Monday I didnt have class, so I went grocery shopping. Remember it's a 15-20 min walk into town, so you cant really buy too much. I only got a basket, not a cart, cuz I cant carry back several bags worth. I filled up two bags which got heavier and heavier as I walked back. But that was pretty much my day. I spent the rest of the day reading Boucicault's play The Shaughraun, which was the most popular play of the 19th century. It was also quite long. It's all I read (and all I did) once I returned from the store.
Then today, Tuesday, I had my long day. I start class at 9am, which shouldnt be so bad, but again, by the amount of traveling that must be done for a seemingly short distance, you have to get an early start. Last week I left the flat by 7:30am, which got me to campus just after 8am. Today I left a little after 8, which was unfortunate. I think I'm going to leave at 7:50, since when I got to the Luas, having seen 2 trams pass before I could reach the station, the next one did not arrive for at least 10 minutes (and in the morning they are supposed to pass every 5 minutes). The crowd grew larger and larger at the platform and when the first tram arrived, I could not get on. Another one came just a few minutes later, and I went ahead and squeezed myself on. I was right up on some little girl and some guy was pushed into me from behind. By the way, this is the first day that it has really rained. I had my new fancy rain jacket from Columbia (the company, not the city) and my pink umbrella. Since I was just a few minutes later than I wanted to be I tried walking faster, which made me very warm, in the 57 degree rainy weather. So when I packed myself onto the Luas, it got even warmer quicker. Thanks to my awesome condition, I felt like I could throw up before I got off the Luas. Once I got off I was better.
Then I sped off to my first class - Theatre. Luckily I got there a few minutes before class started, which was nice because the Prof gets very annoyed when you arrive late. This is the class (or part of my course) which I am enjoying the most, so far. My theatre prof is the head of the department and she is very into what she is teaching, which makes her class so much more interesting. You can really follow along and want to know more by how enthusiastic she is and by how she pulls you into the play or the time period. Like I said, this is really like getting an Irish history lesson. In fact, I discussed with my classmates about taking a trip to Galway next month, since everything we are reading right now is based in West Ireland (you know - the pretty part, the scenic part). Most of them are into it, so we will probably do that in a few weeks.
After that we arrived late (as will be the norm) to the Research Seminar, where we listen to a PhD student or Professor show what they are researching. The Prof in there was talking about the dwindling of Opera, but as he was talking he gave me an idea about a possible dissertation topic. We shall see...
After that, we ladies headed to The Buttery, the food place on campus, and hung out there as long as possible, since our next class wasnt for 2 1/2 hours! But we went to the Graduate Student Union and found out that we can get a key to the GSU common room for 25 euro for our entire time there. We can get one key and let each other in. It has couches and a kitchen area so we can bring food if we prefer. I think we are all going to go in on this key idea cuz we sat there in the Buttery, all of us about to fall asleep. This day just wears us out! Now we'll have a place to relax and rest before our last class.
The final class was the Cinema and Ireland class. It was incredibly boring last week. Well the first thing the Prof did was give a sheet with a list of essay ideas (since we have to also write one essay per class this semester), and I'm glad for it because I may have one possible idea for a dissertation, but i havent come up with ideas for essays in each of the classes yet! The only problem is that I dont quite understand any of the essay topics. None of them make sense to me. It's not that "oh you just need to know the material to understand the topic", but more that the wording doesnt make sense. This always happens to me. Where is Robert when I need him to explain the birthday cards... or my essay topics....
But the film prof did put on a 50 min documentary that he actually wrote, as we saw when his name went by on the credits in the end, and it was all on early Irish films, starting from the first one at the end of the 1800s going up mainly thru the 1950s and 60s, but touching on some films in the 80s and early 90s. The only one that I was aware of was The Quiet Man, and I do look forward to watching it and discussing it. In fact one of the essay topics touches on the quiet man: Often, Ireland has been represented as a pre-modern society by non-Irish filmmakers. The way in which landscape has been represented, whether according to a soft or hard primitive aesthetic, has helped in this construct. Discuss with reference to Man of Aran, The quiet man, and Ryan's Daughter.... anyone wanna help??? The other questions dont necessarily ask specifically about films. I think it's supposed to be very general to get many different answers from each question, but they all lose me!
Remember, today was your typical Irish day. Cool and rainy. So I never got outside w/o putting my umbrella up (which kept falling down on me - boo!) and throwing my rain jacket on. My hair became very frizzy. Sooo pretty! But at least I didnt slip once on the slippery stones across campus!
When I got back to Hall, I ate pretty quickly before running down to the Fire Safety meeting. Every person has to attend or you get fined 100 euro. My scheduled day to go was tomorrow but seeing as I have choral society, I needed to go tonight. Most people in there were first and second year students and wow, so immature and disrespectful. They were talking the whole time and when the lady started talking about Swine flu and other illnesses everyone started coughing. Then everyone started laughing. Stupid kids... I'm sorry. I'm too old to deal with their immaturity!
Well, this quick post was longer than I had expected. I was going to go out with Caroline and Nike to this singer/song writer place, but I still have too much reading to finish. It's important to have all of it done since my theatre class tomorrow is just the 6 of us ladies, so we are expected to comment on what we read. Meaning I must read so I can comment. :-)
Tomorrow looks like another rainy day. I had thought about straightening my hair last night. Good thing I didnt. I couldnt keep my curly hair from becoming frizzy today, so I would have really lost the battle with straight hair! Looks like curly hair all week long.
Hope it's drying up for you guys. Layta!
Yeah, why is this post titled 'real quickly'??
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