i'm going to italy!!!

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

i just booked flights this afternoon, so i'm headed to italy february 25 to march 2nd!!!

i am sooooo excited!

lots to do to plan this one, especially with only 2 weeks. but YAY! 

this will be my first time seriously traveling by myself. 

my first time in london three years ago, i was alone. but it was london and i went to n. ireland by myself in october. but this will be my first adventure to a place where i don't know the language.  so a little bit more intimidating, but i'm sooooo excited!

i'm flying into venice, then going to florence/pisa and then rome. it is going to be quick and i'm going to be packing a lot into my days, but i am excited. 

here's what i'm thinking...

wed - flight arrives into venice at 8pm

thurs - run around venice and love to canals

fri - up early and train to florence and then enjoy the artwork and the duomo

sat - pisa for the morning to do the obligatory picture with the tower, more fun in florence

sun - up early for train to roma, then the coliseum and pretending i'm a gladiator, and then people watching on the spanish steps with gelati at sunset (i was told to do this by a friend)

mon - vatican and more in rome. be at airport around 6.30 for flight back to cork. 

so does anyone have any omg you must do this? advice? or good places to stay?

so besides booking my flights, making this trip a reality nothing much else going on. 

i had a quiet weekend, i wanted to be more productive, but well that didn't happen. 

saturday i ran errands in town and had fun skipping in the sunshine, but it was COLD. ireland the 30s are not typical, please bring back the 40s. and then i watched an AMAZING rugby match. the 6 nations are back! YAY! it is ireland, scotland, wales, england, france and italy and for the next few weeks there are lots of glorious rugby matches on the weekend. so that is fab. and the game was great. ireland won 30-21 it but it was close a few times. france played a great match, but somehow ireland managed to hold them... so fingers crossed for the next few weeks.

and then sunday, well that was gloriously lazy. i thought about going hiking, but my bed won. it was actually sunny, but it is just bitter out with a wind. so next week, i'm going no matter what because it is the reeks, and i don't miss the reeks. but i enjoyed sleeping in, reading books in bed, watching a few movies, and the last 3 episodes of grey's... and WOW, soooo good! i love lexi and sloan together, and alex and izzy (and hopefully that awk thing with denny is over) and i liked the new doctor, but seriously the thing with callie? uuugh, don't fuck her over again. i love callie. and wtf with addison? which reminds me i am soooo behind on private practice, and oth and gg. 

and i'd like to aplaud the library with another tale of amazing. so i had many arguements with the library at my university over books. they always went missing when i needed them and after about 3-6 weeks they would be like yea, that book is missing and then i could interlibrary loan for free (otherwise they chargd 16 euro!!!) so this was great fun while writing my thesis. luckily i had time with that, not so much with my term papers. so a book i needed and requested last FEBRUARY and according to the catalogue, was listed as in process. which meant they were buying it, because the copy had been lost in 2006. so i figured i should have it by the summer. nooope, so i ask at the desk about it, yea it is still coming.. ok fine. so i realised by september nope, not getting this book. oh well, i'm not about to pay 16 euro for a book. what did i get over the weekend??? an email from the university library telling me the book was on hold for me. while i would have loved to go get it, i couldn't because i am no longer a student and don't have access to the library - it is card entry only. so thank you library for finally getting me that book a year later, and four months after i turned in my thesis and 2 months after i have my MA degree. 

so happpy monday!!!

oh and ps. welcome to all the new people reading :)

and a hot water bottle - yea i didn't think they existed any more either, reminds me of in like 19th century novels where they would bring heated bricks into bed... but they are used to warm the bed and i absolutely love mine. the irish really don't believe in heat, like we do in the us. so we don't have heat on at night... only between about 6pm-10pm and 7-10am. otherwise the house is freezing! so the 2 duvets and hot water bottle keep me nice and warm!!

blah...

Warning: This is a complete rant... 

So I'm in a funk again. I don't know what is wrong with me. I'm just unhappy right now. I know I shouldn't be and I think because I'm thinking this way, I'm making myself even more sad. GAH! What is wrong with me?

This last week I've just been blah. Honestly there is no other way to put it. I know I've been sick, but I've just been sleeping a lot or doing nothing after work. And I hate that I do nothing. I hate not being busy. And I guess it is finally getting to me. I miss doing things, I miss going out with friends, I miss climbing two nights a week. I hate that I come home from work, eat dinner, watch tv, go online or read/knit and then go to sleep. I want to do things!

I guess I'm just lonely. I have friends here, but I don't have friends, if you know what I mean. I miss the close friendships I had in college, just sitting around someone's room talking/watching movies/distracting each other from writing papers. Not doing anything in particular, just being around each other. I don't really have anything like that anymore and I miss it. I have my friends from the mountaineering who are great, but they are all so busy with college and life that we don't meet up besides hiking on Sunday's and the pub on Wednesday's (besides Karen who I meet up with for lunch once a week). The girls from work are great, but we don't really meet up outside work, besides drinks about once a month. Brenda and  I have become great friends, but she is in her final year and piled with college work but we still meet up once a week to do something. Her and I have become pretty good friends and I wish we still lived together. And I really don't know what happened with Kara and my friendship... we've drifted apart since the summer. And I guess I just miss just hanging out with people randomly, not making specific plans to do something. 

So I know that's been kinda lingering since before I went home, and I guess after being home and coming back, I just feel alone, right now. And not doing anything the last few days and especially today just made me sad. I slept in late today, which I know my body needed. But then I just read (I'm reading Sense and Sensibility) watched some crappy TV and was online. While part of me feels like I'm miserable here right know (I've even thought about going back at the end of February) I know I would be even more miserable leaving early. I know part of me is mad, because I feel like I'm wasting time, and I only have a little bit left here. I figured I have about 73 days left. And I want to make the most of it, because I do love it here, I'm just having a rough few days. So I'm going to be making up a list of things I have to do before I leave.

djgdkhgllsla;sglgldlsfl;s;afrigvdlsfl

So I'm going to have a good day tomorrow! I'm not hiking because I'm still kinda sick and the weather isn't the best and I'd rather not be sick for the next month. So I'm going into town and running some errands I wanted to do today and I'm going to go to my favourite coffee shop and sit and people watch and read. 

In other news, I got a good email from my thesis adviser, which hinted at the possibility of a journal publication from my thesis. Another professor in the department wanted a copy of my thesis, and he is one of the editors for a journal, so maybe. Which reminds me I want to work on creating a journal article for my thesis to send to another journal. And I applied to two independent school teacher agencies, I was accepted into one (which I've known about for a while and things are moving forward, I've talked with them and they have some of my letters of rec) and I just found out Friday I wasn't accepted into the second one (which surprised me, but oh well). And I'm getting busy planning for the roomies visit and our adventure to Spain!

So to end this on a happy note:  10 things I am happy about

-college roomie visiting me and we are going to Spain

-gingersnap cookies my grandma made me and I've been eating today

-it is not snowing in Ireland

-I'm living my dream of living in Ireland

- how amazing my hot water bottle is

- that I've been listening to Taylor Swift nonstop today

- Baltimore just won 13-10

- that I have an entire shelf full of goldfish, sour patch kids, peanut butter & ranch dressing...

- that I can watch my favourite TV shows online

- gchat messages 

2008 in review

Wow, 2008 was a pretty good year. I lived in Ireland for all of 2008, wrote a 21,000 word thesis, graduated with my Masters in History, traveled, showed my parents around Ireland and had two fabulous vacations home.

So here is 2008!

January: Ended 2007/started 2008 out right with the club up in Letterfrack, started up my second semester of classes and loved my new professor Cindy, also got to go to a lecture by one of my favourite historians - JJ Lee,  a few super wet hikes, had a few crazy Thursday nights out with Kara followed by slightly hungover Friday mornings at work and abseiled off the science building on campus for charity with the club.

February: started the month out with the Sex and the City Wine night..., counted out thousands of euros because it was Ball season at work, had a completely epic hike with the club on the Reeks with 2' of snow and Curve Gully, our slight obsession with Pat Fitz (Irish singer), had the hilarious good idea/bad idea Wicklow weekend and the cloud inversion on Lugnaquilla, went to Wales to see my sister and enjoyed seeing Swansea and I also made out with the Welsh guy, the post Birthday Ball phone call with my crew loves, finally reading my fav book of 2008 - Eat, Pray, Love.

March: started out the month with a friend from college visiting for a night, then Kara's friend from home was also over so that was a crazy few days, then a great hike up my favourite Irish mountain - Mt. Brandon, the hilariousness of the post-grad ball and law boy, my twin cousins being born, a super long but awesome Cloon Lake hike, the rediculousness of clubs&socs - quadruple double fisting, wayy too much wine, lots of dancing and laughing with the club, the totally hardcore Reeks Ridge hike, celebrating St. Patrick's Day in Ireland, Easter and our yummy dinner, and ending the month in Donegal with the club where it was a fabulous 5 days and had some incredible hikes on the Blue Stacks, Slieve League (with the most gorgeous cliffs and a swim in the N.Atlantic) and Errigal.

April: Started out the month meeting up with my sister and heading off to Greece! I had an AMAZING week in Athens and Santorini. Turning the corner in Athens and seeing the Acropolis, words can't even describe, the 9 hour ferry ride to Santorini was to totally worth it with the view of the cliffs and spending 3 days on the pants island. from the cliffs, the view of the caldera, black beaches, and the most gorgous sunset i've ever seen, I loved Santorini, back to Athens where we continued to take in the sites before heading back to Ireland, working on my term paper and really missing rowing, finally getting to meet Jenna (the other girl from the whole M. saga from my study abroad) and it was great! Megan coming over for another visit, being done with classes for the first time since I was 4, my ZTA weekend in London touring Parliament and Cambridge and seeing the bonds of sisterhood really are amazing.

May: I booked my flight home for my vacation in July, started seriously working on thesis, enjoyed a few days of good weather, bbq's, a great night climbing at Kinsale, realizing I've done a lot more work on the thesis than I though after seeing I read 105 books and notes on 62, going to the gym again, finally moving out of the house from hell,  celebrating a year post-wac and my rowers getting a NCAA bid, cheering on Munster as they won the Heinekin Cup, the fabulousness of seeing Sex and the City opening night (2 days before the US)!

June: I was in quite a funk in June, I blame it on the lack of summer weather, being disappointed when it looked like Hillary lost the primaries, summer housemate Brenda and I being crazy, being excited that I actually had 5,000 words of thesis written by the 13th, a few fun 21st parties, a fun rainy afternoon shopping with the girls, ending the month with 12,500 words on thesis, getting really excited about my trip home and a great hike in the Eastern Reeks.

July: soooo much rain, seriously even for Ireland, pub quiz fun, thank god for 3 weeks of real summer weather in the States! 3 absolutely crazy weeks with my DC trip, seeing my Worch girls, Coop's wedding and seeing some of my crew loves, meeting up with little, a relaxing week at the shore with the fam, the most incredible camping weekend on the Cape with my lovers, who I missed soo much, my 23rd birthday, the silly lionkitty breaking his leg, seeing jerz, becca and twin and getting back in touch with holly.

August: Back to wet Ireland, where I started working full time at the office, and getting serious on the thesis, so it wasn't a very fun month. by the middle of the month having the 4 chapters in draft, the OLYMPICS and watching my women's 8 win gold!!! the boys winning bronze, Michael Phelps, more fun with lawboy, work hitting the busy season but having a lot of laughs with the girls and not being soo stressed about the thesis.

September: I moved again, handed in a rough draft of thesis to my adviser, lots and lots of hours at work,  the whole Sarah Palin rediculousness, deciding to stay in Ireland until March, a fabulous day in Youghal, and computer breaking, 1 year in Ireland,  spent lots of time editing the thesis, finished the thesis, had her bound and handed her in 1 week early!! She came in at 106 pages and 20,995 words, and a gorgeous hike in sunshine to brough na binne, the financial mess and the first official hike of the year with the club.

October: uggggh sick, voted by absentee ballot for Obama, the hilarious night out lots of free beer, a fun hike in Gougane Barra, being a film festival volunteer, the wettest hike possible on Coumsaharan, a fabulous weekend in N. Ireland going to Belfast and the Antrim Coast, getting a postcard from Mary Whipple (my coxing idol), booking my flight home for Christmas, and a funny Halloween as Sarah Palin!

November: Was sooooooo ready for November 4th and the election. I stayed up until 5.30am to watch the coverage and was sooo excited and overjoyed at Obama being elected President, a fun but super wet Dingle weekend, my baking obsession started, the amazing Munster-All Blacks rugby match, finding out I was graduating with and thesis recieved 1st class honours!!, two very yummy Thanksgivings and a great snowy hike in the Reeks. 

December: A fun night out with the girls from work and the socs Christmas party, meeting my parents in London! and showing them all around one of my favourite cities, stepping over the Prime Meridian, lots of pictures with Big Ben and Parliament, a few crazy days traveling around Ireland - the Ring of Kerry, Killarney, Blarney, and all around Cork, my MA graduation and back to the states for a few weeks, where it has snowed way too much for me, a great few days in CT seeing my roomie, some crazy family times, getting to see Chelsea, the wonderfulness of NYC at Christmas, a great reunion with Holly in NYC, and yet again working on New Year's Eve. 

So some goals for 2009

-be happy

-work on a more healthy lifestyle

-enjoy my last 3 months in Ireland 

-travel as much as possible

-find a teaching job for September

-find a fun summer job

-start my 'big girl' life

- keep in better touch with family and friends

- become more crafty (knitting, scrapbooking)

- continue reading history books

- edit thesis for journal publication

- save money

2008 was pretty fabulous, 2009 is a year of endings and beginings. I'm getting a few more months in a country I love and then I'm starting my job search for both a fun summer and a teaching job starting in September, so who knows where I'll be next year? I'm ready for the adventure and crazyness that 2009 is about to bring!

first of the month...

so i've been doing this for a few years now and i love it. the first things posted every month for 2008 :)

january: 4th - edinburgh and letterfrack

back to reality... 

(written after my christmas holiday to edinburgh and then new years in connemara with the club)

february: 1st - crazy weather

ireland has the weirdest weather today...

(it the span of about 30 minutes it was sunny, pouring rain, huge wet snowflakes and sun)

march: 3rd - kinsale, mt. brandon, sangria

 busy. busy weekend :)

(a friend from wac spent thursday night with me, then kara's friend from home visited and then mt. brandon on sunday)

april: 2nd - going greek!

 off to greece for the week!!

may: 1st - may day!

 happy may day!!

(reminisced about may day at wac... ohhh the crazyness!)

june: 3rd - avoiding the thesis

 this weekend i completely avoided the thesis. and it was fabulous!

(bank holiday weekend fun of enjoying the sunshine and having fun!)

july: 2nd - life to do list

so amy and i were talking about our life to-do lists the other day and i realized the last time i wrote mine down was summer 2006, when becca and i were setting goals for our senior year of college.

august: 1st - already august?

 i can't believe it is already august. gah, where is time going? it has been a good last week in the states.

september: 2nd - gossip girl, thesis, new house, political rant

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

(randomness about work, thesis, moving house, kara and politics)

october: 5th - random...

it is a gorgeous sunny day and i am not on a mountain :(

(silly being sick)

november: 3rd - i can see russia from my house... halloween fun.

 halloween this year was quite fun...

(all about the antics from halloween)

december: 2nd - turkey, snowy hikes, december.

i've started writing this about 5 times now and hopefully i'll be able to actually write it. i open blogger and then get distracted by a gchat, someone at work, or something...

so there you have it, my first of the months aren't that exciting this year.. oh well.

i'm a master

I was conferred today, so I am officially a graduate of UCC and I now posess a Masters degree.

YAY!

The conferring was nice. Kara came over, we had mimosas and got ready together, walked over to college and the crazyness! Struggled to make our gowns and hats look acceptable, luckily Kara had been told to bring pins, or the gowns would have been open, as they didn't have any zippers, buttons or anything! Then the ceremony, it was short, the main part of the ceremony was in Latin. Then they just called up the names, we got our degree, signed the university register, the conferring speaker and then we were done. So the only person not to finish was Catherine (known to Kara and I as Grandma) - Paula, Olen, Cian, Michael and Aine all finished. Kara and I thought someone else wouldn't finish, so it was good to see everyone and catch up. After lots of pictures, then I ran over to work to say hello to everyone and then back to meet up with my parents to show them around my lovely little city :)

The vacation with the family has been good, only driving me slightly crazy over the last week. But the post about those adventures will be once I am back in the US. 

me

the parents and little bro

kara and i

outside the presidents door

first class honours!

So results for my masters were posted to come out tomorrow at 4pm. So all this week, just in case they were posted early I've been checking and today at like 4ish I looked, and they were up!!

I got a FIRST HONOURS!!!!!!!!

YAYAYAYYAYAY!

So that is like the American equivalent to getting an A average for my Masters!!

I was quite excited!! I got a 72 on my thesis and was quite excited. Ok, I know you're thinking a 72, that's almost failing, why are you excited?!? Over here anything above a 70 is a First Class Honours, and they grade much tougher. So like it is impossible of to get something in the 80s and the 90s are unheard of. Anything from a 60-69 is a Second Class, Grade 1 (equivalent to a B)and 50-59 is a Second Class, Grade 2 (equivalent to a C). 

So I'm excited about this!

YAY!!

Going out to dinner with Brenda and celebrating! Kara and I are doing drinks tomorrow to celebrate! 

i'm serious about the long emails...

So I like to write long emails to friends. And I'm serious when I say I write long emails. Like for the last year on a daily basis my college roomie and I have been emailing back and forth, and these aren't just a few sentences, I'm talking paragraphs upon paragraphs. We always joke that we write books to each other and so after writing an email to her yesterday I saw how long it was so I decided to word count it... 2006 words. And while that one was unusually long, my normal emails are quite long about 1000-1200 words, and this isn't just to amy, it is to my loves, berries, family, other friends... so if you ever email me, chances are you'll get a book back.

I got the best mail in the world today! Last week was Head of the Charles in Boston and as I was obviously not there I got the next best thing in the mail. A postcard from MARY WHIPPLE!! My rowing idol. She is the coxswain of the US women's 8 and I love her. The postcard said - Wish you were here! Have a pint for me! - You don't know hoooow excited I am! Too bad I didn't get to meet her, but I have emailed back and forth with her over a rowing project in college.

Winter is here :( I don't like it. I pulled out all the coats and sweaters out of the closet. Luckily we aren't getting snow here though, and we rarely get snow here in Cork. They got a few inches at home on Tuesday.

My conferring is 10 December! YAY! I'll officially be a Master then. Have to finish planning my parents visit, as I now know when graduation is, so I can plan everything else.

I had more I was thinking about but now I can't remember. It was random stuff anyway.
Happy Wednesday!

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!

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!

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!

i love finding things online!

so today at work i made an amazing discovery! i was editing chapter two and andy made a note about using the dillingham commission report for a few things, in 1911 the senate issued this report on immigration and he told me i could use his copy. we'll he didn't have it in his office and couldn't find it. so i was hoping i could find it online, so i wouldn't have to go figure out if (and they probably don't) the ucc library has it. so i searched and i found it online! yay! for stanford! and to make it even better it is completely searchable, like i can type in irish domestic servants or second generation irish and it shows me the pages it is on!! so that totally made my day!!
(ok, enough of me being a dork)
so the thesis editing is going well, chapters one and two are edited, i need to do three and four tomorrow, so thursday i can write the conclusion and then friday/over the weekend i can check and do all the footnotes/bibliography - which i think might take forever! so then on monday i can print it out and give andy the 2nd draft of the thesis! and i noticed today i hit the 20,000 word count. i've added about 1500 words to 1/2 and there will be some slight additions to 3/4. so i'm quite happy with that, so really i just need to get like 1000 words for the conclusion and i'll be happy :)

so work has been good, we've been kinda giggly at work. its quiet and the girls and i like to joke around and laugh, so we play pranks on each other, watch home and away, and talk, especially about crazy mum's that we deal with on the phone! so that has been fun, i'm glad work makes me laugh, i can get some thesis work done and the people i work with are class. the workgirls, andrew and i are having a bit of fun on thursday evening, so it should be a laugh!

the pub quiz at the brog last night was fun, we did ok. but the american invasion of cork is on in full force! the early starters all arrived thursday/friday and they all were at the brog last night. but the quizguy kicked out a huge table of them who weren't playing, and the girls and i swooped in and grabbed the table, it was pretty funny. so it was a good laught :) tonight was private practice and grey's with brenda. i reallly like private practice, tonight was the finale of that so now i have to wait! grrr. but it was also the rose of tralee final, which is a pretty big deal in ireland. it is an international irish competition and kinda like miss america, but different. so it was fun to watch that, and it was cool because each girl, there were 31 at the final from all over ireland, england, us, aussie and the world, had a 5 minute on stage interview where she just talked and gave an insight to her personalty, and thats what the judging was based on, so it was neat. there was a jersey rose this year, so look out. it could be me next year, hahha!

time is flying by...

i can't believe it is sunday night already! the days keep going by sooo fast, especially the weekends!
it has been a good week, productive on the thesis, fun with friends and work has been good. i was busy most nights this week, which was fun. wednesday evening was sam's goodbye party and getting to see everyone from the club, thursday was a productive thesis evening, friday kara and i hung out and karen and i met for lunch. saturday i ran all my errands in town. that is the only thing i don't like about working full time now, having to do everything on the weekends. but i finally got a battery charger, so my camera is back! and i also got my favourite pair of black heels fixed! i completely ruin shoes when i walk. i wear down the heels super fast and unevenly. like every pair of heeled shoes i own, and it is so frusterating! worked on the thesis in the afternoon, it was such a yucky day, rainy but the annoying misty rain. luckily it cleared up for the evening though.

kara, lorna, steph and i had a hilarious evening. i went over to their house, where we sat around talking and drinking, playing drinking games, which i haven't played since college (which totally made me miss wac) and general laughing/crazyness. the 'we don't know the hustle' dance, being vikings all night, meeting 'leo' at the brog (we saw a guy who looked like leonardo decaprio, who turned out to be quite dull), and other things i can't remember.

today was one of the most unproductive days i have had in a looong time! i had no motivation to work on the thesis, gaaah editing! so i read a book for fun, watched the cork-kerry football match, cleaned and then once brenda got home, we watched a movie. so a nice sunday :) but i want to have chapter one done with editing, so off to work on that before bed. it should be a good week, pub quiz monday, pp/grey's tuesday, climbing wednesday, work shenanigans on thursday evening and can't forget the thesis! plus i'm moving this weekend.

i really like exclamation points!

thesis meeting with andy today went well :) no major issues with 3 or 4! just a few suggestions for each but overall he said the rough drafts of the four chapters are good. yay! so by the end of the month i will be giving him the 2nd draft of the thesis! i'm on schedule to not be freaking out come mid-september! go me! so that this afternoon put me in a super great mood. and it is tuesday, so private practice and greys, so it was a great day! except the whole work thing, but it wasn't as bad as it could be, seriously. like we are busy, but not omg, super stressful busy, but like busy enough that it isn't boring, but yet i can still gchat with someone. and i like it that kinda busy, because then the day goes by faster.

so CAO results came out monday, so seriously at 9.15 when i walked in. the phones were ringing off the hook, like all 5 lines and i think i just talked on the phone until about 11. when people started coming in. but then it wasn't so bad after that. it is funny how we are busy for 20 minutes, then quiet for about a half hour, then busy again. but it was good yesterday. the only thing i don't like is that i feel like i am saying the same thing over and over. seriously i feel like i go into auto-piolet when i answer the phone. i keep wanting to say good morning, even when i answer the phone at 4pm. oops! but we've been funny in the office lots of laughing, dave and i making fun of each other, the usual.

yesterday after work, relaxed and then kara, steph, brenda and i went to the brog's pub quiz. so funny. pub quizes are usually a laugh, and this one was even funnier for some reason. we did pretty good. got a few round with perfect 10s. my favourite was though the picture one. we did it seriously in like 30 seconds, so steph goes i should see if we get a bonus for handing it in first. so we got all 10 right and so quiz guy gave us candy. he knows us, and thinks we are funny. then kara and steph stayed out but since brenda and i are working girls, we went home. but it was a fabulous way to start out the week :)

nothing too exciting this week, just working, thesising, climbing and lots of gchatting... the usual.

i <3 the olympics, rowing gold!

soooooo exciting!
the US women's 8 won GOLD this morning!!!
such a great race. they took off from the start and never looked back. it was so awesome to watch their race. they won by about 2 seconds to the netherlands and then romania was third. it was a fabulous thing to wake up and watch this morning :)

the men's 8 won BRONZE this morning as well!
their race wasn't as good, they had a super slow start and after they first 500 they were last. i was seriously freaking out at this point, wondering if something broke or what. but they pulled it together in the middle of the race and with 500 to go were in third. canada won the race, with great britain .2 seconds ahead of the US. so it was a good race.

it was fabulous watching the medal ceremony, i was sad to see that mary whipple wasn't thrown in the water (maybe she was, but they didn't show it/ any pictures... the canadian coxswain was thrown in).

so watching that made me miss crew even more than i already do.

the 8 super excited!!

so aweseome! though it looks like 6 needs to sit up taller.

excited to win!!

my boys geting their bronze! i love how little marcus looks!

so in other fun olympic news, michael phelps is just amazing!
8 gold medals this olympics, with 7 world records. with 16 olympic medals in total.
wow.
i've loved watching his races this week, and he is just adorable/hot as well.
i mean helllo, look at the abs on those guys... anyway, i've been enjoying the olympics :)

so in erin world things are going well. i wrote 1500 words of the introduction yesterday, and will write the other 1000 today, so after today it is just the conclusion and then editing! whoohoo! the word count is now at 17518! so i'm happy about that.
work is going well, getting busy because leaving cert results came out wednesday and university offers come out tomorrow, so lots of little first years (really their mom's) looking for housing. i found a house for myself as well. it is kind small, but the people seem nice, and the place was clean and it is close to work and the city centre. so it works. i'm not looking forward to moving again, gah!
it is POURING today, just constant rain. gah, i'm really getting sick of all of the rain. last night kara and i went out and we had a fun time. lots of laughing, and fun. i was her wingman for the night, which was funny because the guy i was talking with was so boring, the only reason i kept talking was because he was from belfast and i looove their accent.

so yea, it is time to get working on the thesis.

16,082

the first four chapters of my thesis are now in draft!

i have 4000 words left to write. just the introduction and conclusion!

the four chapters came out to 16082 in their draft stages, so i am happy with that. i'm dropping 3/4 off to andy so we can meet hopefully early next week to discuss. now to write the introduction this weekend - 2500 words. then i will start the super fun editing process, and find some time to figure out what to say in the conclusion. and then after that the proofreading, and compiling the final bibliography.

i'm feeling a little less stressed about the thesis right now.

olympics, beer pong and thesis

so the olympics started yesterday :)
i love the olympics, the crazyness, so many different sports, the national pride and 2 weeks of some awesome athletic competitions!
so i didn't get to watch any of the opening ceremony because they were showing it live here in ireland and i was at work. but today i watched the opening heats of most of the rowing events, its funny because there is no commentary and it is kinda slow, but hey i got to watch all the 4s heats today, and sunday morning around 10.30 ireland time is the 8s heats, so i'm excited for that. i had on some of the olympic coverage tonight, pretty much the round up of the day and the commentary they had for the irish men's 4 was hilarious. seriously i think my mom could have done a better job. i'm going to miss the good commentary from the states, because well the irish don't impress me. oh well. at least i can see anything online, and i will have it on all day at work the next 2 weeks.

so i was going through time and i found this article on beer pong and it made me laugh - beer pong's big splash and it made me think of all the games we used to play at wac. freshman year learning to play at talbot, it's all about the parabola, the one night we played at talbot until 6am.. then sophomore year the 'table' we made in reid that night out of desks,mirrors,chairs and other random things we could find, champong and the 180 cup tournamet at wac (which was a pretty big deal) we would play at crew parties all the time senior year, and by this point my friends i stopped using beer but whatever we were drinking and had all the cups with water (so it wasn't totally gross)... ohhh college.
so this article made me laugh, a world championship of beer pong? hilarious!

so i worked on my thesis today! so the library's summer hours are lovely, they close at 4.15. so unless i go to the library on my lunch hour, the only other time to go is the 4 hours it is open on saturday. so i went this morning to get a few books andy recommended to me after reading my first 2 chapters, so i read the 8 books i needed and i took notes on them today. so tomorrow i plan to add a bit to chapter 3 before the cork - kilkenny hurling match! it is the semi-final, so the winner goes to the all-ireland match in september! and then tomorrow evening/monday finish up chapter 4 so i can get them to andy. i have about 750 words to add to chapter 3, then 1500 more for chapter 4. so i'm getting there :)