It was pretty cool. I mean an entire chunk of plant btw, pinned to your clothes. Lol.

THEN, we grabbed some food (thank you McDonalds) and went to the St. Patrick's Day parade...it's pretty weird and not very Irish at all. But that was fine by us. Unfortunately it started pretty late so we couldn't stay long BECAUSE WE HAD TO HEAD OVER TO CROKE PARK!

So we went there and sat down in the Naughton family's private box (which is one of the 4 best boxes in the stadium btw) and watched the games.
For the Hurling we decided to support Portumna because they're this tiny team from Galway. They lost :( But we're used to teams we like losing. :P

What was most awesome about it though was that each team had this star player who are both arguably the best in decades (if not centuries). Ballyhale's is Henry Shefflin and they call him King Henry (I think he was top scorer this season) and Portumna's is a guy nicknamed "The Prince" he's 21 and he's like a one man show. This guy scored a point FROM 90 YARDS AWAY!
Picture hitting a ball with a wooden stick through two posts from 90 yards away. Suck on that American football.
Anyway...so it was this huge deal and all the papers had titles like "The Prince vs The King" etc etc

As for the Gaelic Football final we were supporting Kilmurry (who also lost). BUT IT WAS SO FUN! BEST SPORT EVER!

So in an earlier post I said I wanted to find a sport worth screaming for. I found TWO!

GAA is amazing. I've never been so excited in my life.
And what's best about it is that these guys are playing at the top level in the country but they're doing it just for the love of the sport. They don't get paid to play and yet they devote all this time (and many many injuries) to it.
There's a great section in the programme where they give player profiles and they list the jobs of the players etc (a lot of them are carpenters, Garda, students, school teachers etc. Regular people who do something simply because they love their team/county/sport.
I may invest in a hurley and sliotar.

OKAY, the day's not over yet though. After that we hit the pubs (and they were packed) so we went off the beaten path a bit to our secret cheap pub near Trinity. There we met up with a friend, Simon, who was in Dublin with his gf and one of her friends for the day. The back story there is that we met Simon (who is Australian but working in London) in a hostel when we went to London and somehow stayed in contact with him.
It was a blast.

BUT it was all really exhausting so now here I am, back in my room at midnight and heading to bed. It's been grand!!!!

Quick Pre-Paddy's Day update

Hey everyone,

Just letting you know what I was up to today (and all that I will be up to tomorrow) since IT'S ST. PATRICK'S DAY IN IRELAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, got that out of my system.

Today (Tuesday) we took part in the Céilí outside St. Stephen's Green.
Basically a Céilí means a big impromptu dance session and so they set up a big stage between Dawson St. and the Green and had irish music and dancing.
Picture a hundred odd heads in the crowd bobbing up and down as they tried to dance along with the people on the stage. And hell yes we were among the dancing tourists.

Really though we don't feel like tourists at all. Sure we don't feel like Dubliners but we are def. no longer tourists.

Next we went to the O'Connell house where they served us dinner (Guinness Stew) and we had a little Celtic Twilight concert where ND people performed. It was awesome.

So here's the agenda for tomorrow -
Wake up early
Go to St. Patrick's Day mass downtown
Go see the parade - woohooo!!

and then THE BEST PART - go see the All Ireland GAA Championship Finals in Croke Park!!!!
ND (more like Kevin) got us tickets to the finals!

Hurling - Seamróga Baile hÉil (Ballyhale Shamrocks) vs Portumna (Port Omna)

Gaelic Football - Cill Mhurie Ui Bhreacáin (Killmury - Ibrickane) vs Naomh Gall (St. Gall's)

And even better, a very rich, very generous family that has a special relationship with ND donated their private box to us. We couldn't all fit though so they chose at random and I'm one of them *HUGE GRIN*
So yeah...one of the best private boxes in the stadium for the final? I love life right now.

Let you guys know how it turned out tomorrow!!!


Maybe a pint or two will be fit in somewhere....

My mom is right...I am a person of extremes

Today I had a sudden insight, a moment of revelation perhaps, about how selfish a person I really am. (I know a hundred people will probably protest that statement after reading it but I really mean it).

I was just sitting here reading Juan Rulfo's Pedro Paramo and it occurred to me that I never really intended to live very long. Which I guess is weird because most people want to live as long as possible.
Now don't get the wrong impression, I'm not planning on dying any time soon. I just only ever envisioned outliving my parents so they wouldn't be unhappy when I died (and of course I worry about the rest of my family but I hoped they would have families of their own to help them cope).

Really though, I never had any solid plans for making it to old age and that's pretty selfish of me. Way to disregard others' desires, social (and evolutionary) responsibilities and most of all God's will.
I know if I had children of my own that plan would change (I'd probably want to live long for them). But for now I just can't seem to make myself care that much. Also, that may have something to do with the fact that nobody can really picture me married/with children.

Or maybe it's not selfishness at all, maybe it's actually selfless that I want to live for other people and don't care really to make my own goals...I don't know.
Again this ties into the fact that I'm constantly wavering between trying to make people love and depend on me and trying to convince them that I'm Machiavellian and self-serving and they should never really trust me. I think at this point I've successfully told every friend I've made in the past 3 years that I am not actually nice and that I'm manipulative etc. etc. etc.

What's left at the end of this is the realisation that I really can't decide whether I'm a nice person or not. That uncertainty over who I am is something that's being worrying me a lot over the past few years and in some sense it's really quite distressing.

And I can say that I suppose that not knowing who I am just makes me human but sometimes I wonder...

Gah. This is too deep for a Sunday night. I am going to go take a shower and make dinner.
I just felt the need to post this so I could get input from the people I respect (and the very fact that you're reading this means you're one of them).

I once met an old man who told me great stories...

I once met an old man who told me great stories
Of legends of old who played hard for the glory
Of lifting the cup in that moment of triumph
His memories kept me enthralled

- Fields of Glory

So I know that all I've been doing lately is complaining about how sick I am and actually, I'm sick again. But then I realised that apart from my various illnesses and emotional breakdowns none of you have the slightest clue what I've been doing, and I've been doing quite a lot.

Facebook is still being mean to me so instead I'm going to just upload a few photos for now and some videos that I took.

This post is going to be pretty long so here's the SparkNotes version for those of you who don't have the time.

1. Jon and Phil visited!!! - Super fun and got to show them around Dublin and took a trip out to Howth. They were great company and I loved having them over.

2. Irish House Party - A night of traditional Irish music and dance in a lovely pub downtown.

3. CLASS TRIP TO THE WEST!!! - What a weekend! We went almost everywhere in the west in one weekend and did the whole Ring of Kerry. Undoubtedly some of the most spectacular pictures from my entire stay in Ireland so make sure to check those out!

THE MORE DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS

1. Jon and Phil's visit. - So when you consider how fragile my emotional state was in the days leading up to their visit their timing was nothing short of a miracle. It was so great to get to show them around and it was fantastic to have someone who knows me as well as Jon does around.

We spent Saturday, Mon and Tuesday in Dublin doing some touristy things (like the Guinness and Jameson tours) and some slightly more authentic things (like a trip to McTurcail's pub with Maura who is AWESOME and I'm so glad I finally met her). On Sunday we went to Howth and did the cliff walk and the weather was just spectacular!

So here are a few pics from those days -





IRISH HOUSE PARTY -
I'll let the video talk for themselves...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC_9cdMNDko
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLb31Sm9-b0

CLASS TRIP TO THE WEST -

So last Friday - Sunday was our first of two programme trips in Ireland. This one was to the west of Ireland. We left early on Friday and had lunch in Adare (in Co. Limerick). We drove the whole Ring of Kerry over the course of the weekend and spent Fri and Sat night in Kenmare. At some point we stopped the bus and walked out on a bog to get idea of what a bog is actually like (mushy and shaky btw).

On Fri night we had a giant jenga and pool tournament in a pub there courtesy Senator Mark Daly (who's in the the right hand side of the picture with Allison pulling out the Jenga piece [first pic] so you can see why we all adore him).


The next day we did a walking tour of Kenmare and saw this ancient celtic stone circle and were given lessons in Hurling and Gaelic football (and I didn't suck at them)!!! It was awesssommmeee. Hurling is the coolest sport everrrr.

Anyway..then we hiked the hilly national park between Kilkenny and Kenmare.

We went sight seeing all over and sang the fight song on the beach Daniel O'Connell's summer home was on.
And then we went to DINGLE!!! (For some reason I adore Dingle, I think it's not so much to do with Dingle itself as the running jokes that come from it).