Back to normal life

So there aren't as many school things to talk about. I turned in my proposal, as I mentioned, and things have been pretty quiet.

In addition to my rugby photos (Dublin in blue, Wales in Red), is a great pic my mom sent me of my mom (if you didnt catch that) and my two nephews.

Our film class was cancelled on Monday but as usual, the professor failed to tell my course. So it ended up being a free day. Then Tuesday morning we did our proposals. Wednesday is usually the long day and we had our regular film lecture and seminar in the morning, followed by our theatre lecture, but our theatre professor let us know that she wasnt available, and wouldnt be for two weeks, to do our seminar, so we ended at 2pm, which is quite early on Weds.

That was nice tho. We girls decided to take a long lunch at Avoca, which is a lovely store. The blue fuzzy blanket my parents have was bought from the real Avoca. This store has several levels of shop and a lovely little restaurant. They also have ready to eat meals, sort of like what you can find in Publix, so I ended up buying a few things to take home. Those were very nice meals for decent prices. That was an Avoca night, since Maria had also come home with a bag of pre made Avoca food. Great vegetarian choices, which I had for lunch, and plenty for carnivores as well.

Thursday was my day off from school, but that evening I attended a play in one of Dublin's several theatres, The Gate Theatre. I went to see Brian Friel's 'Faith Healer', which I had read for class just a few weeks earlier. It was good, but astounding how it took the play longer to be performed than to read... As you may remember I plan to cover Friel in my dissertation so I felt it was important to actually see one of his plays, rather than just read them.

I had my music class on Friday. That was the extent of my day.

I slept in on Saturday, but that night some roommates and I went to the Leinster - Scarlets rugby match. As you may know, Ireland's counties are split into regions and Dublin is in Leinster, so we were watching the home town team who were playing Wales.

You'll see some photos from that night. I apologize for blurriness - my camera struggles with night vision.

Monique, Caroline, Hugoline (the newest roommate from Holland) and I walked about an hour to the stadium. It was cold but a nice day. We met up with Monique's law-student classmates and headed to the stadium. I got chips (fries). What's more fun than going to a sporting event and eating junk? It was funny cuz they introduced the players using the Bull's music. I felt like the next thing i'd hear was "and at 6'6 from North Carolina... Michael Jordan" haha... I have a strong feeling that most of the people in the stadium would not have associated that song with The Bulls. Sad! But I was dressed warmly. I wore leggings under my jeans. then 2 shirts, a fleece jacket and Monique's big poofy black jacket that I wore in Poland. As the night got cooler I added my nice warm scarf that Lisa knit me, my gloves and hat.

We won, by the way. Rugby can be confusing, especially when you're used to football. It's definitely odd when the player with the ball falls to the ground, but the play isnt over. Someone else runs up and grabs the ball and keeps running. Obviously it's a different sport with it's own set of rules, but I just was thinking 'football'. It seems like football in Boppy's day. Basically no padding, some of them wore those little hat helmets... And how many players were hurt and helped off or carried off the field...

The stadium made me miss my own William's Brice Stadium. It was way smaller, held a little over 13,000 that night (not packed), but still was a stadium... makes me wanna get back to my town and cheer on my team.

That evening turned much colder and started to rain so we caught a cab back to our flat.

Sunday was another sleep in day. Then tonight I went to Immanuel Church Dublin. It was a good sermon on Daniel 4. As the preacher was going over Daniel 1-3, he mentioned Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and I started hearing Stained Glass' song: "now there was Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from the firey furnace they trod, and the form of the fourth man that I see is like the Son of God. The wouldnt burrrrrn....". If you dont know it you should pull out your Stained Glass CD. U learn a lot about the Bible just from listening to their songs. I appreciated what the guy had to say. My friend Jen read from Philippians 2, which is one of my favorite passages, so that was cool.

Then after the service and chatting with a few people, I met LeeAnn down in front of the old famous (and still working) GPO (where you can see bullet holes from the Independence) and we walked to a movie theatre to see Valentine's Day. It was cute and funny. There was no point for Taylor Swift to be in it and she was really annoying... but I enjoyed the rest of the movie.

So that was my week. Little class stuff, but kept a decent social calendar.

This week seems to be another slow class week. Karla, LeeAnn and I are talking about going to the Titanic exhibition in Dublin on Thursday and then Saturday morning LeeAnn and I fly off to Italy for a week. School? What school? This is just a very expensive year off of work!