Write It Down

Let it be known that I have officially survived my first few days here in Cork, and not only survived them but quite enjoyed them! The past coupla days have been a total blur of names and faces and places, kind of like freshman year all over again. It's quite nice because mostly everyone is new, so it is very easy to just go up to people and introduce yourself.

Anyway, the first day we got here was quite possibly the longest day of my life. Grandpa and I left Portland early in the morning, our flight took off around 8:15 AM I believe, and we landed in Newark around 4 PM eastern with just a few hours before we took off for Shannon. Too bad the dummies whose job it was to prepare the plane for a new flight slacked off and had to double back to finish things, meaning we sat on a roasting plane at the gate for about 45 minutes before given clearance to even begin taxiing. Whoa, I don't believe that I have ever spelled taxiing before. Anyway, the flights were both bearable. Quite turbulent but obviously everything worked out fine.

After we landed, we had to wait a bit for Cathy's plane from JFK to land, during which we drank tea and ate biscuits in the Shannon airport Cafe. Laura and Jen both slept a bit but I tried to stay awake so as not to completely ruin my chances at avoiding super jetlag. The drive to Cork from Shannon was very pretty, we saw loads of cows and sheep and cute little buildings. Sitting in the front of a car on the left side is quite a strange experience, especially when enormous trucks come speeding at you around hairpin turns.

We finally arrived in Cork and found our building, wandered inside and met the landlady and were given our keys! The rest of the day was spent shopping and unpacking and running around like crazy people. That night, we had Papa John's for dinner... authentic Irish cuisine.

The next day we ran some more errands and then made our way over to the university. We got a bit lost but still made it on time for our meeting with our onsite coordinator. He seems quite nice and is a professor of Archaeology. It turns out that the building my first class meets in was built on the same plot of land that used to be home to a prison. Grrrrreat. That evening, all of us BC kids and our roommates hung out a bit and a few of us went out to some pubs. The first place we went to, Preachers, had been recommended to one of us by a friend who had studied at UCC some years ago. So we show up, order our drinks, and it turns out that the place had just been remodeled and it was their first night open! So everything was on the house!

The next day was orientation, which lasted 80109201290129340924 years and was terribly boring. The student government had planned a bunch of stuff for us to do afterward, which was way exciting. We went on a little tour, hung out in the student's club and then went to a movie (I Love You, Beth Cooper) which SUCKED soooo much, I'm so glad it wasn't on my dime. After the movie we went to this pub with a couple of bowling alleys, pool tables and karaoke rooms.. so much fun! A bunch of us did karaoke (spice girls, backstreet boys, grease, etc) and then bowled. Amazingly, I was the best bowler of our group and I got spares in almost every frame! They had us set to go to a night club afterward, at which I lasted only a few minutes.

And now I am way too exhausted to finish talking about my exciting adventures, I'm sure this is all riddled with typoes and makes no sense at all. To be continued!!

A little shot of my Cork countdown widget:


In other news, why the EFF are all the dates for my posts April 17, 2009? IDGI.

Shout out to Auntie Erin who asked "what do you BLOG about???"

Well, it is officially my last day in Tacoma until about... May 2010.

I can't even begin to list all of the things I will miss, so I'm not even going to try.

We had a great little goodbye party here last night, all the neighbors came by and a few friends from high school and work. Mom made tons of amazing food, dad grilled some delicious steaks and there were plenty of snacks and sweets to be had. Quite a good night, all told.

Now I just have to pack my carry on bag then it is bye bye Washington. :(

Funny things people have said:
"We'll tweet and blog him (Paul Allen) to death!!!"
"Matt!!! You've made a Hansel and Gretal trail of hamburger!"
"I'm not feeding SALSA to a CAT!"

In other words, the beach has been a good time so far. We've shopped, ate too much, played games, watched movies... and best of all! The house has a magical bookshelf! On it lives many books that I have been meaning to read for a great a time including In His Own Write, A Spaniard in the Works, On the Road, and a few collections of great Amurrrican short stories, etc.

I got an email today from my academic mentor guy at UCC, he seems nice. But, his name is the EXACT same name as an author of this book that was launched at last year's La Na Gaeilge. It's not the same guy, because the author one is dead, but.. it's kind of weird!

This is an incredibly incoherent post because there are 500 million people talking really loudy loud. The end.

Got this gem in my email today from my good ol' study abroad adviser, Esther:

We have been notified by Associate Dean of Students, Dr. Paul Chebator, that you have had a history of disciplinary infractions that could jeopardize your application to study abroad. This e-mail is to notify you that you are in conditional status regarding discipline clearance for study abroad. If you have any more discipline problems before you leave to go abroad you may be ineligible to study abroad. In addition, the Director of the Office of International Programs may use discretion when dealing with disciplinary issues and can withdraw a student from study abroad at any time if the situation warrants. Please do your best to keep a clean record from now on.

First of all, I don't have a disciplinary record at BC! I've never been written up for anything or received any kind of warning whatsoever. Needless to say, I replied right away, saying something along the lines of "uhm, WTF?" After a bit of texting, I discovered that a few others had received the same email... so hopefully it was just a computer error. STILL. I am nowhere near the president of this lady's fan club.

In other, better news, the summer has been pretty good and very eventful so far.

I went back to work pretty much right away after coming home and then went to Sasquatch over memorial day weekend which was PHENOMENAL and needs a heading of its own.

SASQUATCH:
cast: Keavy, Kelsey, Mackenzie, Max
Kelsey flew in on Thursday night and we spent all of Friday grocery shopping and getting pedicures and then Max picked us up and we went to get Mackenzie from work and hit the road. It was a long trip up because of the traffic, but it was a nice drive all together. Kelsey and I successfully pitched our tent in the dark, putting our awesome girl power to use, and went to bed shortly after. Then the drama began on Monday. After laying around a while and snacking, we decided to head into the Gorge, which meant that we'd be there all day (no reentry, LAME). Before our tickets were scanned, Max & Mackenzie decide to have a chit chat outside resulting in, Max deciding he needed to go back home to Tacoma due to heat stroke. So, Mackenzie drove him allll the way home and Kelsey and I enjoyed the first day of the festival.
We saw The Decemberists, Animal Collective, Bon Iver, Devotchka, M. Ward, Doves, The Gaslight Anthem and Mos Def. The Decemberists were GREAT, which I knew before hand, but I hadn't really heard of many of the others before and was pleasantly surprised by Devotchka, M. Ward and Bon Iver. Doves were pretty good, too, but were too close to a Coldplay ripoff for my taste, and I'm not really even a Coldplay fan.
The next day, Mackenzie made it back by noonish, by which point Kelsey and I had already waited 2.5 hours in line for freezing cold showers and were huddled in a small patch of shade with a closeted (even to himself...) gay man and his stack of People magazines. It was pretty fun times. By the time Mack showed up, we were good to head into the Gorge for the day. We saw a little bit of Jane's Addiction, TV on the Radio, a few minutes of Of Montreal, The Avett Brothers, Calexico, The Walkmen, The Submarines, a teeeeny bit of The Builders and the Butchers (wish we saw more of them!), Natalie Portman's Shaved Head (<33333333) class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Avett Brothers, The Submarines and The Walkmen were particularly enjoyable, aside from NPSH, obviously.
Day three was a good day, too, aside from the presence of a pile of rotten puke that our lovely neighbor had left on our side of their tent. We decided to pack up before we hit the gorge so that when we came back, we'd be all good to go, which was a VERY wise decision. That day we saw Gogol Bordello (ruled the festival, by far), Grizzly Bear, Blitzen Trapper (SO GOOD!), Bishop Allen, ... and I can't remember who else we saw that day. I also forgot to mention that we got to meet both The Submarines & Blizten Trapper! They were all very nice :)
All in all, it was a great weekend with friends and crazy hippies! We had dinner in George, WA at a gas station Subway on the way back. The Subway had a sign that said "Sorry nl wheat!!" or something like that. It was weird.

After Sasquatch, I came home, worked a bit more at the zoo and then went down to Portland for a long weekend at my aunt and uncle's and of course, La na Gaeilge on Saturday May 30 at Marylhurst University with my grandpa.

LA NA GAEILGE:
This was my second year at the Irish language immersion day and it was even better than the first. The day is put together as a series of classes and workshops and the classes are broken down based on skill level. Grandpa and I were in Lucy's Advanced Beginner class, which was really fun because Lucy is a riot and spending time with G-pa is always worthwhile, but I probably should have been the next level up, or even at "conversations" to challenge myself. Pé scéal é, it was a good time.
There were definitely a fair share of weirdos, though, including a fella called Hal who was the very proud owner of a concertina. The building we were using for the day had no a/c except for the classrooms, so we were quite glad to sit at our tables and learn with the reward of cold air :) All of us, except for Hal, of course. The minute we sit down he starts to shiver and pulls out a long sleeved flannel button up shirt, a fleece vest and this odd crocheted beret. It was in the high 80s. I don't even understand why the man brought the clothes with him. He also kept asking obnoxious questions which did not apply at all to the lesson we were learning.
Another weirdo was this girl Fern who described herself as a student of anthropology and druidic ritual, being a firm believer in the common ground of nature-based, paganistic tradition in all historical cultures and societies. Like I said. Weirdo. She kind of latched onto me and blabbered on and on about how much she hates English people for what they did, etc. When she found out about my year abroad next year she went CRAZY telling me all these things I have to do and places I have to go and giving me her little tips and tricks on surviving in the wild. She was a hoot.
For the workshops, they offered four different choices: Pronunciation, sean nos dancing (traditional), sean nos singing, and hurling. Grandpa and I chose hurling. It was really fun but incredibly hard. I certainly don't have the natural hand-eye coordination required to be successful at the sport, but it was cool to try. It was also hotter than hell outside, which made running around and swinging at little balls a bit un-fun.
After the workshop, we went back inside and did a bit of singing and music-playing before everyone hit the road.
It was a great day, although I was a bit sad they didn't have t-shirts this year. I love t-shirts.

I spent the rest of the weekend hanging out with my cousins, which was great because I don't get to see them as much as I like to being away in Boston most of the year. Ezrah has grown up quite a bit and is SUCH a trouble maker! Also, Grandpa and I bought our plane tickets for Cork... it's official! I can't wait. We're flying out of PDX on August 18!

If you've made it to the end of this, you're a champion. I'll try to be better about blogging the rest of my non-eventful summer and maybe I'll put up some more details about this past month - it's been a bit action packed.