Ireland by birth, Cork by Grace of God: first week of school part 2

Everyone knows that there is much much more to studying abroad than studying! After a full day of school and a night in the airport, instead of heading home for an early night like a responsible individual would, my roommates and I headed into the city center to bring welcome home Sam McGuire! Ol' Sam is the trophy given to the winner of the All-Ireland Games Gaelic Football tournament and 2010 marked Cork's 7th win and the welcoming home of the players with Sam McGuire was quite the spectacle! Corcaigh Abú!! (Irish for Up Cork/Come on Cork!) Wearing our 5 euro Cork shirts from Pennys, we fit right in with the 40,000 other fans that had gathered for the celebration. 40,000 people is about 1/3 of the population of Cork city, just to put it in perspective. The program consisted of typical pump up music performed by Cork natives (you know, like "We are the champions," "Don't stop believing," and a clever cover of "Your sex is on fire" by Kings of Leon changed to "Bring back Sam McGuire") and lasted way too long. After 2 hours of standing on your feet and taking a million pictures of cute families all decked to the nines in their Cork gear, the celebration gets a little old and all you want to do is see Sam! Eventually Sam made his appearance and everyone went crazy, including me, who has seen 1.5 gaelic football games! It was really all about the atmosphere, these people were so excited/happy/overjoyed that I was too!

Biggest Rebel fans from apt 84!

The next night (last Tuesday) was my first real night out after the Irish students had arrived and if you want to see a spectacle come to UCC's freshers week. Oh. My. Gosh. These Irish students are NUTZ. A group of friends and I headed out around 10:30 to the city center to be bombarded by half naked girls cackling, wearing an inch of makeup, and probably only an inch of fabric too. While the girls probably took 2 hours to get ready, their male counterparts decided to really dress it up by wearing sweatpants. Sweatpants=the staple male pant at UCC. This, although extremely unattractive, is much more practical than the girls' gameplan of wearing sky-high heals and an alcohol blanket out. Meanwhile, my friends and I were dressed like extremely practical grandmothers in flat shoes and sweaters, we looked frumpy in comparison to these girls.

My apartment is about a 30 minute walk away from the city center where the clubs and bars are concentrated, and despite seeing the massive numbers of drunk people around our apartment, we thought that we could find some fun in the city center. What were we thinking? We should have forseen that the number of trashed teens would only increase as we neared the location of more alcohol! The city center was a sight to behold, but wearing far too much clothes with far too little alcohol in our bodies, we decided to head home and debrief the spectacles we have seen.

Exploring Cork culture at St. Finbarr's Cathedral

I love the Irish, don't get me wrong. I was just utterly overwhelmed and concerned that this debauchery would be a nightly occurrence for the rest of the semester and the relaxed pub atmosphere I had grown accustomed to had such been snatched away by 17 year-olds on their own for the first time. Luckily, that turned out to be a needless concern. For Thursday of the first week of school I went to an Irish house party and met lots of relaxed Irish students wearing real clothes and smiles!

Full of the excitement of the first few days of a new school year the next few days consisted of a club and societies fair, lots of people looking lost, and free stuff being handed out around every corner! The club and societies fair was very overstimulating and resulted with me signing up for 9 different clubs/societies including both the Labor Party and Republican Club. In my defense, the room was very hot, full of people, and full of charismatic people with accents promising candy if you signed up! So far I have yet to follow through on any club invitations, but once I gain some courage I plan on checking out the choral club, mountaineering club, canoe/kayak club, surf club, the cow-punchers society and/or ultimate frisbee. We'll see, who knew I was too shy and reserved to attend a meeting on my own? I definitely need to suck it up, smile, and start to try new things!

Looking good while cutting onions for family dinner

The weekend was spent mostly surrounded by Americans because almost all the Irish students go home for the weekend. On Friday some friends and I went to some Cork Culture Night events including a youth choir performance in Saint Finbarr's Cathedral and an Aerial dance performance! Both performances were spectacular and goosebump-y but my favorite part of the evening was exploring parts of the city that I had never seen on a beautiful night underneath Jupiter! Saturday was also spent exploring followed by an evening "Beach Party" in a neighboring apartment.

I spent Sunday recovering from the weekend of exploring and preparing for our first family dinner! My roommates and I decided to have a weekly (or bi-weekly) family dinner where each week a different person presents a family recipe or meal and then we all chip in to buy the ingredients and cook it! This week was Ruby's night and we made a cheese ball, french onion soup, and brownies. I was in charge of cutting the 9 onions that made up our soup and wore my swim goggles to keep from crying. After a round of skip-bo and stuffing our faces we snuggled and watched 300 on TV. All in all, it was a great first week and weekend!

haytches, jumpers, and tirty-tree and one tird crisps: the first week of school!

I have officially been a student at the University College Cork for 1.5 months with two weeks of real classes under my belt! Go me! The first two weeks have been overwhelming, disorganized, and sleepless. Starting off the school year after a night in the airport probably wasn't the best way to set myself up for success, but it was entirely worth it.

Even though Ireland is an English speaking country that I thought would basically be a lot like the States because almost everyone I know is "Irish," and while it isn't as different as say a non-catholic country, an American entering the Irish school system is a recipe for culture shock! My first week of school was full of professors not showing up for classes, classes being listed in the wrong room, and powerpoints getting the better of people with PhDs.

Classes start whenever the professor arrives, usually about 10 minutes later than the actual start time. They enter silently, set up the computer, and just start talking and keep going without acknowledging when the class is actually listening. The first announcement made in each of my classes went something like this. "The lecture notes will be available on blackboard (online class resource database), but you really should come to class."  I should come to class? I can't imagine not coming to class?! Irish students receive a free college education and therefore have less than stunning attendance. But really, who could blame them? From here, the professor mentions that the syllabus is available on blackboard, unfortunately the syllabus online is from 2007 and says that the my final exam is on February 12th, 2007!

The extremely laid-back attitude of the education system (college, at least) reflects the general Irish tendency to not get too caught up in or stressed about anything, a trait I could definitely benefit from! Other than the disorganization, the professors just seems less happy to be in class and are full of anti-American comments! It's pretty interesting to see the Irish perspective of the United States because they, as a whole, are an extremely friendly and open people, but still make snide comments about the United States and our inability to accept the views of others as valid, see the world beyond our boarders, and share the wealth. All things that I agree are the main flaws of the States and I would agree whole-heartily that these things need to change, but I still found myself getting mildly offended! If I were bold I would want to stand up and say, "What about all the good things we do? Nobody is perfect, but appreciate all we've done!" Something these comments have made me think about: are the sneaky and selfish things we do outweighed by the advances we have made? This especially coming from the perspective of public health, which is the focus of almost all of my classes.

Speaking of classes, I absolutely LOVE all of mine. Sure, I feel asleep during two of them last week, but that was after a long night out and during one of my four hour days! Here are my classes:
1. Nutrition: macronutrients
2. Nutrition: vitamins and minerals
3. Microbiology: transmission and epidemiology of infectious disease
4. Music: intro to Irish traditional music
5. Sociology: health and the body
6. Public health: public health and health promotion

and last, but not least, I am starting fiddle lessons tomorrow! Look at me getting back to my Irish roots choosing a pint of Guinness in a pub, taking fiddle lessons, and walking quickly and everywhere! However, you will never use the words grand, veg, or craic! Craic=fun or the happening, as in "What's the craic, lads?" or "It's great craic!"

Other weird things Irish people say?
-"t" instead of "th" as in 33 1/3=tirty tree and one tird, or thank you=tank you.
-the letter H as "hay-ch"
-veg instead of vegetables
-crips instead of chips
-chips instead of fries
-naggin to describe a small bottle of vodka
-More to come, I'm sure!