Thursday, September 27, 2012

Things I Miss

Here is a list of things I miss (in no specific order).


  • Theodore Bear
  • My Big Black Dog and his stupid dog face and how he's stupid and dumb and a dog. And the way that his ears go forward when you taunt him with a treat. And when he decides that he should sit on my lap, and I know I shouldn't let him, but I do anyway. And playing the game where I only move when he's not looking. And the game where I spin a towel around his head and he gets really excited.
  • Mad dance parties (specifically going to see Sneaky Gene shows)
  • Skyrim
  • My job
  • Pumpkin deliciousness in or around my mouth
  • Polar Bear and Agnetha from work and all of the other animals
  • Bruno, who was this dog that we saw the other weekend in Listowel. He was a good man.
  • 90 degree weather
  • My hula hoop
  • Stores that stay open past 6 p.m.
  • My tie-dye skirt. And the dress, too. Oh, and my brown hoodie.
  • My car that I can drive whenever I choose and I don't have to wait for a bus

Ireland doesn't have those things. Well, except for the dog that was in Listowel. And there are some stores that are open past 6, but they're not readily accessible.

Man, my blog posts are really deteriorating.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Fáilte

Let me teach you Irish.

Mna = women. Pretend that you're going to sing the song about manamana do do do do do, but stop at "mana." BAM. You've just said women.

Fir = men. In Dublinland, they say it like "fur," but I've been told that it can be more like "fear" elsewhere.

Amach = out. Don't uh-mock me.

Isteach = in. This one is said kind of like iss-jock. But the "j" is more /tch/-y and less /j/-y. A mixture of the two.

Suas = up. Like Dr. Seuss, only with more "us" at the end. Only a little bit more, though. Not quite "sue us." Because, please, do not sue us. Just Seuss with a bit more.

Síos = down. She-us. But again, only a little bit of "us." We're not close enough to have too much "us."

Fáilte = welcome. Fall tchuh.

Bainne = milk. Pretend that you're a snooty rich person or that you speak with some accent that pronounces all "a"s like the a in "father." Then go tell a cow, "I'm gonna ban ya from this field." You kind of just told the cow that you're going to milk it from the field... Of course, I think that there might be a different word for the verb form of milk.... (bahn-yuh)

Now go welcome some women to sit down and drink milk in the men's room before going out.

Because that's what you can do with that list of words I've given you.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Horsestickball

Four year olds are crazy around the world. The week began with the cries of, "I w-w-want my my my mooooommyyyyy," and ended with, "Fuck off, ma!" (Yes, one of the children said that to his mother. Then a child approached me and said, "What the hell is this?")

They've only had three hour school days so far. Come in, play, "tidy up," sit down, have snack/lunch, play in the school yard, have an activity or read a story, go home. Everyone forgets that they miss their m-m-mommy by snack time.

I went to the zoo yesterday. It's in a giant park in Dublin. Like, this park is huge. I got lost trying to find the zoo. It was a nice walk, though. The zoo itself would have been great had it been only open to people who are me. Seriously, who decided that it was ok to let other people into the zoo? They were all standing in front of the exhibit signs and getting their grubby hand prints on the exhibit glass and letting their children run amok. (On a side note, I just googled "amok" to make sure it was the word I wanted to use, and while it is, the true meaning involves a killing spree. The more you know.)

BUT. I saw sea lions, and everybody knows how I feel about pinnipeds. And these sea lions got called into their pins by the zoo keepers. The zoo keepers had the gates open, but the sea lions were not going to have that. They closed those gates. They were like, "I don't want all these crazy people staring at me, this door needs to be shut." Man, I wish I was a sea lion.

Also I saw gibbons. And they were pre-cious. So were the gorillas. Oh, and the golden lion tamarins which my dad really likes. Sorry dad, I didn't see a llama.

There was also some kind of heron type bird. It wasn't part of an exhibit, but it landed on a fence outside of the zoo restaurant. I've nicknamed it "Josh" after my bff Josh because of its mannerisms. Josh the bird was standing on a fence modeling while about five or six people walked up to him to take his picture. Then he decided to terrorize a little girl and keep running towards her.

And I also saw what I have since learned is the game of polo (better known as horsestickball).

Then today I went to the National Archaeology Museum. It was only open for three hours, so I'll need to go back again. I loved seeing the stone molds they used in nine million years ago to cast metal into knives and swords and what have you. My absolute favorite thing over which I got extremely excited was a large stone with Ogham writing. And that's simply because I adore the author Madeleine L'Engle, and Ogham stones come up in at least one of her books.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Ride the Bus LIKE A BOSS

That's right; I can ride the bus LIKE A BOSS.

I know which lines will take me to the places I want to go. From where I'm living*, I can take the 7, 45a, or 111 down to Dun Laoghaire town center, and from there I can easily walk to the pier or the seafront. Of course, I prefer walking in that direction. Then I catch one of the aforementioned buses back to my accommodation.

* I am currently living with one of the teachers' assistants from the school I'm at. For a mere 170 euros/week, I have a room, no bills, and three meals a day. I don't have to clean or anything. I was hesitant, because, have you met me? I don't want to have to eat when I'm told, and I would much prefer to do my own laundry. But it turns out that if I don't want to eat at 6 p.m., I can just let Betty know, and she'll save my dinner for whenever I get back. And her meals are, in Irish terms, rather lovely. So I'll likely stay here. And I have someone with whom to walk on my way to school so I don't get lost. It's easy to get into Dun Laoghaire town center from the school, and I can catch a bus back when I'm ready. And in the case of poor weather, I have a ride into school.

I am currently in the Junior Infants classroom. That means 4 and 5 year olds... Though, I don't think any of the children in the classroom have yet had their fifth birthday. Currently the school day for them is running from 8:55 a.m. until noon. In two weeks, they'll switch to their full schedule which is 8:55 until 1:30. There are 22 children in the class. Since this is a disadvantaged school, the maximum number in the classroom for Junior infants is supposed to be 20, but since when do things operate according to ideals? In non-disadvantaged schools, they can have up to 35 children in a Junior Infants class. 35 four year olds - with only one teacher! That's mad.

Outside of school, I'm heavily contemplating a scuba class which would cost more money than I care to spend, butImean, water. Everyone knows I was supposed to be born a fish, walrus, or mermaid. It was only by fluke of heritage that I'm a human at all.

I now have a new most-valued possession, second only to Theodore Bear: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This most coveted Bloomsbury version of the first book of Harry Potter is now mine. It's mine, and if anyone steals it or befouls it in anyway, well, I just don't think that anyone would care to deal with the consequences of that. I also have ordered Deathly Hallows as I've nearly finished Half Blood Prince for the 90th time, and I left my copy of book 7 at home. (Ok, I might have left that book at home specifically so I had a reason to by the Bloomsbury version of it while in Europe.) It won't be in for a week, so I hope that I can wait that long.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Crocodile Dung and the Woes of Dun Laoghaire

I'm not entirely sure how this whole "having-a-place-to-live-thing" is going to work out.

I'm at the hostel right now. It's not bad, but the bathroom smells like crocodile dung. Not that I know what crocodile dung smells like. But it smells awful.

There are three other people allegedly staying in the same room as I am. There's Burcu (pronounced Bur-ju, but the ju is more of a French sounding zhu) who's from Turkey. At first I didn't think she spoke English, but she's just not very comfortable with the language. She stays in the bunk under mine. She's in Dun Laoghaire studying English. Deborah is a student from the United States. She's here completing an MBA program. She also hate pants and speaks French. Though she speaks French more fluently than do I, so I'm jealous. And then there's Eliana or something like that from Spain. She has her luggage in here and pops in every so often, but she hasn't put a sheet in her bed or slept there. So, I don't know what's going on there.

I like meeting all these foreign people, but socializing is a lot of work. I need at least 800 hours/day to myself, so this is difficult. The problem is that once you've met people, they want you to do things with them. And that cuts into my not-doing-things-with-people time.

I've stayed mainly to my room or out in the town where I'm not expected to socialize.

But when I did go downstairs to the lounge/kitchen, I met John, who is native to Ireland, but he's been traveling around the world. Then there's Diego from Brazil. He speaks very little English, but Google Translate is a marvelous tool. I hablo'd un poco de espanol to some girl from Spain, though I don't know her name.

But I'll be moving out soon.

By "soon," I mean "tomorrow."

Of course, I have no solid plan for moving out tomorrow, but when do I ever have a solid plan?

I've looked at a few rooms for rent. Everything here is over 9000 dollars. That might be a bit of an exaggeration; it's closer to 500 euros/month to rent a room. That doesn't include bills or food.

So, as disagreeable as it sounds to me, I'll probably stay with one of the teachers from the school. It's farther from the town center and the harbor than I'd like it to be, but what's an hour walk to the sea? The cost would be about 680 euros/month which includes three meals/day. The main problem I have is that she would deny me access to the kitchen, and she would do my laundry for me. I don't particularly like to waste my time cooking when I can pay someone else to do it for me, but the idea of having what I eat and when I eat dictated to me is unnerving. I haven't had to follow someone else's eating schedule since I was like... 6. And what if she likes to put ketchup on everything? That simply would not work. Ew, or what if it's a lot  of cabbage? And then I'd much prefer to do my own laundry. I've done my own laundry since I was 10.

However, since I wouldn't be buying my own food, this arrangement would probably be cheapest, and therefore would leave me with plenty of money for traveling about and out of the country.

Decisions, decisions.