One Term Down & I've Survived

I figured I should update this while I still have a calm moment. Granted, I should be cleaning...but I've got a bit of time for that.

Instead, I'm sitting in the common room, two candles burning in front of my €2 tinsel tree, with a cup of tea cooling at my side. It's all very Christmasy -- in it's way.
There's a certain magical quality contained in candle light, of which I've always been fond. (And I didn't end that sentence with a preposition -- I win.)

So, what have I been up to lately?
- Finding out when my one & only test will be. (Late January; which leaves plenty of time for me to actually read the book it's over.)
- Finally watching Casablanca all the way through.
- Participating in the history postgrad "Twelve Pubs of Christmas" pub crawl down Barrack Street (we made it to just over half that number, which is a decent feat considering how much time we chatted at each one).
- Farewell dinner for two of the American students I met here at a yummy Thai restaurant, followed by a pint at a pub close to home.
- Last Coffee Morning at Iona, with some sad goodbyes.
- Seeing Nienke off to the Netherlands.
- Shopping for Christmas dinner.
- Oh, and dealing with an ear infection which is pretty much gone now (yay!).

And now, the longer, ramblier version of the above (with exciting details! -- or something like that).

The semester ended on Friday. And life at Deans Hall has become eerily quite as a result. Nearly everyone is back home. It was sad saying goodbye to friends I'd made who were here for one semester, but I'm trying to console myself with the idea that I now have excuses to go visit the Continent -- specifically, German, Switzerland and France. All I need is the money to do so.

The quiet of Deans Hall does not last through the night, though. Every night this past week has seen yelling matches taking place outside my window. The curses of living so near the street, I suppose; and it is amusing...or it would be much more so if it didn't happen after 2am each night.

I prefer the quiet, though -- it's so very nice -- but it made going into town yesterday all the more shocking. I could hardly walk down the streets downtown -- it was insane! I hadn't gone towards the shops on a Saturday in a very long time, so heading in that direction on a Saturday before Christmas was probably not the wisest choice, but I hadn't thought that far ahead when I realised that I needed groceries.

I may as well get used to such massive, scary crowds -- I'm going to be in Dublin in a few days after all. That town is always extremely crowded & I can only imagine how bad it'll be the week before Christmas. But, as I'm meeting my family there, I think I survive the evils of the crowds.

I'm ridiculously excited about my family's arrival on Wednesday. I seriously feel a bit giddy about it. I think part of it is that I haven't had any visitors -- and, of course, I haven't seen anyone from home since I left.

On an unrelated note, I think I have an unhealthy preoccupation with wax and watching candles melt. I blame this for the reason why it's taken me forever to type this entry.
Excuses are fun.

But enough talk of candles (for awhile, anyhow). I should actually get something done tonight -- even if it's writing out a list of things to do tomorrow. ;)
Procrastinate? Me? Nooo.

Dublin & Advent

Today was a very, very, very, very long day. & I'm half-asleep whilst writing this, so if it doesn't make sense in places it's not you, it's me.
This time. :P

So. Today.

Getting up at 5am = rough. I'm so much more of a night owl; I'm simply not made to get up early. I walked to the train station (or, about half way, then got lazy, saw a cab & rode the rest of the way) & was there by 6:15am. I was the second of the postgrads there.
Eventually we all showed up, joined the massive queue to get onto the 7am train, took our seats & tried to fall asleep. It didn't work too well for me, but I kept trying to sleep anyway. I'm stubborn like that.
Oh, & in case you're wondering, dawn was around 8:30. I'm sure you were all overly curious about that.

Well, we were thus in Dublin around 9:40 & promptly took a bus to Stephan's Green...so that we could walk 10 minutes to the National Archives. Luckily, it was sunny this morning in Dublin town.
The nearly two hours spent at the Archives was informative & was actually one of the best talks by an archivist that I've endured in quite some time. First she helped us with where to look for manuscripts on our topics, not just at the Archives, but at other repositories around Dublin. Then, she skimmed over all that info that you get told twenty bajillion times at archives (use pencil only! don't bring in any bags! don't mishandle the manuscripts or you will die! -- erm, so, that last one is just the gist of what they say, but I'm sure some of them think that). I'm also in possession of a reader's card for the Archives that will last three years. In case I ever need it. Free things that that are always good to have, after all.

So, after the Archives, we went to lunch. I'll spare you the details, but all of us were famished & dug into our meal gladly. I was ridiculously happy to see food since I hadn't eaten anything since 5:30.

After scarfing down our meal, Hiram (one of the UCC lecturers) thought it'd be fun to go visit an exhibition at the National Gallery. So we did. And it was really cool. All sorts of paintings on the culture of Ireland in a 200 year span (I forget the actual dates & am too lazy to walk over to my bag which has the pamphlet in it), I think 1700-something to 1940ish.
I am such a bad historian, disregarding dates like that.

Then it was off to the National Library, which I had high hopes for -- it, after all, is probably where I will end up doing quite a bit of research. & while our guide there did give us some good info, she also gave us way too much filler. Not a good idea when you have a tired group of postgrad students with you & the reading room you've taken them to is extremely warm. I'm quite honestly surprised half of us didn't fall asleep. But, I do feel badly, though, since we really weren't good at asking questions since most people seemed to be thinking "I want a pint/I want to sit down/I want to sleep."

It was raining slightly went we left the Library & headed back to the train station...& the wind got very gusty. But it was nothing compared to the weather we found in Cork when we got off the train around 8pm. Steady rain & an almost constant strong, strong wind. I tried to avoid walking too close to the river for very long, fearing that there might be a particularly super strong gust at some point & I would fly, Piglet style, in the the River Lee & then wash out to sea.

So, that was today's adventures -- in sleepy visioned details.

Sunday, I actually did stuff! One of my friends, Claudia, held an Advent party -- complete with hot chocolate, scones, & other goodness...I left there stuffed. Then, Nienke, her twin sister who was visiting & I went to the Advent celebration at St Fin Barre's Sunday night. It was quite beautiful -- the church stayed dark almost the entire time. I just wish they had printed the music to accompany the words to the hymns they gave us in the program...or that they had given us hymnals. I knew one hymn they sang off the top of my head & the rest I had to mumble quietly until the second and third verses, when I was finally able to catch the melody.

Well, off to sleep I go. Luckily, I have nothing to do until 3pm tomorrow, so I can recover. Yay for that!