something intelligent out of texas, for once...

At work today I was trying to catch up with the weekend in news. Since my connection at home is soo slow I didn't get a chance to watch the debates over the weekend, and I only watched a bit of it at work today, beccause we were busy, but I was trying to watch it along with a few other things. The SNL Palin skit made me laugh, I also watched some of the actual interview with Katie Couric. But the thing I was most intersted in today was the economic talk. I looked over the proposed economic package (ok, skimmed it as it was 110 pages and pretty confusing, as we well know economics is not my thing) but I am glad the House defeated it. Why should we bail out uber greedy Wall Street? The people who thought granting rediculous loans to people who they knew couldn't afford it? So they could get their multimillion dollar bonus? And with all these banks/investment firms failing, and bigger ones buying them up like JP Morgan buying WaMu, isn't that creating a monoply? So what happens if one of these megabanks fails? It would be even worse than what is happening now... So I just don't get the buying of a failing bank, won't it create a domino effect? And the stock market... While something needs to be done, I don't think the proposed plan is the best, it seems like Wall Street is getting away with nothing, not even a slap on the wrist. So I was looking at the article on CNN and this quote popped out to me, and it really does sum up the last week, and in my opinion this bill...

"Like the Iraq war and patriot act, this bill is fueled by fear and haste," said Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas

One thing I did find extremely interesting was to see the breakdown of the vote, Democrats had a higher yes vote, which is interesting. Like I know Republicans are more conservative when it comes to financial issues, but it seems like this would have been something that the Republicas would have supported. And also interesting that the Dems have a House majority and the bill was rejected and that Bush was really pressing this bill and the majority of his party went against the bill. My rep in Jersey went against the bill, and he is a Republican. So it will be interesting to see what happens over the night with everything, and how it effects everything over here in the morning, as the passage of the bill, was at the end of the working day here....

So anyway, besides being political, I had a great weekend. It felt fabulous to be done with the thesis :) Friday night Kara came over for dinner, then we went over to hers to watch movies with the girls. It was fun and we caught up since we've been in 4 different places over September. Saturday did the usual and ran errands, and then I sat out in the garden reading because it was sunny. Sunday was glorious! A gorgeous sunny day! Perfect for hiking :) Especially since it was the first hike of the season, and I love Boughil. Especially on a great day, the views of the Reeks, Black Valley, Kenmare Bay and Kerry are fabulous. And surprisingly a lot less showed up than we were expecting, only 45 people. So there was 2 groups of people, a longer group of 30, and then I went in the shorter (but I think we ended up doing the same, as we continued to hike more) had 15. So much fun, and everyone was pretty awesome. So YAY! for that. 

So other than that, just up to the usual working, reading lots... Enjoying the few days of sunshine in Cork :)

she's so pretty!

picked up bridget (yes, i named my thesis) from the binders today! and then went to the exams and records office and handed in 3 copies of her along with the 2 forms i needed to fill out :)

she came out very nice! 

i am still quite excited about her!! 

and at the fact i am done!

YAY!!!

the finished product!

i really like long titles... thanks for the help amy!

bridget and i

also kara is back! so fun should start up again soon. next friday evening is the pub crawl. we are bringing along printed out copies of the thesis, taking pictures with them at every pub, getting the bartenders to sign them.... the goal of this week is to map out the crawl. we will be starting at 5pm when i get out of work and proceeding to the old bar, then the new bar on campus... and from there into all of our favourite spots in town... i am quite excited for this!

and congrats to the little sister for getting a bid to phi mu! yay! talking to her all this week about it reminded me of my recruitment for ZTA and what a fabulous week it was and how much fun bid day was, along with my amazing pledging, getting my super fab big and then initation...  YAY! for greek life!

thesis is done!!

le thesis is done!

i printed out 4 copies of her today, and she is ready to go to the binders tomorrow on my lunch hour. the stack of paper i walked out of the library with was unreal.  the four copies added up to 424 pages...  i felt bad for the people waiting behind me in the queue for the printers. oh well!

it was pretty scary printing out the final copy, but i've read the bloody thing so many times, i've had multiple friends and coworkers read it, and i am happy with how it turned out. of course i could have done more research, done a few things differently, but overall i'm happy. i  had a year for my masters, and seriously worked on the thesis for about 6 months, i've read a ton of books. somewhere along the line of about 250 books and articles in the last year. my source list had about 175 on it, of that i put 150 in the bibliography, and then i read quite a few books for my classes too. so i've actually accomplished a lot this year. so crazy to be done! i printed off a copy this morning before work and re-read it one last time to make sure all the formatting and such was correct, and i found 3 spelling errors. so then after work i went to the library and printed her off. 

"In Persuit of Opportunity: The Experiences of Irish Domestic Servants in the United States and Great Britain 1870 to 1960" came in at 106 pages, total of 27024 words, including the bibliography and footnotes. the actual text was 20995, so i was only 995 words over. not bad. 

so YAY!!! so besides getting it bound, i just have to get it signed by my adviser, the head of the department and then hand it into the registrar. so she should be officially turned in on friday. 

so i had a pretty good weekend. the weather was absolutely gorgeous! like 65 and sunny both saturday and sunday!  saturday i worked in the morning, then in the afternoon ran my errands, and then sat out in the back garden with a book and then did the last edits on the thesis. sunday was just amazing! i went hiking to brough na binne with a few friends and it was a splendid day. sun was out, gorgeous area of kerry and it felt so good to get out on the mountain. karen, gearoid, emer and i went, and after driving through the gap (which i have never done, it made us laugh to drive through the gap) and into the black valley, where it was just stunning. made me remember why i love ireland so much. the hike was great, lots of fab conversation, time alone thinking and stunning views :) it was so nice to go out in such a small group, especially since next week is the first official hike... so there will be like 100 people out... but it will be great to get out every week, as i haven't really hiked since june! 

campus was mad today! college started and the place was packed! i forgot how crazy it gets when people are around, and the queues are soo long now for everything. oh well. it is also crazy that i'm not starting college this year, i'm ending... i don't know how i feel about that...

some pictures from the weekend :)

brough na binne

in the black valley

the clouds started to roll in...

this is what 4 copies of the thesis looks like...

the different drafts of the thesis....

and it is my 100th post on here! yay!

i want to work in a national park

so i was looking at pictures as they scrolled through my screen saver and a few from last summer's trip to zion, bryce and the grand canyon popped up and it made me realize that i really want to go back out west. i only spent a few days out there, but i loved it. i love the landscape and just how gorgeous it is out there. and i want to do some hiking out there... so i'm looking into seeing what kind of summer jobs are available at national parks out west. it is something i've always talked about doing and this summer just seems like a good time to do it... the two i'm most interested in would be zion in utah and glacier in montana. so i am going to look into that, i'd love if i could get a interpretative or ranger position, but i'd even think about working in the lodge waitressing or something along those lines... so just something to add to the list of possibilities...

anyway, it is funny now that i'm in the last week of the thesis, it is the last thing i want to do... all i have left is editing, and walburn sent me her edits and she is totally my favourite person right now. i'm reading through and just comparing her edits, to the one's i made this week. and she is amazing! i love long sentences and she has totally made them so much better! yay! i love having friends who like to edit, especially as a historian! so that is the fun for the weekend. the goal is to edit it over the weekend, do one final read on monday morning at work, and bring it to the binder's on monday...

so yea, just the usual. worked late today, last night we are open late. i also am working tomorrow. calling home in a few mintues to wish my brother a happy birthday! i can't believe he is 13!! that mean's i'm old. so in fun news i love the new chat labels, i use the labs and one of them is customized colours in labels. i had a lot of fun customizing all of my labels :) soo anyway i'm tired so happy friday!

sussex county makes national news...

so one of the first things i do at work in the morning is check the news. some of the news sites i frequent are the bbc, rte (irish), cnn, ny times, and then a few local ones from new jersey. so i see on the ever so fabulous nj herald website - yay sussex county, a bit about callers who were trying to reach the democratic headquarters in newton reached a phone sex hotline instead... apparently 411 had a number wrong, but the yellow pages gave the right number. so i had to laugh a few hours later when i was checking cnn.com and on the front page the top headlines looking at the international side is Typo connects Obama party callers to sex chat
i burst out laughing when i saw that make national news. congrats to sussex county for making the international news for something so silly!

anyway, the usual thursday at work. we've been pretty busy with lots of international students and regular students looking for housing, plus since college starts back on monday the societies are all coming back. and we've gotten some hilarious things in this week too, the student who wanted to know his rights about leaving a house because he was allergic to it... (seriously) and the students who took a house, moved in the first week of september and we got a call from a landlord yesterday wanting to know what she should do, they left monday and the house was a disaster. they wanted to get their deposits back as they were leaving... they actually only took the house because they were graduating and wanted a house to party for a week! so we are also getting some crazy stories about houses and landlords as people are moving in.. keeps us entertained!

so my computer is back! i got a call yesterday right before lunch. so YAY! my co-workers laughed at me on tuesday. when i talked to them on friday, they had ordered the wrong part, so i was told it should be in monday or tuesday. so monday i call and they say it hadn't arrived yet, so i call tuesday afternoon, where i was told they ordered the wrong part AGAIN! so i get angry with them, i see ordering the wrong thing once, but twice??? My computer was in the shop for 10 days, when to fix it might have taken about 2 hours... so i was not a happy camper when i called. sharon told me after i got off the phone, remind me to never piss you off. haha. and that was nothing... so wednesday when i got the call i was pleasntly surprised that it was done so fast when i was told they didn't think they would have the part until thursday...

so other than that went climbing last night, getting back into that. walburn is sending me her edits on my thesis tomorrow, so it should be a thesis filled weekend :) the plan is to finish it this weekend and bring it to the binder's on monday or tuesday! soooo close to being done!

i'm lost without my computer

so i haven't had my computer for a week, while they are fixing it and it is driving me insane! i am so dependent on my laptop, especially while living abroad. it is my communication with friends and family, my news, my music, what i use to watch movies, but especially my communication. i am always emailing, gchatting and i use it to call as well. and with it being september and my thesis is due in 3 weeks, so the actual academic uses. gaaaaah.

luckily i have access to a computer at work, so emailing and the usual stuff is great. plus it is usually quiet enough at work, so i've been able to edit my thesis. so fishing up the editing this week, and i want to get it bound early next week!

other than that is has been a quiet week. working lots and really just relaxing, i'm sooo glad i'm not stressing out about the thesis! i need to get a hobby or something though. i'm not used to free time. like i'm going to join the gym at the end of the month when my student membership expires and so i'll work out a few times a week, go climbing as well... but i don't like having so much free time! so any ideas? like i'll still be hiking on sunday's and go climbing with the club monday/wednesdays... but i just want more. went out to mahon point on saturday to go shopping. picked up a few sweaters at zara :) one of my favourite shops over here, classic simple designs and plain colours, so i like it. and i also found jeans that fit me at next for only €30. which is pretty exciting. yay! we were going to go hiking on sunday, but the forecast was calling for a miserable day, so we decided to wait, in a few weeks we'll be hiking in any weather, so for now we'll be picky....

sooo that's all in the super exiting life of erin. ohhh, did you see the snl palin/clinton sketch? watched it this morning and just kept laughing, one of the funniest things i have seen in a LONG time. tina fey's impersonation is just fabulous! happy monday!

one year!

crazily enough i have been living in ireland for a year!

it has been one crazy, awesome year. part of me still doesn't believe i have been living here for a year. it has been one year to remember though from starting my masters, meeting so many people, getting back with the club, traveling, working, thesising, hating the weather and everything else!

i am so glad i did this and took advantage of the opportunity. i mean i'm getting to live abroad, in a country and place i love and wanted to move to for a year and a half. i'm almost done with masters degree! and i've gotten to go to some amazing places this year and do some pretty amazing things!

YAY!

how did i get to be this lucky?

i have grown a lot this year, reconnected with old friends, it has been interesting to see who kept in touch from 3000 miles, started new friendships, learned a lot about accommodation, realized i miss teaching and working with children, i've dealt with a ghost, email has become my primary means of communication, survived my first irish summer, had an amazing new year's adventure, continued to climb my way around ireland, some hilarious stories and haved loved almost every minute of it :)

decisions, decisions...

so i'm back at square one.

what to do with my life after december...
for the last month i was leaning more towards going home in december and either subbing or finding a teaching job of some sort until june, and i would be applying for teaching jobs starting in september. but as it is getting time to think about booking that one way ticket back to the states i am aprehensive.

the irish government is giving me six months to live here thanks to the graduate work scheme. it is for non eu citizens who have graduated from an irish university and it lets you work for six months while looking for a real job. so since my goal was to live in ireland, i feel crazy for leaving before they kick me out. so with that permit i could stay until june, but if i were to stay i'd would only stay until the end of march. that way i could start looking for a teaching job and just sub until june and find me a summer job somewhere fun before starting the real world starting the end of august.

so that is my dilema. i've been thinking a lot about it the last few days, and right now i'm leaning towards staying until march. i'd go home for 2 weeks for christmas and then back to the states somewhere in the last week of march. i'm leaning this way because i'm realizing how little time i have left and how much i still want to do and i've wanted to live over here for so long, so why not take advantage of it? plus, i think in a few years i'd really regret not staying longer, plus it is only another 3 months. so the reasons why i thought going home are still there, but i'm realizing i'd most likely be living at home and only doing temporary work and most likely unhappy, so why not continue to live here and work at the accom full time, plus travel and i'd be living in ireland?
sooo i need to talk to the parentals about this new thinking and see what they say.

so i had a good weekend :)
worked for a few hours on saturday, it was quiet. then i went into town to run a few errands and called home. laptop is broken :( her screen is dim and it slightly works, when i shine a flashlight on it, so called mom about that, they think her backlight is out, so that will be like €300 to fix. SUPER. so i'm taking her into the shop after work today. then i made dinner and i had a huge craving for mashed potatoes, so i did baked chicken, mashed potatoes, glazed carrots and peas. it was fabulous. i love cooking, but i wish it didn't take so long!
sunday i woke up and it was sunny so i decided to get outta cork, so i headed to youghal (pronoucned y'all) a cute little seaside town about an hour north of cork. i needed to get out of the city and wanted somewhere along the water, so it was perfect. i walked along the coast and sat and read for a bit, walked around the town, did the walking history, had lunch in a great little cafe and just enjoyed getting out and doing something fun :) so that was fun. i also caught the end of the kilkenny/waterford all ireland hurling final and ouccch. kilkenny killed waterford and the game was painful to watch. so that was a fun day!

today the usual monday at work, lots of internationals today! i met with andy and he gave me my thesis back, so a few things to edit which i'll do at work this week and then it should be done! crazy i can't believe it is getting that close to the end!!

so some pictures from youghal :)

youghal beach

boat in the harbour

soooo pretty :)

low tide

st. mary's collegiate church, built 13th c. one of the oldest churches in ireland in continual use

i've become boring

a horrible yucky rainy friday :( i'm working late tonight, but when i work late i put my country radio station on from home online and it makes me happy. yay for country music. lets see if i can infuse this into the office during the day...

so just working a lot, waiting to get the thesis back and trying to figure out what to do with all of this free time i have acquired... so as the irish weather is great and i don't want to go to the pub all the time i've been watching some tv and reading for pleasure.

so i know i have discussed irish tv before, but after wednesday night i just have to laugh. so there isn't much original irish programming on the television, rte does do a few shows - some are good, some are ok and most are just horrible. and they show a lot of american shows, some are only a week behind the states, while some are whenever they feel like showing it. it is sooo random what they show and they also looove reality tv over here! between all the crazy british and then american reality shows and the occassional irish ones. and they love showing random movies, pretty much any night one of the channels is showing a movie. so rte 1/2 generally show the normal programs, this is where most of the american series are and then tg4 is the irish language channel, which randomly shows some english programs, and then tv3 which is the trashy tv channel. like all the redic crazy us/uk reality shows and just really random ones. they loooove the 'i weigh 32 stone' type of shows as well as the makeover and some of the best uk trash! so wednesday night was pretty amazing on tv. first was an american show, crowned - the mother/daughter beauty pagent show. it was pretty crazy, seriously who goes on these types of shows? and whaaat must people think of americans with this show? that is what i want to know. now i know why so many people think americans are stupid and crazy, they see tv like this. so that was entertaining. then a new uk reality show called celeb air. they had 10 uk celeb, who i had no idea who ANY of them were. and they were working as flight attendants and other things. it just made me laugh. and then my favourite of the night - a super trashy uk mom and her 11 year old daughter who wanted to be in beauty pagents and model. so they went to texas to compete in some random pagent. it was priceless. the mom was crazy and you could tell she was pushing her daughter to do this and the daughter normally looked like 15. it was just horrible. there really are no words to describe this. ohhhh well.

otherwise nothing really super exciting going on. i've become boring, and i don't like that. i wish the weather was going to be nicer this weekend because i'd love to get out of the city for the day and just go to a cute little town or something nearby that i haven't explored. maybe next weekend? oh well. hope everyone has a good weekend :)

gossip girl,thesis, new house, political rant

so i have started updating like 4 times this week, but never had gotten around to actually finishing what i had to say.

so here is my life the last week:

- work is good, i've been working a lot. a few days i've worked from 9-8pm and i don't mind. it actually gave me a chance to work on the thesis as it is super quiet from 6-8. and also it is quite quiet during the day as well. we have been watching home and away most days around 3 online, and this morning i was able to watch last night's gossip girl and one tree hill. i love watching tv online :) also the girls and i have fun talking and laughing most of the day. and seriously there are some redic crazy landlords out there and they are so much fun to deal with. and even better are crazy parents. they make me laugh pretty much every day.

-thesis is fabulous! i have a month until it needs to be handed in. and i handed into andy a complete draft of the thesis on monday. it was 106 pages, and 27,800 words total. 21,600 words is my thesis, the other 6,000 are the footnotes (219) and bibliography. so YAY! so hopefully there aren't too many edits to make, and andy likes it. i just want it to be done! but andy did say i was the first person to hand him something this complete. so that made me feel good.

-i moved into my new house on sunday. it is a cute little house midway between the city and the college. i'm living with 3 professionals who all are nice. the house is clean and cute. my room is quite small, but it works. and i have a pretty view of the cathedral. and there is a cute back garden, which i'll probably never get to use.

-last week kara was living with me, as she needed to be out of her house on wednesday and couldn't move into her new one until monday. so that was fun. i would go to work, she would do things and thesis, we would do lunch and h&a together, when i got home from work we'd have tea, then i would do some thesis, we'd do dinner and then at night we'd hangout. so that was fun. friday evening we started watching gossip girl and i got kara hooked! so that was fun. saturday i had a few errands to run in town, then we thesised, and took breaks to watch gg. then we dressed up and went out to dinner and for a drink, which was fun :) and then we watched the last few episodes of gg. sunday was spent thesising, packing and moving some of my stuff to the new house thanks to karen and her car, which made it like a million times easier :) then kara and i just sat around talking while i was editing. it totally remined me of college, she was sprawled on my bed, i was sitting at my desk and we were talking. and it made me miss all those nights in college amy and i sitting there talking, or running down the hall to avoid doing work, lying on someone's bed and talking until 2am... i miss living with friends and just knowing each other... oh well.

-politics. it has been an interesting week. i watched all of the big speeches on youtube at work. loooooved hillary's, bill's made me laugh, the more i hear about biden i like him more and more, and obama's was good too. now sarah palin, the republican vp nominee. seriously? she is redic crazy. i do not like her one bit. she is super right wing, super pro-life, evangelical protestant, gun loving (and i'm not a gun hater) and pretty much on the opposite end of the spectrum from where i am politically. and she is from bloody alaska, no offense, but 12 people live in alaska. she was the mayor of some small town and then governer for only 2 years... what does she know? i know obama might be slightly unexperienced, but at least he was involved in state politics, then at least a senator. so he knows how dc works. gaaaaahhhhhhhh... and then the media has had a field day with the baby and pregnant daugther... seems like she might have some more important things going on in her life then to worry about campaigning for the next few months?
i mean seriously mccain, if you were trying to go after the women who would rather vote for a women, at least go for a little less crazy of one, there has to be a better republican women out there? how about condaleza, or i don't know anyone else? should be an interesting few months...

anyway that is enough of my rambling for now. happy september!