Melting Pot of Adventures, Foods, and Learning

Every day I uncover great things about this semester of living abroad! So many, in fact, that I often forget to write them down, and I end up forgetting some small, yet fun details.
My previous posts have been detailed in only a few adventures or discoveries.  This post is going to be a grand collection of mini snapshots from my last couple weeks, updating readers on all of the big and all of little things (that I could remember, of course).

(here I am standing at the top of a small
staircase that I took down to the rocks and by the boat

Another Amazing Photo Walk
Two weeks ago I took a walk down to the Quay near the Spanish Arch! Sunny afternoon, lots of people walking along the near streets, fairly warm temperature.  After I took a look at some Claddagh rings in a shop on the edge of the city center, I poked around at a few "docked" sail boats along Quay road.  As you can see, they're not docked in the usual fashion.  I took a lot of photos, and even found that I could fit underneath one!

(the prop underneath the red boat!)

My Social Spanish Flatmate
I live in an apartment with a fellow Cobber, Jeanette (my roommate), and a girl named Ana from Spain.  A few weekends ago she had some friends from Spain over to stay in our small apartment, which worked well! Last weekend her brother stayed with us and her parents stayed in the hotel next door.  As they were making a late snack, they had me try their Spanish omelette--mainly eggs, chunks of potatoes, and some onion.  It was quite good, for how simple it was, and for not being the biggest fan of scrambled eggs!




Meals and Experiments I've Created
I'm cooking on my own EVERY DAY now that I don't have a meal plan.  Our kitchen is small with limited supplies, but manageable.  Without a dishwasher, though, we all do dishes at least once or twice a day. The novelty of cooking bigger, more elaborate meals has somewhat gone now.  But not entirely! I made curry chicken--which seems to be pretty popular here in restaurants--the other night for myself.  It included rice, potatoes, and carrot-fries. Yes, carrot-fries! Although, if anyone else had tried them, they would have known it was my first attempt. Salty, check. Hot, Check. Crunchiness, lacking.  I'll try again later.

the finished meal plus a mini pear--it was so good, I started
eating before I took a snapshot

carrot-fries preperation

How much I enjoy Nutella
Also, if anyone has been keeping up with me on facebook, they would have known that Sunday the 5th was World Nutella Day! Of course, with my recent addiction to the spread (what better addiction could I have?), I had to make something with nutella, instead of eating it right out of the jar with a spoon.  So, Jeanette and I made a milkshake!  Currently, my supply is depleted, gone.  Better make a run to Dunnes (the Irish Walmart)!

add all ingredients together in a pot, mash potato-style, and...

...enjoy in wine glasses!

Modules (aka courses) That I'm Taking @NUIG
Schedule: 
MON - 1-2pm Early Irish Script
TUES - 5-6pm Modernism/Postmodernism
WED - 9-10am Modernism/Postmodernism
            11-1 Creative Writing Commercial Fiction
THUR - 8-10am Social Psychology
            1-2pm Early Irish Script


The Irish university system only has us take two hours of lecture time per class each week. And I have NO modules (courses, remember) on Fridays! Three of the four modules (minus Creative Writing) are lectures that take place in huge halls with over 60 students in each module--which is quite different than the usual Concordia English and Art classes of 15 students or less.  Having professors with Irish accents is rather fun! Although 2 of my 4 professors are from America...Go figure!  The Creative Writing course, though, is a seminar English module which is a lot like Concordia's courses--many writing assignments and discussion.
The 14 Feb was the day that marked mid-term, and I turned in my one mid-term assignment; a chucky, wordy, experimental psychology research paper. Yuck! I was able to enjoy the rest of my V-Day with that out of the way.  But that also means half of my academic semester is over!! Somehow the Irish rain has washed away my sense of time. After classes end, I'll have about two months worth of free time!

these are examples of a
manuscripts we're studying 

(click any photo to
view large versions)

The most interesting module that I'm taking (besides creative writing, which is just a lot of fun) is Early Irish Script.  It's a history module that looks into the movement of old Irish and Insular manuscripts, with added instruction on how to transcribe the Irish handwriting! We write down the lettering in Latin words, and although I don't know Latin, I'm getting a feel for the types of words there are in the language.  It's fun to try out my calligraphy skills and imitate the 7th century writing styles!  The enlarged and decorated first letter on the page or paragraph is called a monogram and is very popular in Irish manuscripts.  Heard of the Book of Kells? It's a famous illuminated manuscript Gospel Book in Dublin and has many amazingly intricate and colorful monograms.  Here are some of my attempts at the simple monogram:

traditional Irish majuscule M, A, H, & T

Other activities I've been involved in...
NUI has many campus organizations and clubs! The organizations are called societies, or socs for short.  Each one has a unique soc name and I'm a part of quite a few: dance society is Dancsoc, archeology is ArchSoc, photography is PhotoSoc, and I watch the tradition music society (Tradsoc) play at a pub every or every other week.  So many things going on! And it turns out, the hip hop classes I've been going to have been preparing us for a national intercollegiate hip hop competition! WHOA! I've never done a dance competition before. It's going to rock! Plus, we're dancing to "Like a G6" and a remix of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" which you can listen to here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjiswvTXdzA  Pretty kickin'!

two photos from Ireland that I submitted for
Muscailt, Focus 2012 exhibition

Speaking of PhotoSoc, the leaders suggested that some of us submit 5 good photos of any subject or theme for the Art Festival here.  All of our pictures got printed out and were displayed during the week-long festival called Muscailt in the photo exhibition called Focus 2012! All sorts of things were going on from juggling lessons to origami lessons to film screenings.  I attended a musical called Spring Awakening with people from Concordia, and I thought it was fantastic! I also made a friend when there was an event mix-up--she's a mother and volunteer for the FilmSoc part of the festival, and she's a well-known Irish politician's daughter. Who knew! So now, if I'm ever in trouble, I know who to call! 




Check back again for another post! Thanks all!
And keep a look out for a facebook, twitter, or blog post about the hip hop competition coming up!
My twitter account name: @JCesign (or just search for my name!)