the hazards of spring cleaning

Today, I did some pretty heavy spring cleaning. "Spring" is a good description for it, because it was a beautiful day-- I actually opened my windows for the first time since I've lived here! I did laundry, swept, and mopped. Weirdly, I always enjoy mopping. It's kind of a pain because I have to move furniture around (and my back hurts from couch moving), but it reminds me pleasantly of my college summer job cleaning dorm rooms. I didn't enjoy the early hours-- 6 am is an unnecessarily cruel time to start work!-- or the idiot management, but I never minded the actual cleaning.

Anyway, while cleaning, I managed to get some cuts and bruises! I have a space heater that looks like a miniature radiator... it's on wheels, but it's very heavy, so much that I can't actually lift it. Having mopped, I was pushing it back against the wall, and I guess the wheels must have gotten locked up or something, because suddenly it fell forward and landed on my feet and legs. Bare feet and legs, I was wearing flip-flops and capri pants. There was a moment of shock, where I just thought "Oh no, I hope that didn't chip the tile!" and "That was loud!" ... and then the synapses caught up, and then it hurt like a bitch. There were scrapes on both legs and the tops of both feet, and two cuts on my right foot. I hobbled to the kitchen, washed the cuts with antibacterial soap, and stuck on a couple bandages. One cut is about a half inch long and isn't too bad; the other is over an inch long, and 9 hours later hasn't stopped bleeding. I just changed the bandage because the first one soaked through.

I feel bad complaining about this, because my friend Susan just got hit by a car and had to get stitches! (She's ok, just had a cut on her leg that needed some stitches.) It's honestly not that bad, just kind of painful. I anticipate some spectacular bruises. There was a scrape on my right foot, between the cuts, that was purple instantly!


Taken right after I got done bandaging. Instant bruising! (Also note my hairy unshaven legs and flip-flops that I got for €2 from Penneys, or Primark to you tea-sodden football hooligans. I actually hate flip-flops and only wear them for cleaning and hostel showers.)


The culprit! (It didn't chip the tile, luckily.)


It looks innocent enough...


... but look at those scary sharp edges!

I've only used the thing like once, it was left by the previous tenants. I realize that I just posted pictures of my space heater, which might set a record for inanity of pictures on the internet (though I'm not sure if anything can top beedogs.com.) If the bruises are as good as I'm expecting, I'll take more in a couple days.

ooof

The subject pretty much says it all. It has been a busy week and an even busier two days... yesterday and today was the Irish Theatrical Diaspora Conference. I wasn't sure if it would be all that useful or relevant for my work, but I figured I should go anyway. Man I am glad I did! It was excellent; even though the period talked about was all at least 50 years ahead of my work, there was a ton of useful stuff. I haven't been to a real, professional conference before, and the level of engagement was just fascinating. Plus some of the Big Names in theatre studies were there, and I got to talk to them. (John P. Harrington, who I've cited a billion times, was interested in my research and made a point to talk to me a couple times! *nerdysquee*) Also, my favorite professor from the MA, Patrick Lonergan, just had a new book come out, and Lionel did the speech to launch it. Which was fun. And, of course, the free food... NUIG really does a good job with the food and wine at its functions. We got wine and champagne and finger food at the book launch last night, and really delicious sandwiches today for lunch. (I had a sandwich that had brie, fresh basil, and some sort of pancetta! Delicious!)

It was fun to socialize a bit with Lionel and Patrick, really. Patrick especially is hilarious, because he's a huge nerd-- in one of his speeches about the conference history, he managed to reference both Harry Potter and Star Wars. (Last year in the MA, he made frequent references to Star Wars, Star Trek, and Buffy. In an Irish Literature class.) Also, it's just really nice to talk to academics, because I know I'm not boring them when I talk about my research!

It's funny, really... the go-to topic in academic smalltalk is "how is your research going?" I got asked that SO MANY times in the last couple days. Though Nessa complimented my hair first... and Lionel complimented my shoes, which was almost kind of weird. Anyway last night I went out for drinks with a PhD from University College Dublin, and I was up too late and slept very poorly, and consequently have felt tired all day. The conference folks are going out for drinks tonight, and I feel like I should go-- if only for a chance to drink with Patrick Lonergan!-- but I'm not sure I'll be able to make it out. I'm pretty exhausted.

Things I love

-I have now lived in this apartment for six months. Today, walking from the living room through the kitchen to the bedroom, I thought suddenly "I love my apartment!" I really do! Six months is enough time to find all the little things that are wrong with a place and to start getting annoyed by them, but I still love this apartment. It's not perfect-- I wish it had a bathtub, for one-- but it's still lovely. Cozy but not too small, minimal without feeling sparse, everything one person could need.

-I really really love soy milk. Yum. I recently decided to switch over entirely, after discovering that soy milk is only slightly more expensive than regular milk and that I like it better in my coffee and tea. The only problem is that I like it so much, it would be easy to drink the whole carton the day I buy it. (I have been known to drink half a gallon of soy milk in one day.)

-My wonderful boyfriend Jim is visiting me, and he will be here in nine days! Yay!

People's Republic of Cork

So this weekend I went to Cork with the orchestra! We performed the same concert as last week, again with the choirs from Cork and Clifden, at University College Cork. And we stayed at a 4-star hotel, which was definitely one of the nicest hotels I've ever seen! The rooms were super-comfy, the shower was gorgeous, and the food was fantastic. (The included breakfast buffet was amazing! Hot food, lots of fresh fruit, even a smorgasbord platter with fancy cheeses and meats and smoked salmon.) The Orchestra Society must have gotten a lot of money for the trip, because it only cost each of us €70 for two nights and meals.

I've been to Cork before, and it is a very urban city-- it's the second largest city in Ireland, but is only 1/10th the size of Dublin. (Dublin is about 1,500,000, and Cork is about 150,000.) I always sort of think of Cork as being like Dublin, but compressed to 1/10th its size; squeezed between two hills onto islands in the River Lee, the city seems to have all the energy and conflict of Dublin, but pressed closer together. There are sketchy alleys coming off the posh pedestrian shopping streets, and medieval cathedrals butting onto dodgy Chinese markets. And lots of graffiti, especially political graffiti. (Cork likes to pretend that it is its own country; t-shirts that say "Cork Republic" are popular [I have one!], and I have a friend who says he's from "the People's Republic of Cork.")

Given this impression, I was expecting the UCC campus to be a very urban one. So I was very surprised to see that it actually looks a lot more like what I think of as a "college campus" than other colleges I've seen in Ireland. It actually reminded me somewhat of MSU, with wide grassy spaces and footbridges over the river and exotic trees with little identifier plaques. The architecture, of course, is much more European; I heard people comparing it to Cambridge. It was very pretty, and the auditorium where we performed was all high dark wood ceilings and bookcases and stained glass windows.

Of course, the best part of the weekend was the after-party. Musicians are the best people to party with. We started drinking in the hotel bar around 10:30, and at midnight the instruments started coming out, and suddenly there was a trad session on. There was a guitar, an accordion, a bodhran, a double bass, a penny whistle, and about nine violins! The highlight, for me, was the jam session of "Summertime." It was awesome-- everyone playing took a solo, and it had an almost klezmer sound. Anyway, they jammed until after 3am, when I went to bed... and I guess they started up again at 4:30! Irish people are crazy, and musicians are crazy, and Irish musicians are the craziest. :-)


One weird thing from the weekend, though... I shared a hotel room with two British girls, one (violinist) from Yorkshire and one (cellist) from Belfast.* (That's not the weird part.) I always used to pick up lots of the speech patterns of whoever I talk to, but I don't really do that with Irish people for some reason. But after spending three days talking to the Brits, I found that I was using a lot of their syntax and inflections. It culminated Sunday afternoon when I said "pavement" instead of "sidewalk!" I don't know where that came from...




*I realize that calling someone from Belfast "British" as opposed to "Irish" is contentious and politically charged, but that is what she considered herself. I think she's Protestant. Oh, Northern Ireland...