Welcome to the Working Week

I realize that school is the entire reason that I am in Ireland, but that I haven't commented a whole lot on it here in my blog. School has been good, I enjoy my classes enough (my favorite being beginner's irish which isn't for credit of course) and it helps fill the days between going to the pub and traveling on the weekends. But it isn't a top priority, even my professors don't expect much out of me as a visiting student. I'm getting more involved with the school though, last night I went to the first Choral society practice and ate free pizza and then afterwards I went to the Crane Bar to listen to the school's traditional music society. I am very excited to join the trad society. Last night was great, we arrived at the Crane Bar early enough to get a seat and watched the number of musicians and patrons swell. The students who came played all sorts of instruments, squeezeboxes, fiddles, mandolins and they were all very talented. It was amazing to see kids my age play music so rich with culture so well and confidently and having a good time. I am hoping to buy a banjo while I'm here as my big souvenir, I talked with one of the society members and he said if I bought one there would be someone to teach me in the group and he could also give me lessons on American Bluegrass, I am very excited but I want to make sure it will happen before I put any money down. I'm also excited for photography club to start up, I was a bit disappointed that I forgot to bring my film camera as the school has a darkroom available, but I was assured that the society would provide some and a guest lecturer would take us through the process, and I'm also excited to head out with my digital camera as well and learn some new things. I have a few papers due soon but then really nothing until finals so I am looking forward to traveling a lot in the mean time. The pace of school I admit keeps me a bit bored, I'm not as stressed as I would be this time at UW, but it is such a blessing. Everyday I am able to walk the streets for an hour and not feel like I'm wasting time (or sit by the bay as I did today), and I have also been able to read for fun. I have decided to enrich myself by reading irish literature, I read Synge's Aran Islands which helped me fall even more with the islands and I'm about to finish Donleavy's The Ginger Man which I have enjoyed very much, next up is Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman. Thats it for now, Slan go foill.