So, um, I'm taking a road trip! This coming week, from Tuesday to Friday!
My friend Jenn and I are renting a car and driving up north.* We're going to County Donegal, which is in the Republic of Ireland, and County Antrim, which is in Northern Ireland. This is exciting to me for a number of reasons! I have never been that far north here, and it's supposed to be absolutely gorgeous... plus, I have never been to Northern Ireland, and even though it's on the same island and you don't need to show your passport or anything to cross the border, I'm still excited to be going to what is technically a different country. Also, we are driving there-- I have never driven in this country! I'm really excited (though admittedly nervous) about driving on the other side of the road. And we got a manual, so I get to try shifting with my left hand!
We're going to be mostly doing outdoorsy stuff-- hiking on Slieve League, Ireland's second-highest cliffs (and Europe's 6th-highest); walking the beaches at Malin Head, the most northerly point of Ireland and a haven for whales and basking sharks; hiking from the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge to the Giant's Causeway. We also might stop by Derry to see some of the city, particularly the murals. We're not staying in Derry, but Jenn has been there before (and she did her MA on Northern Irish stuff, and is really knowledgeable about the history) so she can show me around the cool stuff. Woo!
I'm also currently engaged in planning another trip-- my mother and I are going to Scotland!-- but that is a subject for its own post. Suffice to say, interesting times are afoot for this summer!
*Not to be confused with Up North, which everyone from Michigan knows is a place. No, I just mean "in a northerly direction." Though in Ireland, The North is a place-- Northern Ireland, part of the UK.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Ireland's semi-annual Week of Nice Weather
Oh man, my weekend was crazy-go-nuts awesome! Well, ok, it wasn't that crazy. But it was warm! Thursday through Sunday it was in the 70s and sunny, which is about a semiannual occurrence in Ireland, so I had to take full advantage. (Today it's in the mid 60s, and weather.com says it will be back down to the 50s by Wednesday... sigh.)
Thursday:
-I woke up feeling crappy stomach-flu-y, so I laid low most of the day. Then in the evening Jenn invited me to come meet her, to sit outside a cafe and drink a glass of wine. I turned down the wine, but met her anyway.
-And it was warm and lovely, and I was suddenly very happy that I'd come out, and decided that my day couldn't get any better-- I was wearing short sleeves and a skirt! In Ireland!
-And then, who should walk past us down the street, but Cillian Murphy! (You know-- the main guy in 28 Days Later, the Scarecrow in Batman Begins, the bad guy in Red Eye, the tranny in Breakfast on Pluto...) He was in Galway for the 35th anniversary of a local theatre company that he was in, back in the day. Anyway, he walked past us about four times, and each time we squealed with excitement. I can happily report that he is just as gorgeous and dreamy in real life as in the movies!
Friday:
-I went out in the evening with Jenn. First to a bar, because one of her co-workers was having a birthday party there. I had never been to this particular bar, and when we walked in it looked kind of dingy and smelly, the kind of place where old men would watch football. But then we kept walking, out the back door and into the beer garden, which was absolutely lovely! Trees and plants, picnic tables, tin-and-tarpaper-roofed awnings, and another bar outside. I think it's my new favorite place to go for warm nights.
-Also, since it was a birthday party, there was chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting! And, since there were no plates, everyone ate their slice of chocolate cake with their hands. Eating chocolate cake with your hands is a highly underrated activity!
-After it got fully dark (11 or 11:30pm), Jenn and I continued on to a bonfire party. The bonfire party was down by the beach, and we met lots of random people. Including one Serbian guy with an accent that made him sound hilariously like Borat; at one point, he pinched my arm and said I was too small and needed some skin on my bones. (Yes, skin.)
Saturday:
-It was a beautiful sunny day, so I put on shorts and a tank top and went out to the Market!
-I bought a blended iced caramel macchiatto (yum!) and then picked up some Matar Paneer from the crazy Irish Hare Krishna dude who sells vegetarian Indian food.
-Then I sat on the grass outside the medieval church, drank my icey coffee and ate my Indian food while reading a book.
-After I finished eating, I did my shopping, picking up some fresh veggies (including beets! Beets are hard to find here for some reason!) and fresh fish at the Market. I also did some regular shopping at the grocery store, and in a fit of summer-induced madness bought some new sandals. (I'm only going to wear them like twice a year, so the purchase was probably unnecessary. But they were only €10 and are super-cute.)
Sunday:
-I went to the beach!!!! Woo! I can't stress how happy this makes me. I've only worn my bathing suit one other time in Ireland, during last summer's Week of Nice Weather. Jenn and I lay on the sand, reading and chatting and just enjoying the sun, for almost 4 hours. We tried to swim, but couldn't get more than knee-deep-- the water was just too dang cold. (In case we'd forgotten that Ireland is in the North Atlantic...) My feet were almost cramping from the cold after only a few minutes in the water. Still, it was a wonderful time.
-After getting home and eating dinner, I cleaned my apartment. I had planned on doing it earlier, but the day was just too nice to waste it inside-- you have to take advantage of every minute of sun on this damn island. So I did my spring cleaning in the evening. I started around 7pm and finished around 11, having thoroughly dusted, scrubbed, and mopped all the winter dirt out of this place. It's nice to finally have that done, and to have a sparkling clean flat again.
Today I'm staying home because I'm finally getting wi-fi installed! The internet man is supposed to come somewhere between 1 and 5 pm... I'm guessing he'll show up around 6:30 or so, that's how Irish service tends to work. Still, I'm excited!
Thursday:
-I woke up feeling crappy stomach-flu-y, so I laid low most of the day. Then in the evening Jenn invited me to come meet her, to sit outside a cafe and drink a glass of wine. I turned down the wine, but met her anyway.
-And it was warm and lovely, and I was suddenly very happy that I'd come out, and decided that my day couldn't get any better-- I was wearing short sleeves and a skirt! In Ireland!
-And then, who should walk past us down the street, but Cillian Murphy! (You know-- the main guy in 28 Days Later, the Scarecrow in Batman Begins, the bad guy in Red Eye, the tranny in Breakfast on Pluto...) He was in Galway for the 35th anniversary of a local theatre company that he was in, back in the day. Anyway, he walked past us about four times, and each time we squealed with excitement. I can happily report that he is just as gorgeous and dreamy in real life as in the movies!
Friday:
-I went out in the evening with Jenn. First to a bar, because one of her co-workers was having a birthday party there. I had never been to this particular bar, and when we walked in it looked kind of dingy and smelly, the kind of place where old men would watch football. But then we kept walking, out the back door and into the beer garden, which was absolutely lovely! Trees and plants, picnic tables, tin-and-tarpaper-roofed awnings, and another bar outside. I think it's my new favorite place to go for warm nights.
-Also, since it was a birthday party, there was chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting! And, since there were no plates, everyone ate their slice of chocolate cake with their hands. Eating chocolate cake with your hands is a highly underrated activity!
-After it got fully dark (11 or 11:30pm), Jenn and I continued on to a bonfire party. The bonfire party was down by the beach, and we met lots of random people. Including one Serbian guy with an accent that made him sound hilariously like Borat; at one point, he pinched my arm and said I was too small and needed some skin on my bones. (Yes, skin.)
Saturday:
-It was a beautiful sunny day, so I put on shorts and a tank top and went out to the Market!
-I bought a blended iced caramel macchiatto (yum!) and then picked up some Matar Paneer from the crazy Irish Hare Krishna dude who sells vegetarian Indian food.
-Then I sat on the grass outside the medieval church, drank my icey coffee and ate my Indian food while reading a book.
-After I finished eating, I did my shopping, picking up some fresh veggies (including beets! Beets are hard to find here for some reason!) and fresh fish at the Market. I also did some regular shopping at the grocery store, and in a fit of summer-induced madness bought some new sandals. (I'm only going to wear them like twice a year, so the purchase was probably unnecessary. But they were only €10 and are super-cute.)
Sunday:
-I went to the beach!!!! Woo! I can't stress how happy this makes me. I've only worn my bathing suit one other time in Ireland, during last summer's Week of Nice Weather. Jenn and I lay on the sand, reading and chatting and just enjoying the sun, for almost 4 hours. We tried to swim, but couldn't get more than knee-deep-- the water was just too dang cold. (In case we'd forgotten that Ireland is in the North Atlantic...) My feet were almost cramping from the cold after only a few minutes in the water. Still, it was a wonderful time.
-After getting home and eating dinner, I cleaned my apartment. I had planned on doing it earlier, but the day was just too nice to waste it inside-- you have to take advantage of every minute of sun on this damn island. So I did my spring cleaning in the evening. I started around 7pm and finished around 11, having thoroughly dusted, scrubbed, and mopped all the winter dirt out of this place. It's nice to finally have that done, and to have a sparkling clean flat again.
Today I'm staying home because I'm finally getting wi-fi installed! The internet man is supposed to come somewhere between 1 and 5 pm... I'm guessing he'll show up around 6:30 or so, that's how Irish service tends to work. Still, I'm excited!
Sunday, May 16, 2010
whoa look, an update
Haven't posted in a while. I guess I've been in an activity dry spell-- that is, I haven't had any crazy adventures in quite a while. Mostly I've been either working or sick. Or both. Well, I haven't been terribly deathly ill or anything, but there has definitely been something flu-y going around NUIG, and I've been fighting it on and off for about two weeks now. Mostly it's just headaches and nausea and cold sweats. Nothing incapacitating, but definitely uncomfortable.
I'm feeling kind of yucky today, so I decided to make some really good healthy juice! I took a litre of pressed, not-from-concentrate apple juice, and blended it with some fresh ginger, a chopped raw red pepper, a bunch of raw baby spinach, and the juice of a lemon. The result is juice that is kind of a swampy green color and tastes absolutely wonderful! I'm really fond of juices with vegetables in them, and spinach-red pepper is probably my favorite.
Yesterday, I recorded a new ukulele video! I don't normally post these here, but this one is notable because it elevates my Mac-rock skills-- I used GarageBand to record a fake piano track with it!
I'm feeling kind of yucky today, so I decided to make some really good healthy juice! I took a litre of pressed, not-from-concentrate apple juice, and blended it with some fresh ginger, a chopped raw red pepper, a bunch of raw baby spinach, and the juice of a lemon. The result is juice that is kind of a swampy green color and tastes absolutely wonderful! I'm really fond of juices with vegetables in them, and spinach-red pepper is probably my favorite.
Yesterday, I recorded a new ukulele video! I don't normally post these here, but this one is notable because it elevates my Mac-rock skills-- I used GarageBand to record a fake piano track with it!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
zip, zip, zip
Since last we spoke I posted, I have been in Cork... again! The Orchestra went down to Cork two weekends ago, for a concert. The experience was mostly similar to last year's concert in Cork-- we even stayed in the same hotel!-- with two main differences.
1. We didn't play at the UCC campus, but rather at St. Finbar's Cathedral.
It looks gothic and medieval, doesn't it? It was actually built in the mid-19th century! So only about 150 years old. It's a beautiful building, though the acoustics left something to be desired, very echo-y and hard to hear fellow players. That's the only picture I took of the Cork trip, anyway; the pictures from last year's trip pretty much cover the rest.
2. At the after-party, this time I got to be a part of the trad session! I brought my ukulele down, and it was a total hit among the orchestra. Early in the party, when people were taking turns singing or playing songs, I played an Amanda Palmer song for the orchestra; then, when the session started up, I played along, even though the ukulele is not exactly a trad instrument! It was a ton of fun.
The following weekend-- this past weekend-- we had another concert, in Galway. This one was at St. Nicholas' church, which is actually a medieval church and has a delicious lingering melty acoustic. I love playing there! The concert went well, too... though it was a bit sad for me, because now Orchestra is over until the fall. I love playing music, and having that outlet is something I look forward to every week. Oh well, I guess I'll have to tide myself over playing pop songs on the ukulele.
This coming weekend-- tomorrow, actually-- I am going to Dublin for a conference! The conference, held at Trinity College, is put on by the Irish Society for Theatre Research. In other words, professionals in my field! It's a big conference, one with multiple talks going on simultaneously, and will take up part of Thursday, all day Friday, and all day Saturday. Plus a dinner on Saturday night. I'm giving a paper, though not in an actual talk; instead, it's part of a "working group," a session with maybe 6 or 8 people talking reading each others' papers and giving advice on them. A workshop, basically. I'm looking forward to it; the workshop should be really helpful, and the conference itself sounds exciting. My advisor, Lionel, is actually going to be at this one, too, since he's organizing the working group I'm a part of. It'll be nice to have a familiar face in such a big conference!
Speaking of which, I better get back to reading those papers.
1. We didn't play at the UCC campus, but rather at St. Finbar's Cathedral.
It looks gothic and medieval, doesn't it? It was actually built in the mid-19th century! So only about 150 years old. It's a beautiful building, though the acoustics left something to be desired, very echo-y and hard to hear fellow players. That's the only picture I took of the Cork trip, anyway; the pictures from last year's trip pretty much cover the rest.
2. At the after-party, this time I got to be a part of the trad session! I brought my ukulele down, and it was a total hit among the orchestra. Early in the party, when people were taking turns singing or playing songs, I played an Amanda Palmer song for the orchestra; then, when the session started up, I played along, even though the ukulele is not exactly a trad instrument! It was a ton of fun.
The following weekend-- this past weekend-- we had another concert, in Galway. This one was at St. Nicholas' church, which is actually a medieval church and has a delicious lingering melty acoustic. I love playing there! The concert went well, too... though it was a bit sad for me, because now Orchestra is over until the fall. I love playing music, and having that outlet is something I look forward to every week. Oh well, I guess I'll have to tide myself over playing pop songs on the ukulele.
This coming weekend-- tomorrow, actually-- I am going to Dublin for a conference! The conference, held at Trinity College, is put on by the Irish Society for Theatre Research. In other words, professionals in my field! It's a big conference, one with multiple talks going on simultaneously, and will take up part of Thursday, all day Friday, and all day Saturday. Plus a dinner on Saturday night. I'm giving a paper, though not in an actual talk; instead, it's part of a "working group," a session with maybe 6 or 8 people talking reading each others' papers and giving advice on them. A workshop, basically. I'm looking forward to it; the workshop should be really helpful, and the conference itself sounds exciting. My advisor, Lionel, is actually going to be at this one, too, since he's organizing the working group I'm a part of. It'll be nice to have a familiar face in such a big conference!
Speaking of which, I better get back to reading those papers.
Friday, April 2, 2010
In which Ayla meets a Lord
Oh man, I've been meaning to post this for a week now but haven't really had a minute to sit down and do it. Did you know that grad school is time-consuming?!
Anyway. Most interesting thing that has happened to me recently: I met a Baron!
How this happened was through my PhD program, of course. My PhD, in "Texts, Contexts & Cultures," is part of an inter-collegiate endeavor, between NUI Galway, Trinity College Dublin, and University College Cork. Last year, we had two classes that were teleconferenced-- we had cameras linking all three groups together, with one professor, and we all interacted that way. Since we've all mostly gone off to do our own research, we haven't had as much to do with each other, but last week we had a big group meet-up down in Cork.
Originally the Galway group lobbied to spend the night, but that didn't end up happening, so we made the 3-hour trip there and back on the day. We left at 9:30 am and got to Cork for lunch, meeting up with our UCC and TCD comrades. After lunch, we had a couple lectures, then a couple workshops, which were lively and interesting. The point of these things is not really to teach us anything specific, because there is no way to have a lecture that pertains specifically to everyone's research, but rather to get us thinking in different ways about our own material-- always a useful enterprise. After the workshops were over, we made our way over to UCC's art gallery, where one of the Cork professors was interviewing Melvyn Bragg.
Melvyn Bragg is, as Wikipedia puts it, "an English author, broadcaster and media personality." He worked for years with the BBC, involved in projects that attempted to bring mass media to the working classes-- basically, to make it "popular." Since popular theatre is what I study, I was really interested in hearing him talk about his works. Eventually his involvement with the Labour party got him appointed to the House of Lords! (The House of Lords is kind of the U.K. equivalent to the U.S. Senate. Both governments have bicameral representation, but while in the U.S. it's the House of Representatives and the Senate, in the U.K. it's the House of Commons and the House of Lords.) In order to sit in the House of Lords, of course, you have to be a Lord... so Melvyn was granted the title of "Baron Bragg"!
Before the interview, there was a wine reception that the TCC group was invited to. We were all standing rather respectfully and quietly talking amongst ourselves, when one of the professors hustled myself and a couple other researchers over to meet Melvyn Bragg. He came up, introduced himself, shook all our hands, and asked us all about our research! He was especially interested in mine, and we chatted about it for a few minutes. He's a very genuine, friendly, down-to-earth type of guy. But after he left, one of my British colleagues, Laura, turned to us and exclaimed "We just met a Baron!" Which suddenly made the whole thing feel rather surreal.
Anyway. Most interesting thing that has happened to me recently: I met a Baron!
How this happened was through my PhD program, of course. My PhD, in "Texts, Contexts & Cultures," is part of an inter-collegiate endeavor, between NUI Galway, Trinity College Dublin, and University College Cork. Last year, we had two classes that were teleconferenced-- we had cameras linking all three groups together, with one professor, and we all interacted that way. Since we've all mostly gone off to do our own research, we haven't had as much to do with each other, but last week we had a big group meet-up down in Cork.
Originally the Galway group lobbied to spend the night, but that didn't end up happening, so we made the 3-hour trip there and back on the day. We left at 9:30 am and got to Cork for lunch, meeting up with our UCC and TCD comrades. After lunch, we had a couple lectures, then a couple workshops, which were lively and interesting. The point of these things is not really to teach us anything specific, because there is no way to have a lecture that pertains specifically to everyone's research, but rather to get us thinking in different ways about our own material-- always a useful enterprise. After the workshops were over, we made our way over to UCC's art gallery, where one of the Cork professors was interviewing Melvyn Bragg.
Melvyn Bragg is, as Wikipedia puts it, "an English author, broadcaster and media personality." He worked for years with the BBC, involved in projects that attempted to bring mass media to the working classes-- basically, to make it "popular." Since popular theatre is what I study, I was really interested in hearing him talk about his works. Eventually his involvement with the Labour party got him appointed to the House of Lords! (The House of Lords is kind of the U.K. equivalent to the U.S. Senate. Both governments have bicameral representation, but while in the U.S. it's the House of Representatives and the Senate, in the U.K. it's the House of Commons and the House of Lords.) In order to sit in the House of Lords, of course, you have to be a Lord... so Melvyn was granted the title of "Baron Bragg"!
Before the interview, there was a wine reception that the TCC group was invited to. We were all standing rather respectfully and quietly talking amongst ourselves, when one of the professors hustled myself and a couple other researchers over to meet Melvyn Bragg. He came up, introduced himself, shook all our hands, and asked us all about our research! He was especially interested in mine, and we chatted about it for a few minutes. He's a very genuine, friendly, down-to-earth type of guy. But after he left, one of my British colleagues, Laura, turned to us and exclaimed "We just met a Baron!" Which suddenly made the whole thing feel rather surreal.
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