Well since I last blogged, I believe I've had a full week of classes. The reason I haven't blogged in that week is not that I've been so busy with schoolwork - on the contrary, I've yet to do any homework whatsoever. Honestly, I haven't had to. The real reason is that they've been thoroughly uneventful. All my classes are small lectures, except the Geography of Europe, which is a large lecture. Just to note, when I have told people that I am taking Geography, many people have replied, "what is this, 2nd grade?" People, the class is not merely about "ooh, that's Moldova" but rather about political and cultural borders of Europe and how places have shaped the history of Europe, which has in essence shaped the history of the modern world. So I'm studying the Modern World, thank you very much. Anyways, my other classes include an overload of 3 math classes (Linear Algebra II which has been a joke, Algebraic Structures which has been the punchline to the joke, and Complex Analysis, which has been legit) and 2 linguistic classes (World Englishes, which has not nearly been as interesting as I thought it would be, and Phonology, which is actually as boring as it sounds). So you can see how enthused I am over my schoolwork. This is due mostly to UCD's insistence that study abroad students in the arts college can only take classes in 2 disciplines with 1 free elective. So while I wanted to take a class on James Joyce's Ulysses or the Political Systems of Ireland, I was stuck with a math class I didn't need and a Linguistics class which I really didn't want. I mean, am I going to follow through on my linguistics minor now? I really wasn't planning on it. Well the one highlight of my classes so far have been the phonetics lesson in my Phonology class. Reviewing phonetics, the pronounciation of words which I learned in my intro to Linguistics class, the teacher would write down several words in the phonetic alphabet. Without getting into the technical phonetic alphabet, she wrote down the word think as "tink." I actually laughed aloud at seeing the Irish accent assumed to be the working standard and analyzed in an academic setting. If you don't know, the Irish don't pronounce their "th"s at the beginning of a syllable, and even the number 3 sounds like tree. Which is hilarious, make no bones about it.
Getting to school is a minor annoyance that involves either a 20 minute walk + 15 minute bus ride, or a 15 minute bus ride + a 20 minute bus ride with no walking. I've been choosing the latter but in the future I think I'll go with the former and only take the double bus route in cases of rain...so both routes will probably get equal usage. I haven't been a bus taker since 6th grade - I nearly avoided them in Beijing, or in DC, and I can recall one time I took the bus in Boston, and I was worried about getting mugged the whole time - but here they're the only way to travel because taxis are too expensive and the miracles of the underground train have not found their way to Ireland yet. My fellow students remark that Dublin seems stuck in the 80's in terms of music, fashion and mannerisms. I'm not sure I agree with them, mainly because there seems to be plenty of Leona Lewis and Katy Perry being played, and I don't know anything about fashion. With regard to mannerisms, I'll pass judgment on that later, but I have seen a fair amount of Irishman who could definitely be seen in a DeLorean.
I just spent 10 minute sof my life reading the wikipedia page on Back to the Future, and then somehow I got dragged into the Grandfather Paradox and now I'm on the page of Futurama's character Fry. Freaking wikipedia. For a video skit of the phenomenon on Wikipedia voyages : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcS_MrnxIcE . Yeah I should not be this bored. Ok so none of you are reading this because you're interested in my schoolwork, bus schedule or fallacies involved with time travel, but most likely you want to hear about crazy and funny stories involved with the nightlife in Dublin and perhaps a caption for the photograph of beer. Well the caption may be disappointingly unremarkable: It's a pint of Guinness and a half pint of Kilkenny ale at some pub in Dublin. In addition, the crazy partying here is all in all, fairly unremarkable.
Well Wednesday night was cool I guess. During the day, before going to my 11am class, I texted my high school friend Greg about whether he could do lunch at 2, after I got out of class. I then turned off my phone and proceeded to listen to my professor drone about something. When I turned it back on after class, I was prompted to input a 4 digit PIN code. I had absolutely no clue what my PIN was, having seen it just once when I bought the phone. After inputting incorrect combinations 4 times, I was locked out of my phone. So I never had lunch with Greg. When I finally got home, I found the box I bought the phone in and unlocked my phone. What a stupid design, I freaking miss using my American phone. Anyways, upon turning on my phone, I was bombarded with 7 text messages. Among 3 from Greg, I found one from my friend Brian, the native Dubliner with whom I taught tennis back in the summer of '07...which really doesn't seem very long ago when you write it down. Ireland was playing Montenegro in a World Cup qualifying match that day, which had already started by the time I switched on my pisspoor cell phone. After getting his message, I rushed to the bar where Brian and his friends were, and got to revel in my most Irish experience yet - watching a soccer/football match involving Ireland in a pub full of Irishmen. I mean, does it get more cultural than that? Of course I drank Guinness. While the match ended in a nil-nil draw, I very much enjoyed my evening of intellectual discussion, of sports, cultures, politics and foxy ladies.
On Thursday night my housemate Chad, and several of the girls down the street, went off to Galway independently, leaving 3 of us in the guy house and 2 in the girl house. (Although I would have liked to have gone to Galway this weekend too, we've now planned a trip next week.) So we had more space this weekend, and decided to play a wild game of King's for a lengthy pre-game. The night was a ton of fun and full of bonding moments that won't necessarily be very interesting in a blog. But the night can be summarized by the actions of my housemate, fellow Hoya, Matt Dzaman, who decided to showcase his chugging abilities after we had finished playing by downing a pint of beer in under 7 seconds. It would be about another 70 seconds before he gave the beer right back up, up through his esophagus and into and around the sink. It was pretty gross, not going to lie. But Matt then convinced us that he was not very drunk and all, and downed another pint in under 6 seconds, and this time kept it down. It was already 10:30 at this point, which is really late in a city where the buses stop running at midnight. So we hoofed it to a nearby bar, where I got a Guinness and talked to the bartender in Chinese. Matt ordered a Tranquilizer, which is half Jager and half Goldschlager and apparently delicious. He then proceeded to pass out on a table before booting all over the sidewalk. We went home after that. Yeah, I need a good night out badly. Last night, Friday, we actually stayed in, so I'm hoping tonight will turn this tide and raise all ships. In other news, I bought some souvenirs for friends last night, including shotglasses with Irish last names, and was able to find 3 friends with their names on them.
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