Yikes! It's been a long time!

Sorry all for not updating this for the last 2 weeks or so, life has gotten a bit busier. Which tends to happen when I'm in Med Ren, Mountaineering, Gaelic Football, and classes...

Anywho, I'm not going to through every single day because a) I think that would probably bore you and b) it would take forever to write. Yes, I am that lazy...sorry. Ok, now on to the highlights:

Day 22- Hiking in the Comeragh Mountains in County Waterford with the Mountaineering club. It was beautiful and hard but so worth it. I have a bunch of pictures up on facebook so you've probably already seen them (since I think everyone reading this has facebook...)

Day 23- Learned a song on the Uilleann pipes and got praised a lot for knowing my scale and being able to do it with a sustained sound :) Had my first Irish Gaelic class and it was so fun! It's nice to be taking a language other than Spanish, though the spellings don't match the pronunciations at all! Since when did a "bh" make a "v" sound?? I also went rock wall climbing with the Mountaineering club and it was great. The people in the club are really awesome and scaling walls is fun ^.^

Day 24- First REAL downpour since I've been here. It was cold, wet, and nothing like rain in California.... :)

Day 28- MASTERED THAT UILLEANN PIPE SONG!!! Boo yeah ;)

Day 29- Hiking in the Gougane Barra with the Mountaineering club. This time around it was much more what I expected hiking in Ireland to be like: ridiculously muddy, chilly all day and lots of heather. It was fun but I enjoyed the Comeraghs more because, personally, I thought the views were prettier. Not that Gougane Barra wasn't pretty, it was just a lot of the same once we got to the top of the mountain: heather and mud everywhere you stepped. Feeling like you're going up into the Mists of Avalon though, priceless.

Day 30- Ahhh crazy day of doom!! I played my Uilleann pipe song and learned another song (yay!) and got praised for playing my first one so well...I love all the praising going on ;) Anywho, after my 5 hours of class I had my first Gaelic football practice (I believe I explained how this game works in an earlier post, so I won't bore you with it again). Good grief this game is tough! Luckily a lot of my soccer skills came back, though those are only useful for soloing the ball (bouncing it off my own foot back into my hands whilst running at break neck speed...well ok,while trying to run at break neck speed) and punting it. There's so much coordination involved, it's ridiculous. Buuuuuut a ton of fun.

Day 31- My friend Bethany and I decided to try out the "all-American" restaurant called Eddie Rockets because neither of us eat out very often and we felt like having malts :) Wow is all I can say. It was sooooo good. The malts were absolute heaven and I don't think fries have ever tasted so good. Though that might in part be because I haven't had fries in about a month at this point....*shrug*

Day 32- Owww. There's a German girl in Med Ren who has absolutely no freaking clue how to wield a spear, and it's really starting to annoy the hell out of me. She whacked me across the head twice and nearly took my head off or poked an eye out more times than I can shake a fist at. She's dangerous and gave me a scrape on my left shoulder, a huge bruise on my thigh, a bruise across my stomach and a bump on the head...freaking idiot. It's also frustrating because I would sometimes lose to her if we were sparring one on one because I didn't want to, oh, I dunno, DIE. (And by die I mean have serious pain inflicted upon me) *sigh*

Day 33- Gaelic football practice again, though much much harder this time. They had us do so many drills that involved sprinting as fast as possible for extended periods of time I thought I was going to fall over. It was exhausting...

Ok well that's the last 2 weeks in a nut shell and a taste of what my life has been like over here! Hope you enjoyed reading!

Update from the week

Day 17: Japanese storytelling
Well it was a great day for class...in the fact that it didn't happen. I already only have one class on Tuesdays, and today there was a (imaginary) fire so they closed down the building where my class was...yay! (?) Later on that night though there was traditional Japanese storytelling in the Honan Chapel on campus, which was really neat. There was a world famous Japanese storyteller (I can't remember what it's called if anyone else can) who performed excerpts from 2 pieces: Ran'cho and Sekitori Senyo Nobori. This was the first time that this type of Japanese music had ever been performed in Ireland- I saw history happen! He performed and played the shamisen, with him singing in Japanese. It was a great experience but not necessarily one I'd repeat, not because I didn't enjoy it, it's just that I feel like I didn't grasp the full meaning of the songs/stories since they're about a culture I have limited knowledge about and in a language I don't understand at all. The culture and history behind the music went over my head, so I feel like I couldn't truly appreciate the nuances of the story :( Still fun though :)

Day 18: MedRen
Last week my friend Bethany mentioned a club called the Medieval and Renaissance club (hence MedRen) where they teach people how to fight with SPEARS!!!! As a result, I found myself hauling myself back to the campus that night to give this spear thing a try. IT WAS SO FUN!!!! Most of us were really uses staffs since they didn't have a spear tip at all, and those who did had the end without the spear tip facing their opponent. We learned basic attacks, the "kill" spots (places where, during combat, you aim for to beat your opponent) and the blocks for those spots. Then they threw us into sparring. It was tough, especially since the guys are a lot stronger and sometimes hit your spear hard enough to knock off your grip, but really rewarding. At the very end (the thing was 3 hours long...) we got into a circle and had 2 people face off in the middle. The loser went back into the circle and the victor stayed in to face the next opponent. During this I got whacked upside the head (quite painfully I might add, but he felt absolutely terrible about it) but kept going and beat him (which was also really awesome since he was one of the student teachers who had experience). I faced and beat the next 4 people in line before I got taken out :D

Battle wounds from this little endeavor: bruised left pinky (someone's staff slid up mine during a match and whacked my pinky), ridiculously sore shoulders and arms, slight stiffness in my left hand (the one that leads when you're fighting), and a painful bump on my head.

Day 19: The Bodhran
Technically there's a fada (accent) on the "a" but I don't know how to do that...*shrugs*

Well, I had my first Bodhran lesson! The teacher seems really nice and good, and I think it's going to be fun. The Bodhran, for those of you who don't know, is a traditional Irish drum. It's just a circle drum that rests on your knee and you adjust the pitch of the tones by moving your hand along the back of the drum skin. You play it with a "tipper," which is just a type of drum stick. It's going to be hard in a different way than the Uilleann pipes, though I have to say it doesn't appear nearly as hard as the pipes. It'll be a neat instrument to be able to play, but I don't feel as much of a connection as I do with the Uilleann pipes...eh, can't absolutely love everything. The trick with the Bodhran is the strength required to make really resounding tones on it, since it actually is a bit hard to get the force right.

Day 20: Schedule of doom, chocolate and dancing
I was FINALLY able to get my class schedule for my Intro to Irish Gaelic! Yay! However, the overwhelming happiness was dampered a bit when I realized that they scheduled my class on Mondays right in between 2 classes I already have...gah. So with this addition my Mondays officially became my hell day: class from 1-6 straight. The only "break" is when I get to practically run down from the Music Department after Uilleann pipes (ending around 3:30) to main campus (bout 20min away at a good clip) for Gaelic at 4. After that I get to learn how to teleport myself to Intro to Traditional Irish Music since that starts at 5pm but Gaelic ends at, you guessed it, 5pm. Mondays are going to be simply joyous occasions >.<

After this fun realization I went back to the apartments and talked, via facebook chat, to Catherine, Marissa and Patty- which was really nice. Bethany and I had decided to meet up and watch movies and eat chocolate...it was just that kind of day. And boy did we eat chocolate. Holy cow. Probably far to much of it, but oh well *looks really content and happy* We finished watching The Court Jester and started Hercules before Jack came over as well.

For some reason which escapes me, they wound up playing Irish dance music and "making" me dance (ya cause I would never want to do that). They got a real kick out of watching me, and it was fun to see what I could remember. It was incredible how strongly memories from dance class came back to me. I could picture every detail of the studio and even see people dancing if I closed my eyes...the strength of the audio-visual connection shocked me and spun me for a loop.

But ok, that's it for this update. My hiking adventure in the Comeraghs deserves its own post!

Uilleann Pipes

Day 16: The Uilleann Pipes

On a side note, it's pronounced "illen" with the first sound being a combo "i" and "e" sound...hard to describe. It's just a very soft sound, not like the harsh American "i". And the name comes from the Irish Gaelic word "uile" which means "elbow," since a lot of the playing is in the elbows.

Anywho, Monday was my first lesson, and I truly came to understand how hard they are going to be. For those of you unfamiliar with the structure of the Uilleann pipes, I'll quickly describe them (plus put a picture up). The first part is a bellow that you strap to your dominant arm and around your waist. This bellow is then attached via a valve to a large bag that rests on the other side of you and sort of on your hip. The bag has a thinner "neck" part that attaches to a chantor (the actual pipe with reeds inside it for sound) which you position upright with the opening on the bottom against your dominant leg (same side with the bellows). So you don't actually use breath to power this puppy at all. Think you got it?

Now imagine playing that.

It's intense and looks waaaaay easier than it is. My teacher has been playing for who knows how long and is amazing. Getting a sustained sound out of the pipes is hard, mainly because you have to try and keep the bag filled (by pumping the bellow) whilst putting enough pressure on the bag to emit a sound...thereby slowly emptying it. Gah. Oh, and don't forget that amidst this you are actually playing it- trying to figure out the fingering while your arms work the bellow and the bag. It's a sure test of the ability to multitask.

Despite the difficulty she did successfully get me to play a scale- not with a sustained sound at all, but I got the fingering right at least. Apparently that was an accomplishment :) Since I only have this lesson once a week I need to practice (a lot) and she wants me to work on sustaining a note and I'm going to try to also learn the fingering by heart so she can tell me to play a D and I'll actually know what that looks/feels like.

Wish me luck!

Cooking and Clonakilty

Day 12: Cooking on a Thursday night

And by cooking I should clarify that I mean I sorta-kinda-not-really helped 2 of my friends cook a delicious meal of salmon, mashed potatoes and snap peas (which were essentially my contribution to this masterful meal). Anywho, most nights we all kinda cook for ourselves or if, like me, they are often too lazy/tired to cook, make a sandwich of pb&j or ham & cheese. But this meal was awesome and definitely the best I've had since I've been here. Pretty much just felt like commenting on that... :)

Day 14: Clonakilty

A friend and I heard about a juggling festival schindig that was going on in Clonakilty (pronounced the way it looks) and thought we'd check it out. So we get up, are all ready and head over to the bus station close to what time we thought the bus was leaving, based on our interpretation of the bus schedule....no dice. We apparently read it completely wrong and wound up having to wait about an hour before the bus we needed showed up. Joy. Oh well, then it was a pretty and very scenic hour ride to Clonakilty.

Once in Clonakilty, we realized how SMALL this place was. Oh my goodness. I could get around the part that actually was a "city" (since most of Clonakilty was farmland, so I don't really count that in terms of size) in about 10min- tops. It was very quaint and colorful and probably had a population of 2,000...on the upside. I took some pictures that I need to get up. Anywho, we found the juggling people, but it wasn't quite what we expected. It was billed as a festival and all, but it turned out to be a group of jugglers performing (mainly) for little kids in a gym....wtf? At least the street performances were good, I wish I could've some on film, they were that amazing.

Despite the slight letdown, it was still fun, and we checked out a model village place that had scaled models of Clonakilty and the surrounding area. Pretty neat, again have pictures that I'll probably put up in a bit.

UPDATE pt 5: Flatmates and Classes

Ok, as promised here tis!

Day 8: Yes, I did part of this, but now for flatmates
Part way through our delicious dinner of pizza, I heard the door open. I went to investigate and found Marguerite! She's the last of the flatmates, making us 4 in all. Hannah (American from North Carolina), Christine (Irish and from about 60 miles away), Marguerite (Irish and also from a 60 miles away, in the other direction from Christine) and myself. Christine and Marguerite joined us in watching The Court Jester (I love this movie, by the way, and was delighted when Bethany and I realized our shared enjoyment). The four of us shared good laughs and got along crazy well. They are both sweet girls and I enjoy their company quite a bit. Christine is a biology major (YAY) and Marguerite is in architecture...yikes. Both said that they'll go home for weekends since they have jobs at home rather than one's here. The Irish students actually tend to go home on weekends, every weekend, if they live even remotely close, it's so different from back home. I'm hoping that somewhere down the line I'll get invited to go with one of them so I can 1) get a free meal and 2) experience an Irish home. I'll just have to wait! :)

Day 9: First day of classes
Well, today it began with the long trek up to the music building (I have since found a faster way to get there, but it took about 40 min on Monday) for my Difference and Otherness in Western Music class from 1-3. This class seems like it's going to be awesome actually. The lecturer is very engaging and the course material is like nothing I've studied before so I'm going to learn a lot :) After that I had a very confusing journey to the Connelly (pronounced CONNally, emphasis on the "conn" and a sound like you're saying "convict") Building. This is not because I am challenged, let me assure you. I was told Connelly was a big pink building "Ye can't miss it"...riiiiiiight. What they failed to mention was that said pink building was behind a normal grey looking one and that you couldn't see the pink from the street. Bloody brilliant. Once I finally found it, I had my Intro to Traditional Irish Music class. It also seems really interesting- I'll be learning about the different types of Irish instruments and their evolution through the years, along with recognising where in Ireland a type of playing originates. For example, there are 4 very prominent types of fiddle playing down the West coast of Ireland: Donegal, Sligo, County Claire, and Sliabh Luachra (I can't remember how she pronounced this, maybe after my Gaelic class I can tell you). Each has distinguishable features, such as more trebles or a longer bow sound vs a short bow (longer more drawn out notes vs not essentially)....it's fascinating. After years of Irish dance who'dve thunk I'd learn the differences in the type of music I was dancing to?

That was pretty much the extent of my first day of classes...a whole 2. Both of which only meet on Monday- one for 2 hours and the other for 1. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G

Day 10: 2nd day of class
One of the classes I'm taking is the Uilleann pipes. They're kind of like bag pipes, but more complex and you don't actually use your breath to "power" it. Instead you use these pumps that you put under your arms...hence its nickname of making the people who play it look like chickens. In the morning I went to set up a time for my lessons, which will be for an hour every week...which doesn't seem like much, but ok. She'll let me know when my lessons are later in the week.

Later on I had my Sociology of the Family class, which is kinda meh. I could try to find a different class, but this one will fulfill my social science requirement in the states, so I'll stick with it. It's not gonna be hard, the lecturer just isn't overly engaging. But I only have to listen to him for an hour Tuesdays and Wednesdays (the only class I have that's more than once a week). And that pretty much concluded class Tuesday.

Day 11: 3rd day of classes
All I had today was a meeting to set up the time for my Intro to Irish Gaelic class (she tries to schedule things around our schedule and has multiple groups that she splits us into apparently) where I will find out what time my classes are on Monday *sigh* and my sociology class again.

After my absolutely exhausting day *insert sarcasm* I went to hang with Bridget and Jack and we watched the season premiere of House!! Yay!! We saw it 2 days late, but whatever, at least we got to see it :) Once the beauty of House was finished we just hung out and then I wound up teaching them some basic hardshoe moves (from Irish dance) which was quite the adventure. I've never taught complete newbies, and it was a tad harder than I anticipated. But we got a few laughs and they got the basics...eventually ;)

We went for a walk around 10:30pm or so and found the most random thing: a barrel with a spigot labeled "Holy Water"...I'm not even kidding. It was the funniest thing ever. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera, but I had my phone so I took a picture with that....now to figure out how to get it off of there...but no worries, I will find a way! Cause that was just too hilarious :)

And...wait for it...I'M CAUGHT UP!!!!!! Thank goodness.

UPDATE pt 4: The Weekend

Ok, I'm just doing the weekend here cause otherwise it'll get intimidatingly long. The next one will be about my flatmates and classes I promise. And then I'll be caught up, so be excited!!

Day 7: My first Saturday
Aaaahh the joy of sleeping in on a Saturday is something irreplaceable...especially when I haven't been able to sleep in the whole time I've been here. It was very relaxing and mainly consisted of putting up photos, updating this, skyping people and talking to Byron (since Byron and my dad still haven't gotten skype *glare*). Other than that I tried to explore St. Finbarre's Cathedral because it's so beautiful but it was CLOSED. Huh? Weird right? Oh well, I figured I'd just try later. Wound up walking around and exploring a bit of the city and then going back and having a movie night with a couple friends.

Day 8: Gaelic Football and Irish pizza
So the Irish have their own sport called Gaelic football. It's been described to me (via my dear friend Wikipedia and locals) as a combination of rugby, basketball, and football (soccer). It's the second fastest moving game after hurling, and dude they're not kidding. They play it on a football pitch but the goals are different. They kinda look like American football goals with the H shape, but there's a net in the lower half where players can kick it in. So teams get 3 points for scoring in the net and only 1 for kicking it or punching it over the crossbar. Unlike football, they don't dribble the ball with their feet. They carry it and every 3 steps have to bounce it off the ground (like dribbling in basketball), "solo" it (bounce the ball off their own foot back into their hands), or pass/shoot it. It's insane.

Anywho, there was a match of county Cork vs county Kerry, Cork's archenemy...mainly cause Kerry borders Cork, so the closest counties always have more tension. It was the all-Irelands, so a pretty big deal. Bethany and I got our red on (Cork's color) and went to a pub to watch. Oh goodness. Definitely a good way to experience Irish culture. We were surrounded by screaming drunk Irish men who would make the whole pub seem like it was going to erupt everytime Cork scored. It was great fun, really. The silence that ensued whenever Kerry scored was also highly amusing :) Sadly, Cork lost by 4 points, but kudos to them because Cork got a net goal and Kerry didn't at all...and let me tell you, net goals are hard as heck to pull off.

After the match Bethany and I banded together in our confusion and frustration with the UCC timetables. GAH. It's not necessarily worse or better than our system in the states, just different and a tad confusing to figure out. Especially when your classes aren't on it and you have it the next day...

When hunger struck we ordered our first Irish pizza!! Yes, we know we are goofs for being excited about that, but oh well. It was fun :) And just for your info, the pizza tastes the same as in the states, they even have Domino's over here.

Ok, on to the next post so as not to overwhelm you in one fell swoop.

UPDATE pt 3: Cork

Day 5: Orientation at UCC
Again with the 8am mornings...yeesh. Today was off to UCC (University College Cork) which was quite the hike away actually. Bout a 20 minute walk at a good clip. The orientation started at 9:45 and we didn't get out of there till 1pm!! And it was bloody hot down there too. They talked to us about academics, clubs, societies, and other stuff that was not incredibly interesting and we'd somewhat heard already at the orientation in Dublin *sigh*

Afterwards my friend Jack and I wound up separated from the rest of the group and decided to grab a quick bite and then wander around to see what we could see. We did find a beautiful little scenic pathway behind the college next to the north channel of the Lee (see picture below) and saw a ridiculous amount of Cork since we got horribly lost for about 1.5 hours. It was fun times though :)

Day 6: ID cards and musically-inspired adventure
Off to UCC again to get ID cards and a ton of free stuff from the club members. But that was just the start. We had some time between getting our cards and the academic walkabout (where the heads of each department were at tables to answer questions and get you interested in their class) so we decided to explore the library...you know, browse a bit. The library had a different idea. IT DOESN'T HAVE A BROWSING SECTION!!!!! AAAAHHHH!!! Do you realize how painful that was to realize? You just look books up in the online catalogue and someone gets the book FOR you *cry*

After the library fail we went to the walkabout, which was not very helpful or informative. Though I know what classes I want to take anyways so it didn't really affect me much. When Jack and I were done we thought we'd be smart and go in search of the Music building since we're both going to take music classes. We should've been tipped off when there was NO music building on the campus map...anywhere. Riiiiiiight. So, we went down to go ask someone in the International Student Office how to get to it (since we knew it had to exist somewhere) and ran into Bethany, who initially was just letting us know the ISO was closed...ugh. However, she wound up being a music student as well and came along with us.

Once we procured decent directions and a good map we were off on the hike of our lives. Gad zooks this building is far!! I don't know in miles how long it was but it was a fair bit (for those of you who know the Claremont Colleges imagine walking from the end of Mudd to the south end of Pomona...and multiply that by a neverending hill and a bit more distance). When we triumphed and reached the top we unanimously decided the view was worth the walk, since it was absolutely gorgeous. The idea of walking up there for 4 classes throughout the week however is quite daunting.

On the way back we came up with a perfect name for how one feels as a pedestrian in Irish cities: Human Frogger. If you think California drivers are bad/crazy, the Irish are 10 times worse. They take corners ridiculously fast (keep in mind their streets are about one of our lanes back home...only turn that into a 2 way street) and I feel like they'd just keep going if they hit someone.

Yay adventure!