Feb 29th-Mar 3rd R.A.G. week and The Gathering

R.A.G. week stands for raise and give week and is an infamous week for many eurpoean universities. it is a week where the main focus of thousands of students is to raise loads of money for different organizations and to drink large amounts of alcohol...i dont think i can emphasize enough their love of drinking (also known as having a good craic. craic meaning night/drinking/social experience in general). most of the time rag week is full of concerts and different events happening throughout the week. this year was different though. apparently these rag weeks were getting absolutely out of control. students were treating it like a spring break at school. the drinking would start at noon, meaning no lectures were being attended, and go on well into the night when a concert would be. school boards decided this was too much (surprising considering they were irish). our entire rag week was condensed into one night and was called The Gathering. lectures for this day were cancelled, the drinking started at noon, and a car park was set up for a day of concerts. here is a video from one of the concerts (oh, and first time for me using my video camera, thank you daddy!):

in this video is my roomie aoife (blonde hair), her sister breege, and her boyfriend barry...(oh, and this would be described as "a very good craic!")



overall i felt the week in general could have been a little better. i guess i had been a bit let down after the hype of it all. the gathering was a great day though. at this stage i began to realize just how close aoife and i were getting and it was nice. my roommates thoughout my college experience have always been my closest, most dearest friends. the kind of friends who you realize will be in your life forever. it was beginning to become clear that this semester would be no exception :)

Feb 27th: visa and dublin again!

another weekend had rolled around and like clockwork the roommates were gone and i was ready to head back into dublin. jordan had called and asked if i wanted to go get some mexican food with her and a couple of friends. now i dont want to sound like a fat ass who's mouth was watering by the thought of a taco, but i nearly jumped for joy. i was more than ready for chips and salsa to be a substitute for sausage and potatoes. thank you god!!! the only thing that was stopping me from this savory hispanic heaven was my appointment to get my visa at the guarda station. it was at the same time that they were planning on grabbing lunch. i decided to go in earlier than my scheduled appointment and try to make it happen. not at all to my surprise, i had made it all the way to the station and had forgotten my passport. with beans, rice, and margarita's on the brain i ran to my apt and back up to the station. sweating and panting from my little excursion, if you will, i busted through the station doors nearly ramming the family of 5 from nigeria who had conveniently walked in seconds before me. an hour later (yes, a FULL hour of listening to 4 nigerian children whining for mcdonalds) i received my temp student visa. needless to say i missed out on lunch and wanted nothing more than a large pint of anything containing alcohol.

ended up meeting jordan anyway to watch a rugby match (sidenote: i love rugby!!!)i then went to watch a play at the abbey theatre with a friend (very good play and strange to hear such strong irish accents). after the play i met back up with jordan for a night out in dublin followed by another 4am nightlink :)

Feb 22nd-26th: galway

this particular week i decided to take it easy. and by that i mean keep off the drink like i had planned. one night during the week and once on the weekend and in return make it to more lectures. the most exciting part of the week was wed. went to galway with the volleyball club. the bus ride was fun and kind of eerie. fun because we did "team" things. played some cards, joked around a bit, shared ipods...the usual bus routines. and eerie because it was the first time i had been on a bus with a group of people besides my vball team. this may or may not have brought a tear to my eye :) i guess it just made me realize the small things about vball and being on a team that i will miss very much. it was kind of humorous though. when we were pulling away from the school i went through my checklist...kneepads, ankle braces, shoes, warm-ups, both jerseys...wait. this was not fmu and not serious vball...didnt know falling into old mental habits was so easy.

but the bus ride was fun...the actual playing part however, was literally excruciating. i think...wait let me rephrase that...i know i could have had more fun passing and setting the ball to myself. here is a picture that describes the match:

thats right...i served, served, and served some more. after giving a girl a facial off a serve, which to my amazement was actually possible, i tried to find the one girl on the team who could at least kick it over. this failed as well. needless to say we won and celebrated on the bus ride back like most irish people would...with some drinks!! they really do find any excuse to drink.

the most exciting part was getting to see galway though. a beautiful little city that i will definitely need to revisit!

Feb 20th-21st: first weekend in dublin!

first of all i would like to point out how painfully depressing it is that it is april and i am updating my blog on events that happened in february. ummm...oops :)

this particular weekend had started off like normal. my roommates had literally sprinted out the door at about 3pm on friday anxious to get home. like i said before it is now april and this dissapearing of the roomies happens like clockwork every weekend. i still find this to be somewhat strange. back at fmu we were happy to be away from home. we missed our families and friends from home, yes, but weren't aching to get to them weekend after weekend. i can recall countless christmas breaks talking to my friends and the whining was resounding. a month at home seemed like an eternity. we were used to our parent-less freedom full of doing what we wanted without answering to anyone. its different here though. i have a couple theories (none of which are based on facts, at all) but nonetheless here they are. one is that people seem so much more family oriented here. my roommates are constantly talking about to members of their families and going to visit them. whether it be cousins, aunts, uncles, ect. and so many children still live at home after or during college. its normal and the parents actually like it. i just learned this past week that divorce wasn't legalized here till 1997 (i think). that seems crazy to me. another theory i have is that because its such a small country so many families live within a close distance of each other. regardless of what it actually is, all of this seems to empasize the importance they place on family here. and while it seems strange to me...its nice. definately a quality of the culture i find admirable.

well that was one hell of a tangent. back to the weekend of 2/20-2/21. so my roommates were gone and i still hadn't made too many close friends. i decided that i would not let this keep me in my room watching movies online! thats right! i decided to go into dublin and do something really productive and "touristy". yep, you guessed it...shopping!!!!

so i took the dart in (the train here) and got off at connally station. aofie had informed me that if i got off here i could find henry and o'connell street, two major shopping streets in the city. long story short, i fought the directionally jessica that told me to turn right, no left, ahhhh, and found these two streets. i also ended up running into a group of american girls that i some classes with (ireland is that small. it gets better though). did some shopping with them, had my first official fish and chips, and then grabbed a couple pints at a local bar. it was at this bar that we ran into another american who happened to be from ohio, who happened to know and go to highschool with one of my best friends, jackie, from fmu. yes, it really is a small world after all. her name is jordan and she is a nanny for a family here in ireland. couldnt find work after school and decided to come over here for a year. pretty amazing. we ended up staying out all night and having a blast. caught my first nightlink back to maynooth. left the city center at 4am...oh ireland how i love your nightlife.

I'm back and really doing it this time!!!

i guess i lied before. as you could tell i failed miserably in updating my blog. however, after reading my friend amy's blog i realized...if she can keep this blog thing up so can i!!!! thanks for the inspiration haus :) so to keep it simple and kind of on a timeline i will title the next couple blogs with the dates they happened. more like a diary style i guess. here goes nothing....

Uneventful, typical week

so the last time i "blogged" was on valentine's day. aka, worst fake holiday ever. now i know i sound like your typical cynical v-day hater...and that's because i am. but i did receive my first cards and package in the mail on this gloriously commercialized day. my grandparents sent me a card and some money and my dad sent me a card and a giant, heart-shaped box of turtles. finished those in two days. which brings me to my next discovery here in maynooth...the gym!!! I've started running again and love it. got on the treadmill and just started running. a couple minutes later i looked down to see how much i ran. shit. kilometers. at that point i had no idea what the conversion was. so i just kept running. (alright...sorry. but I'm ending this story on the account that i now feel like Forrest Gump which means that this story is shit or is about to be shit. you're welcome).

as you can tell its probably going to take me a couple blogs to realize what is interesting and what is not. sorry about that in advance.

so the week after v-day was pretty much uneventful. just the usual nights out and school. I've stopped going out Mondays and I'm happy about that. i mean don't get me wrong, starting the week off by drinking an excessive amount and waking up with a hangover was fun for awhile. but I've decided that one night out during the week and then one on the weekends is good enough for me. as much as i hate to admit it i am getting older. and while i may sound like I'm 22 going on 80 right now i really am getting older in regards to school and my responsibilities as a student. (blah, blah, blah. keep in mind this blog will be turned into my school later...i feel i must put some things in here like that :))

Its been a while...

wow. so its been about a month since my last update. apparently in blog world this is not a good thing. i have the worst memory of anyone i know (with the obvious exception of my mother)and should keep a journal/diary of my life. however, i am incapable of doing this. and if anything is a testament to that it is this blog. i apologize to those who are attempting to follow this although i am sure by now you have moved on. for those of you left...sit down, grab a coffee, maybe a little snack. ok. all I'm saying is I'm about to update this thing on whats been happening in my life for the past month. i had to make a legit outline...that's just sick in the head. but I'll start as far back as i can remember and hopefully end at tonight :) enjoy!