Spell Check Doesn't Like Irish Names

The bells of St Finnbarre are ringing. I love the sound of those bells -- even though they don't normally ring out at half 3 in the afternoon. Unusual, but very nice on such a grey and rainy day.
Just wanted to give a bit of an update before I run away to England for the majority of next week. :) I'm really getting excited about having a break...even though it will be weird not to go to college this week.

The presentation went well, though; if anyone cares to know about that. The one criticism? I was too soft spoken -- not aggressive enough. Clearly, my public speaking hasn't gotten any better. Either that or I wasn't feeling confident enough. I leave it to you to decide which one was the greater.

So, that was the school-side of things. Now for some of the fun things I've been up to.

First there was the Post-graduate Ball, on Friday the 2nd, but I'll just let the photos speak for themselves.

Nienke & I clean-up rather well, don't we?

With two of the girls in my class -- Bridget & Jean.

20th Century Ireland MA class photo -- sort of. Also, trying to get a group photo taken in a loud room isn't the best of ideas. (Martin, Me, Dave, Doireann, Jean, Bridget, Niamh, Jean)

Then the following Monday, I went with some classmates to Fota (which contains a zoo/wildlife park) and Cobh. The weather was terrible -- super windy and pouring rain. Besides the fact that it was not "let's walk around a zoo" weather, we walked around the zoo. And gave up on umbrellas about half-way through it.

Taken as a bit of a family joke, really. But, ostriches become much less mean/threatening when they are wind-blown and soaked. They still will stare you down, however.

The, wet and cold, we continued onward to Cobh. Now, Cobh on the best of days is absolutely gorgeous (for proof, see the previous post), but on rainy and windy days can be miserable. There is still some interest -- the high waves splashing again the shore, for instance -- but it's not pretty. After eating some lunch (and warming up a bit) we decided to go up to the cathedral...on the massive hill.

The wind up by the cathedral is always stronger than by the shore, there is nothing up there to stall the wind or slow it down; but that thought didn't seem to deter us in the slightest. However, when I was trying to walk toward the center of the doors and ended up nearly running into the left-hand edge, I began to reconsider going up there as a "good idea." One of the lads, thinking it was all a big joke, how we had veered to get in the door, decided to make a show of running for the door. He nearly ended up running into the left-hand corner of the church, instead of at the door. Needless to say, like good friends we stood inside the door, away from the wind, and nearly fell down with laughter.

Inside the cathedral it was equally creepy. The lighting was very, very low and the wind blowing against the building produced an eerie sound -- it felt very much like we were in some sort of horror movie. There was, however a beauty to the dim lit building, that we had all to ourselves (I presume that no one else was silly enough to go up there with so much wind).

So, after that adventure we headed back down the hill and went to the Heritage Centre -- and tried to dry out some -- and then caught the train back to Cork. Fighting wind and rain for so long made us all want to head for our warm rooms and drier clothes, rather than poke around Cobh.

Of course, the next day (Tues) was absolutely gorgeous -- sunshine and blue skies. Sometimes I think I live out Murphy's Law.

I'm sure I'll have some more exciting stories after coming back from York -- and after celebrating St Patrick's Day in Cork (so exciting! -- the Irish holiday in Ireland).