BUT, first of all, I am officially legal! I went to the Garda station today with a couple friends and we get our certificate of registration cards which are pretty sweet! As you can see I have included pictures of both my UCC student card and that card that I got today! I feel IRISH! hahaha! We were told to get there early and thank goodness we did because the line was long! We got there at 1 (it didn't open until 2) and we were about 7th in line so we were out of there by 2:30...but the line continued out the door. Crazy seeing all the different people coming in to the office however. There were people from all over the world crammed into a line inside this building! It was a sight to see!
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| Official student! |
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| Official immigrant! |
Anyways, the last two days have been pretty laid back so I have been finding ways to fill in some time! Yesterday I went to the library to begin working on my first essay with some classmates. Then, we had an advisement meeting in which the process of registering for the regular semester was explained a little more. However, it is still going to be a little hectic getting situated! Good thing Connie, Kelly, and their friend Alyssa will be here to calm me down and get my mind off stuff after the day is over! They come a week from Saturday! Woohoo! Ok back to yesterday: after the advisement I had some more free time so I went to the cafe again across the street and got a hot chocolate! mmm mm mm!! Soo good again! After that, I came back to the apartment and luckily Jordan came back soon after...otherwise I may have had a rough time because I was just feeling down again! But, he did come back and we had a blast looking up lyrics to the Irish pub songs that the traditional music group plays on Wednesday nights! I'm going to be able to sing quite a few of them by the end of the semester! Then, my friends Amy, Chelsea, and Elena (all live in the same apartment) came over and we all hung out, watched a movie, played cards! That is one thing I need to realize too is that everybody is feeling the same as I am! We all get homesick from time to time, but that's perfectly ook! It was a great night!
Now for today, class was really long...but after class went to the Garda station and became legal! haha! And then, Kendall and I checked out the English Market which is AMAZING! I had heard about it but it was even better than what I was expecting. It is literally just an open market full of tons of fresh produce including fruits, vegetables, all kinds of meat, spices, candy, bread, cakes, etc. And it is ridiculously cheap! I bought some seasoning which I was in desperate need of for my for my various chicken dinners I have made! I will definitely be going back there! Then, I showed Kendall the cafe across the street and we both go a "Corkaccino"...mine was Irish cream flavored! mmmmm! That cafe is great....the only bad thing is the fact that it closes at 5 every night and is closed on Sundays and possibly even Saturdays for various church groups! But, oh well!
Well, now I'm off to go eat at Amy, Chelsea, and Elena's apartment before checking out some volleyball club thing tonight. It should be great! The weather here is starting to show it's rainy side the last couple of days. However, it is never a constant rain. Rather, it rains for 10 minutes, then it's sunny, then twenty minutes it rains again..and so on...pretty crazy!
Before I go (this has turned into a long post) I have to share a quick story from class:
Our teacher is a very unique woman who loves to talk! She can be a little boring for my tastes but every once in awhile she says something that completely catches us off guard. For example, yesterday, we were talking about gender roles in the early Irish peasant societies. Well, in the middle of her lecture she asked us this question, "What would you all have thought if the bus driver on our field trip last Thursday was a woman?" We all kind of looked around and shrugged our shoulders which apparently really surprised her and she then directed the question more directly at me (because I am one of the two people she knows the names of in class) and said, "Jake, you wouldn't have been even a little worried if the driver would have been a woman? What about a very small woman?" hahaha...and I didn't really know what to say so I just shrugged my shoulders and said no not really. She was very surprised at all of us (she was chuckling a bit but still serious at the same time). We could not believe how serious she was. After class, a few of us were talking about it and I brought up the fact that I have definitely noticed how much gender roles are still very engrained in Irish culture! All over the place! Especially in the Catholic church! I don't really have any specific examples off the top of my head, but there have been a couple instances where I have seen articles on women oppression in the church in the newspapers! Our teacher has said some very gender role comments as well! It is interesting to see this coming through still today! However, Ireland has a woman president at the same time? Very interesting stuff indeed!
Okkk, I talked way too much! Hope it wasn't too long! Ill check in tomorrow before our big field trip to the Aran Islands this weekend! PEACE!
I'd be worried if there was a woman bus driver. Women drivers.....now that's scary stuff!!!
ReplyDeletei think she just meant that the bus drive wouldn't have been able to reach the pedals! that would scare me. kind like, "jake, wouldn't you be even a little bit more concerned if your bus driver didn't have any legs? hmmm?"
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