This week... and last week... have just been... OMG.
We're approaching the mid-term mark here at UCD, and you know what that means!! Mid-term papers.
Luckily, I only have three papers to write, each around 1000-1500 words (which, really, isn't much at all). Still, those three papers have been causing me a lot of STRESS. I just finished up a book, 'Jane Eyre,' which I am using to write one essay, and let me just say, that was a tedious read. I think had I had more time to read it at my own pace and absorb it more, I might have enjoyed it. But I was reading analytically, and I had a deadline to meet. I finally finished today, and I would consider it a good book, just tedious. My Drama essay is on analyzing a play I saw last weekend (which was fine), so that paper shouldn't take me long. I think the most difficult of the three will be the one for my Islam and Christianity class. I have to do a document analysis on a portion of the Qur'an. I've never done a document analysis on anything in my life, especially not a religious text. I'm hoping to God that some secondary reading will help me out with this task...
I have a week from Monday to get everything done, and in the meantime I'm supposed to be reading two more books: 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'A Star Called Henry.' Both of these books I actually do want to read, but I think Alice is gonna have to wait a bit, seeing as I have to answer a discussion question on Henry in class on Wednesday.
All of this rambling (which you probably don't care much about) aside, I'm saying all of this to explain that I just haven't had time for any awesome Ireland adventures to share with you all. I've been hanging out at Starbucks cafes all week, and I probably will be all of next week too. BUT as soon as something interesting happens, I promise I'll let you know.
Stay tuned!
Showing posts with label University. Show all posts
Showing posts with label University. Show all posts
Friday, October 11, 2013
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
The Little Things
Well, classes started this week. And I am having a hard time.
Today has been a rough day for me, and I would just like to talk about some details that have been bugging me since I got here.
First of all, the money. I'm finally getting used to how the money works, with all their different coins. And I kind of like it. The bills come in 50, 20, 10, and 5, and get larger as the denomination gets larger. The coins come in 2, 1, .50, .20, .10, .05, .02, and .01. the 2 and 1 Euro coins have a gold outer ring with a silver center, and the 2 is larger than the 1. the .50, .20, and .10 are all gold, and the .05, .02, and .01 are all copper. All of the coins are different sizes, mostly based on denomination, and all of them have a different pattern on the outer rim. Using the money is not the problem, however. It's how often I have to use the money.
Now, you're probably thinking, well everything in the states costs money. Yes, that is very true. But not at my school. At my school, you could go to events for free. You could join clubs for free. The food was much less expensive. Here, I have to pay for all of those things. Food is expensive, even on campus, at an average of 7-9 Euro for a small meal. At a cafe. I'm sorry, but a sandwich and a cup of soup should be 4 Euro, all the time, anywhere.
Another thing that bothers me, the class set up. Let me start with some background. I am used to small classes, about 35 people max most of the time, closer to an average of 15 for my acting classes. BW has 3500 undergraduate students, 4500 total. The campus (only one campus), even though mixed with a suburb, is not large, and doesn't have too many academic buildings. In class, we don't do lectures; we do discussions. We ask questions, the teacher answers with another questions, and lively debates spark.
UCD is basically the opposite. I have lecture classes with at least 100 students while the professor stands up front under 3 huge screens, talking at us while we scribble furiously in notebooks. There are 3 different campuses, and living on the graduate campus, I have to take the bus every day to and from school, making it nearly impossible to stay anywhere past 11pm unless I want to pay for a cab back home (again with the money thing...). Then, once I get to campus, I can expect about a 15 minute walk to get to one of the nearest buildings to the bus stop. There are always people everywhere, and there is never any quiet time anywhere. The few restaurants on campus are always crowded and loud, and they don't serve much of a variety of food like BW always does.
My biggest peeve is my phone situation. I can't use the Internet unless I have WiFi, since when I got here, I decided not to pay for a data plan. But WiFi here isn't quite as common as it is in the states. Yes, the school has it, but it's not very strong and you can only get it in academic buildings. It's not in the bookstore, it's not outside at all, and it's very touch-and-go in the residence halls (at least mine). But if I'm downtown, and I need to check the bus schedule, too bad. I have to just go to the bus stop and wait until the next one comes around. I guess I don't really realize how much I rely on my 3G to get me through the day. But right now my first world problems have quite a hold on me.
Not to mention that on my first day at school, I took the time to go get an Irish phone to be able to stay in contact with my friends while I'm here. But as of right now, I'm the only one who actually has one. None of my other friends have gotten phones yet, making it very difficult to communicate with one another. Sure, we have Facebook but again, we can only access each other when we have internet.
There are a few other peeves I'm having about being here. Like the fact that nothing is open past 7pm. Or that the only bus that goes from my residence to main campus doesn't run on Sundays and has a very limited schedule on Saturdays and evenings. Or that bathrooms aren't every few feet as you walk through a mall. Or that I have to share my kitchen and my stovetop doesn't work very well and we all have freezer space of about 2 square feet to share.
But I suppose these are just things I will have to get used to as part of living here. Everything I encounter is part of my experience, and will shape my life in one way or another. Everyone has their likes and dislikes, and who knows. Maybe by the end of the semester, my dislikes will become my likes. These are all little things. Nothing is a crisis. Only an experience.
Today has been a rough day for me, and I would just like to talk about some details that have been bugging me since I got here.
First of all, the money. I'm finally getting used to how the money works, with all their different coins. And I kind of like it. The bills come in 50, 20, 10, and 5, and get larger as the denomination gets larger. The coins come in 2, 1, .50, .20, .10, .05, .02, and .01. the 2 and 1 Euro coins have a gold outer ring with a silver center, and the 2 is larger than the 1. the .50, .20, and .10 are all gold, and the .05, .02, and .01 are all copper. All of the coins are different sizes, mostly based on denomination, and all of them have a different pattern on the outer rim. Using the money is not the problem, however. It's how often I have to use the money.
Now, you're probably thinking, well everything in the states costs money. Yes, that is very true. But not at my school. At my school, you could go to events for free. You could join clubs for free. The food was much less expensive. Here, I have to pay for all of those things. Food is expensive, even on campus, at an average of 7-9 Euro for a small meal. At a cafe. I'm sorry, but a sandwich and a cup of soup should be 4 Euro, all the time, anywhere.
Another thing that bothers me, the class set up. Let me start with some background. I am used to small classes, about 35 people max most of the time, closer to an average of 15 for my acting classes. BW has 3500 undergraduate students, 4500 total. The campus (only one campus), even though mixed with a suburb, is not large, and doesn't have too many academic buildings. In class, we don't do lectures; we do discussions. We ask questions, the teacher answers with another questions, and lively debates spark.
UCD is basically the opposite. I have lecture classes with at least 100 students while the professor stands up front under 3 huge screens, talking at us while we scribble furiously in notebooks. There are 3 different campuses, and living on the graduate campus, I have to take the bus every day to and from school, making it nearly impossible to stay anywhere past 11pm unless I want to pay for a cab back home (again with the money thing...). Then, once I get to campus, I can expect about a 15 minute walk to get to one of the nearest buildings to the bus stop. There are always people everywhere, and there is never any quiet time anywhere. The few restaurants on campus are always crowded and loud, and they don't serve much of a variety of food like BW always does.
My biggest peeve is my phone situation. I can't use the Internet unless I have WiFi, since when I got here, I decided not to pay for a data plan. But WiFi here isn't quite as common as it is in the states. Yes, the school has it, but it's not very strong and you can only get it in academic buildings. It's not in the bookstore, it's not outside at all, and it's very touch-and-go in the residence halls (at least mine). But if I'm downtown, and I need to check the bus schedule, too bad. I have to just go to the bus stop and wait until the next one comes around. I guess I don't really realize how much I rely on my 3G to get me through the day. But right now my first world problems have quite a hold on me.
Not to mention that on my first day at school, I took the time to go get an Irish phone to be able to stay in contact with my friends while I'm here. But as of right now, I'm the only one who actually has one. None of my other friends have gotten phones yet, making it very difficult to communicate with one another. Sure, we have Facebook but again, we can only access each other when we have internet.
There are a few other peeves I'm having about being here. Like the fact that nothing is open past 7pm. Or that the only bus that goes from my residence to main campus doesn't run on Sundays and has a very limited schedule on Saturdays and evenings. Or that bathrooms aren't every few feet as you walk through a mall. Or that I have to share my kitchen and my stovetop doesn't work very well and we all have freezer space of about 2 square feet to share.
But I suppose these are just things I will have to get used to as part of living here. Everything I encounter is part of my experience, and will shape my life in one way or another. Everyone has their likes and dislikes, and who knows. Maybe by the end of the semester, my dislikes will become my likes. These are all little things. Nothing is a crisis. Only an experience.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
One Step Closer to the Beer...
WHAT A WEEKEND.
Allow me to start at the beginning. Last night, a group on campus called ESN (Erasmus Student Network) planned an event called the Pub Crawl. Basically, everyone went downtown and we went to four different pubs, with the final stop being a night club. I had the evening free, so I figured, why not! I'll totally go!
Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures from this event. So I guess I'll just have to tell you ALL ABOUT IT (as if I wasn't already going to anyway). We began at a pub called BadBob's, which was a pretty decently sized pub right in the middle of TempleBar district, a brick pedestrian street lined up and down with bars, restaurants, cafes, and night clubs. We spent a while at BadBob's, but I was okay with it since the guy doing the LIVE music was really good. He took several American pop songs and acoustic-ized them to work a chill bar atmosphere. This pub was where I had my first ever sip of the one and only Guinness beer. It was not good. But I'm not a beer drinker anyway.
Next stop was a place called Mezz. This was a dinky, hole-in-the-wall kind of bar, but we did end up finding a seat, and many of my friends got a good deal on tequila shots. I didn't have any money for the weekend, so unfortunately I could not buy my own drinks. But we all still agreed we probably would not go back to Mezz.
Our third pub was my favorite, called Turk's Head. The inside of the bar was gorgeous; there was a lot of mosaic tile work and modern metal structures, countered by the Frank Sinatra music that was playing as we walked in. Here, my dear friends all donated a Euro to my cause and bought me a 4 Euro pint of Bulmers, a hard cider. My first "pint" in a legitimate "pub!" And boy, was it delicious.
Our final stop before the night club was a bar called Porterhouse. It had a rustic kind of feel to it, as most of the detailing was wood. It reminded me of a cabin out in the Rocky Mountains somewhere. By this point in the evening, we were all pretty tired, so we did not spend much time at Porterhouse. We left after about ten minutes to go home, but I would go back there; it seemed rather cozy.
My friends and I agreed that the Pub Crawl was a total success, and we are so happy to have off-campus places to go hang out and grab a pint.
After a rather long night, I woke up this morning for another ESN-organized trip. Today, we were headed to Howth. I had just found out about the trip during the Pub Crawl, so I hadn't signed up prior. But luckily for me, there was room on the bus for me. Yay!
This place... I can't even describe it in words. It was simply breathtaking. I was nearly moved to tears more than once just by the sheer beauty of nature in a way that I've never seen it before. I really cannot say anything more, so I will leave it to my pictures to do the talking.
I did so much hard walking on those hills today. I'm estimating a good 6 or 7 miles, including the 40-minute walk to the bus stop from Blackrock and back home. My feet kill, but that's actually where the title for this entry came from.
I was complaining, of course, about how much uphill walking we were doing, and how tired I was. And one of the ESN guys said to me, "I know how you feel. But look at it this way: every step you take is one step closer to the beer. It's a good motto to live by!"
And I agree. Your motivation can be anything, whether it's a good pint of beer, a smaller pant size, a splurge on a night out, or some ravioli and a nap. And every step you take, no matter how hard taking that next step might be, takes you closer to the beer.
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