grey's anatomy

so kara and i watched 8 episodes of grey's anatomy today.
thanks clare :)

i was going to spend the afternoon reading and writing my paper.
but watching a show i haven't been able to watch in 2 months was such a better way to spend it.
it was a yucky rainy afternoon, so it was totally necessary.

and i also forgot how much i love grey's.

in other news.
life is good :)
classes are going well, i've been reading non-stop this week on post-famine female emigration to britain. i'm pretty much ready to start writing my paper. writing a historiography will be slightly different from what i'm used to, but i'm looking forward to something different.

going to the ibl (irish bouldering league) tomorrow, to watch some climbing. it should be fun.
hiking in the galtees on sunday.

and some serious paper writing.

turkey for you, turkey for me

thanksgiving in england with megan was so much fun :)

i played at windsor castle on thanksgiving while megan worked. i loooooved windsor castle. completely amazing! so awesome its been the royal residence for the last 900 years! the rooms they had on show were gorgeous and my favourite was the crest room, its used today as a banquet room and has about 900 crests of different dukes and kings along the ceiling and walls. after playing in windsor castle i walked into eton and got all giddy when i passed eton's boathouse and the college, but sadly they don't do tours in the winter. so then meg was done with school so we went into london to see avenue q on the west end. it was hilarious, its a completely inappropriate sesame street meets family guy on speed. i totally recommend you see it. it got rave reviews on both broadway and in london. we also crashed at brad's place in london for the evening. it was great to see him after not seeing him in 2 years.

friday we played in london, including going to my favourite telephone booth in london.

seriously, how much better of a place can this phone booth be?
and we just walked around, played in st. james park and also went shopping in h&m. i forgot how much i loved london, last time i was there i was in an emotional state, where i enjoyed it, but i was so upset about leaving ireland that i couldn't really take in london. but i love it.

friday night was our thanksgiving dinner, which was yummy. after the dinner we played karaoke revolution, which is absolutely hilarious.
meg and i were partners and we did an amazing rendition of i will always love you, and then i beat brad to oops i did it again, i could probably even take on britney spears and beat her :) and then i met meg by 1 point to unchained melodies. it was so much fun and we all we laughing so much.

saturday after i got home i was so disgusted with the house, especially the kitchen. it seriously looked as if no one had done the dishes since wednesday, they all went home on friday and there was seriously 2 clean forks and 2 plates. the rest of the pots and dishes were all in the sink or around the kitchen, including the pots with stuff still left in them. so i went on a major cleaning rampage.
i scrubbed the kitchen, cleaned the sitting/dining rooms, bathrooms and vacuumed the entire house. it was so nice to have a clean house, if only for a few hours until people came back on sunday to mess it up. i just don't understand how hard it is to wash your bowl after you eat or if you spill something to wipe it up? grrrrr.

sunday was an amazing hike with the uccmc. we did a few peaks on the reeks. my group did beenkeragh, then carrauntoohil,. the highest mountain in ireland at 1038m, and then caher. it was great going across the beenkeragh ridge and some of the climbing over rocks was grand. we hiked in a cloud for most of the hike so it was misty and slightly rainy, and we got soaked, but it wasn't too cold. about hlafway down caher it got dark, so we donned the headtorches and hiked the last 40 minutes through the wet, wet bog in the rain, seriously i was so wet, i half slid down caher because i couldn't see where i was going. then we walked down the hydro road and to the bus. we got back to the bus about 7pm, the other group had got back a little after 5, oops. they were supposed to do the opposite, but they did caher, carrauntoohil and then back down caher, because they realized it was getting too late to go onto beenkeragh. it was fabulous to change into dry clothes :) it was a great hike and i had a blast.

i can't believe saturday is december. i have sooo much to do, i really need to get started on my essay so i'll be spending a lot of time in the library this week. time is flying by.

thanksgiving already...

busy, busy, busy.

at work now and its been pretty quiet today, i know just because i am writing that things will get crazy.
last week was good, didn't do anything too exciting.
worked all day monday, it is so sad that when i leave work at 5pm it is dark :(
i was completely wrecked from dingle, bruised and sore,tired and emotionally drained, so i was slightly loopy at work.
then of course i went climbing because well, i can't get enough of climbing. i was very proud of myself because i made it to the top of the overhang attempting to do the grey's but i cheated about halfway up and used any colour. but it was the first time i made it to the top on the overhang! so yay! after that i was completely wrecked, so i met up with kara for our monday pint at costigans. it was great and i love our monday night chats, so relaxing and its funny to see what people wear to the bar on a monday night.

tuesday i worked in the morning, then class. then just dinner at kara's and relaxing and joking around with her flatmates. its weird but sometime i feel more at home in her house than my own, maybe its just because most of the girls were friends moving in, and not 7 girls who didn't know each other? wednesday i had my diaspora class and it was good, i wish we met more than once a week or something, its so weird to only have class four hours a week. but it was a good discussion and i didn't really know much about the irish in canada, new zealand, aussie or s. africa. so after class kara wanted to go looking for something to wear to a party, with the guy she is kinda seeing. so we went into the city centre and had a great afternoon. i ended up getting a top and a cute dress in awear and a skirt in mango. yay for sales :) and she eventually found a dress. it was a fun afternoon complete with a yummy lunch of veg soup and tea, like we always do.

wednesday night was funny, it was a quiet night at the wall, and pretty quiet at the pub as well. i didn't really climb much, just attempted the purples along the overhang, but got stuck about 2/3 up and then the silly greens on the wall as well, but i did get higher than last time, so yay for that. then the pub, there was a good amount of people at tom barry's, nothing too eventful, just talking. it was pretty funny though talking about racks, nuts, friends, jugs, cracks, finger jams... if you had overheard our conversation and not been a climber you would have been like wtf?

thursday worked in the morning and then met up with kara for lunch and tea while watching home and away. i've become slightly addicted to this fab aussie soap, its pretty good and its addictive and its on at 1.30 and 6.30, so its pretty hard to miss and episode. then we were lazy and instead of doing work we watched the last 4 episodes of sex and the city, i love those 4 episodes. and i was going to be good on thursday night and stay in and do work, after i cooked an amazing dinner. but kara texted me asking if i wanted to go out with her flatmates, so i decided why not. so i watched ugly betty, ok my beef with rte is you show ugly betty only a week behind, but grey's you are half a season behind, and i don't know when they are going to start season 4... grrrr.

so anyway, i wore my cute new top from awear and went over and i felt old. kara and i are much more of the sit and relax at pub kinda people and her flatmates are far from it, they are also only 2nd years, and i know i drank a lot differently then, but they were crazy. so after some drinking in her flat we head out to a club, and it reminded me i don't like clubbing too much. so kara and i stayed until about 1 and then went to the chipper and walked home. it was a fun night, but i was just tired. i worked all day friday and then kara and i went to costigans for a pint and then i got a text from dave, a few people from the club were going to the oval, so kara and i met them there. it was a fun, relaxing and low key night, just as i like them.

saturday i slept in, yay for sleep. i hadn't been able to sleep in for 2 weeks. then i got ready and packed up a weekend bag, because it was grainne's 21st party in killarney. her friend aoife and cian were picking me up and i was going with them, so i could avoid the bus. it poured on the way up and was an icky rainy day. had a great afternoon, relaxing, getting stuffed by her mom and talking with her family. wore my cute new dress from awear and had a great time first at the hotel where she had friends from home, college and everywhere there as well as some family. then we went out in killarney, which was fun, but going clubbing for the 2nd night in a week when i don't really enjoy it. but it was still a savage night. it was pouring, and after we got home, we stayed up talking and laughing until 4.30. sunday slept in and relaxed at her house, had an amazing lunch and the drove back to cork. i was lazy when i got home and read a marion keyes book, instead of one about irish women and relaxed.

yesterday, i worked all day and went climbing :) i was very excited when i climbed up the left side of the exposed part of the wall. i was completely wrecked but so excited to finally do it. i can't wait to get the right side, and now i'm going to work on colours on the hard ones, i do it so i can climb it, then i go for a certain route. so that was fun. then just went over to kara's and relaxed because it was cold and rainy.

at work now, just about done, have to run to the city centre before class at 3, then class and then kara and i are doing our thanksgiving dinner, going out to eat at scuzzi's and then watching some friends thanksgiving episodes. then tomorrow morning before class is the international thanksgiving breakfast, then class and then i'm hoping on a plane to london where i am going to see meg for thanksgiving!

so yay for everything and i can't believe its thanksgiving already, seriously.

oh funny story, so friday at work a U2 song was on the radio, i said i like U2 and dave (my boss) was like yea, bono is at ucc today. i just laughed and was like whatever dave. so saturday i'm looking at the paper at grainne's and front page photo, bono at ucc for hunger conference... seriously so i thought it was pretty funny. i did apologise to dave at work yesterday just because i thought he was taking the piss out of me. so thats my funny story of the week.

dingle weekend

so i survived the weekend!
it didn't go as bad as i expected it might, but it was still mighty awkward.
so walking to the bus friday, i was like ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
and i realized when i didn't see him, that he had probably gotten a ride up with someone.
so the 3 hour bus ride there i was pretty quiet and at one point amanda (she just finished her masters in english from the US/Canada, and is becoming a good friend of mine) looked at me and asked how i was doing because she realized that he was going to be there. i said i'm ok, and its gonna be weird, but i'm not gonna let it ruin my weekend.

so we get there and after moving into one of the rooms and opening a bottle of koppelberg,i go to walk into the sitting room where a lot of people are hanging out by the fire, so i open the door and there he is on the couch, i walk out and head straight for the kitchen. i felt as i had just seen a ghost. i spent the next hour or so helping to make team cusine's dinner. there were 7 of us cooking together and we made some rocking dinners. so apparently i looked really pale in the kitchen and amanda just gave me a big hug. so after dinner i went into the sitting room, and had a great time. we did the crazy flexibility games with the cardboard box, then people climbed the hostel walls, we circumnavigated the table, and we were in the same room, both doing the games. so it wasn't too bad. while i was on the table colin and brian, while i was hanging upside down from the table went yea, double fist that. and told everyone in the room the story, and all weekend they kept giving me two glasses to hold. but with marcus on friday night it was a complete ignore situation and i was ok with that. i had a great time with my friends and laughing with everyone, despite the awkardness.

saturday was great during the day. hiked the abfab mt. brandon, one of my favourite mountains. the view was great, up to about 2/3 the way up, when we hit the clouds, and we got misted on because we were in a cloud. but it was still great craic. i hiked up the sea cliff side and then down the pilgrim path, where we joked around about the stations of the cross and made up fun jesus ones as we walked down. it was great to be back on brandon and for me to hike and forget about everything on my mind. lucky for me he decided to go climbing with a few people instead of hiking. so it was a great day.

that night though, not as great. so after another fab team cuisine dinner. i was walking in the hall and pretty much bumped into him. i was like fuck, so that was the closest we came to talking or not being across the room from each other. and so for the night we were pretty much always in separate rooms, and at one point i went into the kitchen to get my malibu, i was drinking malibu and sprite and i had about 3/4 of a bottle..... and he was in the kitchen and i sat down and joined the discussion, after a few minutes he left. i laughed. so i was having a great night, laughing with friends and everything,and it was about 2am at this point. and colin and brian were sitting on the coach with me, and brian touched my side on accident and i start laughing and he realised i was ticklish. so he goes to colin, she is ticklish and he tries to tickle me. so i didnt want to be tickled, so i was like seriously stop guys. so they continued, so i slapped colin. and was like not this weekend. and they realised. and this was the start to my downturn. so brian sees i look upset and takes me outside to talk. so him and i talk and i was crying at this point, and he was really great, reminding me that not many people would have come and that i did and i'm the better person. so then amanda comes and was amazing. she was like we are going for a walk, so we walk down towards the ocean and had a great chat about everything and she was great and just got me to talk about everything and get out how i was feeling. so after our walk, i head upstairs to wash my face and take out the contacts and i went back downstairs and sat and hung out for about another hour with people, and he was in the other room. so i finally went to bed around half 4.

sunday i was up early to go climbing :) yay! a gorgeous morning out on dunsheen. i climbed 5 routes and i did my first lead climb outside. leading is where you aren't clipped into the rope at top and as you climb you place gear, which holds ya in. so it was my first time doing it and i did great. before this i climbed 3 really great climbs and i did the climb i leaded, which was really easy. so it was a gorgeous sunny day and i got some great pictures :) and climbing outside at one of the most gorgeous places was what i needed after saturday night. so got back to the hostel in time to pack up and shower then hit the bus for the ride home, where we sang the 3 hours home. it was fab and such a great weekend. i am so wrecked though, both physically and emotionally. i am covered in bruises from the table along my arms and legs and my knees are killing me and so bruised from climbing. hahah, oh yea, so climbing on sunday a route i love is a huge crack, and you have to shove your hands in the crack to climb, so i have two hands in the crack and just burst out laughing because of all the double fisting jokes. so i'm going climbing in a little bit tonight, to stretch out and get some exercise and to see some friends.

so it was so weird seeing him, even from across the room and not talking. it was slightly awkward but i don't know how it would have gone if we had talked. so i am so glad the weekend is over and its something i hope i don't have to deal with again for a long time.

so yesterday i just worked all day, and was slightly out of it because i was so tired and sooo sore. but i went to the wall last night and i only did 2 climbs. but i made it to the top of the overhang! i was so excited. i was at a point for the last 2 weeks where i couldn't get past a certain line on the wall on any climbs, and yesterday was the first time i made it above it. i was completely wrecked after that, but so excited. then i met kara for our monday night pint and it was fab to catch up from the weekend :)

so tonight is dinner with kara and then doing work, wednesday is climbing and pub :) and then saturday i'm going to killarney for my roomate grainne's 21st party! yay! no hiking this weekend though.

trying to circumnavigate the table!

yay for dingle and mt. brandon!

more climbing

me climbing up

two visitors and adventures in cork

so it is november.

i've been really bad at updating this month, but things have been fabulous here in cork :)

classes are going very well. the research methods one is slightly more boring, but i still enjoy it. after class on tuesday nights kara and i do dinner together. we take turns cooking and it has been a lot of fun. i like experimenting with cooking and we always have fun, and a bottle of wine always helps. the diaspora class is fabulous. i'm reading like crazy, and andy is great. i need to make sure i have enough on irish domestics in england this week, and let andy know by wednesday that i'll be comparing england and the us. if not i'll just be doing irish domestics in the us, but a different angle then my undergrad research. so that is going well.

hiking and climbing is also great. two weeks ago went to gougane barra. it was a gorgeous day! went in a smaller group that did a gully scramble and it was great fun. we got back about two hours before the other groups did and had some fabulous soup and conversation. last sunday we went to horse's glen. it was fun. it was the first hike where there was rain but it was still great.climbing has been fab. i bought climbing shoes, which are abfab and pink! so i'm climbing more and more and loving that. wednesday nights out are always funny, you never know the taboo conversation which will occur and who will be made fun of.

megan came to visit me last week! it was so fab to see her! saturday night we went and watched the rugby world cup final. then sunday morning we were up early to catch the bus to the cliffs of moher. it was so great to see them again. it was a clearer day then when i went two years ago and i took some great pictures :) then we took the bus up to galway. it was so great to catch up with megan and talk about life and teaching and everything. galway was fun. it was a yucky rainy, windy day. but we still had fun. we walked around the city and saw this amazingly gorgeous cathedral, and went into cute shops, i bought a cladaugh ring, and the cool thing about them is they were designed in galway, and right outside the city centre was a small fishing village called cladaugh, which is where it originates from. we also walked to the national university ireland - galway, one of the other big universities in ireland and walked around. we kinda crashed graduation.. haha. well just got in the way in the student centre when parents were trying to take pictures. then after a fab lunch we headed back for the weirdest bus ride to cork. then the we just hung out around cork until thursday when she left.

i also had a visitor this week too. my friend kathryn from edblock was in ireland for the week on her break, so she came down to cork for a few days. it was great to see her and talk about wac, edblock, teaching and life in europe. wednesday after meeting her at the bus station i just showed her around cork and we caught up. then we went to the pubs with the club, it was a hilarious night... then thursday we went to kinsale for the afternoon. i love kinsale and all the ships. and on friday we went to lunch and then i took her to get the best hot chocolate in the world :)

last night i went climbing with amanda, and it was great. i got 2/3 up the overhang and i was really proud of myself, i also lead climbed for the first time in 2 years, i did two easy climbs.. just trying to work up the confidence on lead climbing. and i also worked on some of the small overhang.. so it was a great, but exhausting night. then we met up with some people at mutton lane, i love that pub. so it was a fab friday night.

and today i am being lazy, though the amount of reading i have to do is crazy. hiking tomorrow and then a busy week ahead. but i am verrry excited for dingle next weekend with the club!

cliffs of moher panoramic shot

me at the cliffs

me in kinsale harbour

kinsale harbour panoramic