cleaning my room!

(as my mother has a heart attack...) I figure that I've been saying for ages that as soon as I get a bit of spare time, I'm going to clean my room. and for the first time in a long while, I have some spare time. not that I'm making much progress. I have a tendency to fixate on little projects, ignoring the massive piles of paper which just keep accumulating. for example, when I began this process earlier today, I was going through pill bottles, trying to decide what to do with them. those of you out there who take medicine regularly will know what a pain they are, and I always try to come up with something good to do with them. I'm was stuck for a while (and as a result, stopped picking up, of course), then I realized that they would be perfect for holding money from the various countries I've been to. that way, if I decide, hey I want to go to hungary today, I can just grab the bottle, and I'll have all the forints that are left over from my trip last semester. I'm a big dweeb. it'll probably come in most handy if I need pounds for a visit to the off-shore island, or the north (which I plan on visiting this coming weekend). once I had accomplished this, I was able to move onto more productive things, like collecting all the bits and scraps of paper which are around my room into a box (me, throw things away? fat chance). in my own defense, they are what I use for bookmarks, so having them all together is convenient. and I can almost see my desk now!
classes have been going well. especially now that I can go to daibhi's class without feeling guilty about not having the paper done. it took me way too long, I know, but it's done now.
I like my castles class, although it's already half over, which is kind of crazy. I have it six times a week (twice on tuesdays), but once it's over I'll only have four classes from tuesday to thursday. this is consoling, since I was rather upset at having four classes on friday (3 when castles are over), so there's really no way to take a long weekend. but, if I wanted to, I could take off monday evening and come back thursday afternoon, without missing too much. this may be the best way for me to go to edinburgh and berlin, and also the cheapest way.
my irish literature course reminds me constantly of why I'm a history major, and not an english major. the class consists of yeats' later poetry and joyce's ulysses. there are some out there who would call me a masochist upon hearing this, and I have to say that I agree. what was I thinking. sigh. oh well. I was going to have to get around to reading ulysses some day. why not in ireland.
my german class has been pretty laid back, but I have also missed half the classes, because the tuesday class overlaps with castles. I know it's not good, but there's only two more of this conflicts, then I'll be there full time. we're reading goethe's die leiden des jungen werthers, the sorrows of young werther. very tragic, very boring. I was upset that they cancelled their high middle german course. I'll just have to take it when I get back to sc.
and, the class you've all been waiting for: latin! virgil's aeneid...in latin... there are three people in the class. as with last semester, I'm the one with the least latin in the bunch. our teacher is this very enthusiastic american guy, who seems like he's going to be a bit more engaging than the last one. unfortunately, virgil will be painful one way or another. I realized this when the teacher gave us stacks of paper, which probably felled a small forest. and I was foolish enough to mention that I know some german, so he's giving me stuff auf deutsch as well. just imagine, latin verse instructions in german. this could hurt. a lot.
and now I'm going to go eat an apple with some peanut butter and read the rest of my yeats for tomorrow. slan!

windy

and when I say windy, do I ever mean it. I've seen some windy days growing up in the suburbs of chicago: the wind comes across the great plains and just beats down on you. but today was incredible. there were gale force winds, supposedly up to 100 miles per hour. trees are down, semis have been tipped over, man, that wind comes right off the atlantic and it's not as cold and piercing as chicago winds, but it's still pretty impressive. some of you may remember the connacht (western ireland) witticism which I often quote: "if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes." today, that was down to three minutes, at most. our sitting room window faces west, and when I had to run across the parking lot to the laundry room I would look out the window and know that I would be able to make it there and back and stay dry. the disadvantage of the window is that it's not very well insulated, so we get our own little gales in the apartment.
today was the second day of classes. I'm not sure what's going on in my life. yesterday I went to german, irish lit, and archaeology. the german class is on goethe, which should be interesting. the irish lit class has us reading ulysses, by james joyce, and some of yeats's poetry. (for some reason I have a hard time remembering whether it's yeats or keats that I'm thinking of. I'm not sure what the difference is.) I had intended to go to the archaeology class about the development of the church in medieval ireland. (note the "intended".) it was to be held in room qa003, and for the life of me, I still have no idea where that is. I asked the porter in the main building and got a very irish, very unclear answer which sent me to a nearby lecture theatre. after a last minute (and unsuccessful) search for a map which may have helped me, I decided to go to the theatre he had pointed me to. when I walked in there was a slide of a ruin projected onto the front wall, so I figured that I had to be close. it ended up being the development of the irish castle, and while I wasn't going to stay in the course, I may as well listen to what the man had to say. to cut a medium lengthed story short, I decided that it was fate that had brought me to the castles, so with the castles I would stay.
today I had two sections of archaeology (it's six days a week for four weeks) and an hour of british history, basically the tudor period. I was kind of stretching to fill my schedule, thus british history and irish literature (saints protect me from james joyce).
so I have yet to go to irish history or latin, though god knows what the story is with latin. I'm going to visit the classics department tomorrow. irish history doesn't start until thursday, and while I'm excited to be taking another class with daibhi, I'm also a bit pensive because I have yet to finish the essay for his seminar for last semester (it was only due monday, though in some circles there was speculation that it wasn't due until friday). after a series of more or less successful trips to the library, I've set to work, and although I've only got 10% of the required number of words so far (so far! mom!) I have the essay planned out so that I know that I can make it long enough. it's not as wonderful a subject as the other paper I gave him, the one on types of sins. this paper is about purgatory and hell and the effect that these ideas had on early medieval irish monks of iona and the columban familia... any paper that cites a book called "the birth of pergatory" can't be too bad, right? my greatest victory as far as research goes was when I bullied the information desk people into retrieving a book from the basement, which actually ended up being a doctoral thesis which came in two volumes. the title of this stunner? "the eschatological doctrines of the early irish church". pretty exciting, no?
the deluge of rain has begun again. shortly after I got on the bus to come home this afternoon it started to hail, and it wasn't very big, but it would not have been nice to be out in it, as ashley was.
other news for the day: elisa came by to visit! yey! we decided that we're going to have to go on an excursion somewhere together in ireland. that should be nice. I was also trying to convice her to take latin with me, but she says that she would rather take greek. ancient greek, that is. nerd.
now I'm very excited about going to bed because I washed my sheets for the first time in...well, we're not going to talk about how long it's been. because they're clean now! huzzah! as are my towels! good times.

back in galway

after a major adventure in public (and private) transportation, I have returned to a very windy, very wet galway.
after a great day on the 4th, watching the trojans beat the bejesus out of oklahoma, I realised that, hey, it's time to go back to ireland! thus ensued a wednesday morning of crazy packing and worriedly watching as the snow began to come down. there had been forecasts of doom all week, so I was vaguely concerned about flights being delayed or cancelled. whatever, I finished packing, said good-bye to the house, and headed to o'hare with mom and dad. I have never seen o'hare so empty in the middle of the day. I checked in, and mom, dad, and I proceeded through security (though I won't say how they did it - that's their secret, not mine), where I left my ticket. I realized that I was ticketless as we were underground, passing from the b to the c concourse. this was just the beginning of a very long travelling period. after waiting in the red carpet room for a while we went to the gate (I had by this time recovered my ticket). things had looked pretty solidly booked, but because of the weather there had been a lot of people who missed connections, so I got on pretty easily. it was a long flight, once we finally left - they apparently had to bring out three cherry-pickers to de-ice the plane. I got to london at 6.30 in the morning, and I swear to god it was busier there than I had ever seen it. I retrieved my bags and made the long trek to terminal three, where I bought a ticket for an aer lingus flight to dublin. I got to dublin, where I decided that I would rather take the train to galway than the bus, unfortunately there was only 25 minutes until the next train left, so I was going to have to wait until 2.25. (it was about 11am at the time.) I took the five euro bus to the train station (the bus fare made up for the train fare, which was a bit more expensive than the bus to galway would have been). I ate at supermacs and sat around, reading and thinking about the paper I have to write for my medieval ireland seminar of last semester. I got on the train and dozed for the three hours or so that it took to get to galway. I suppose that it wasn't that much shorter than the bus, but there was a lot more room, and it was just more comfortable in general. I got to galway and got a taxi, and bam, I was back at dunaras. pretty easy, no? two planes, a bus, a train and a taxi later...
I was looking forward to a good long sleep, so I was out like a light by 10pm, only to wake up this morning at 6.30, when my new roommates were awaking, showering and blow-drying and doing god knows what. apparently, there had been some confusion over the clocks. they were supposed to go to orientation today, but they got confused about the time and left several hours earlier than they needed to, not realizing that there was a problem until they were halfway to the university. sigh.
the water heater is just as obnoxious as always, and after turning it off and trying to go back to sleep for over an hour, I gave up and started working on my paper. I decided that my last paper, about different kinds of sin hadn't been morbid/macabre enough, so I'm writing this latest paper on hell and purgatory. the library wasn't going to open for a while, so I went through the books that gave me the idea and looked up their references in the library catalogue online. a bit later I went out to the college, got thoroughly drenched on the walk there, then spent a while wandering around trying to find timetables for the coming semester. ha. I went to the library where I was semi-successful in my attempts to find books, then I went off to find daibhi to talk to him about the paper. after wandering into town and checking on the various bookstores I went to the bus station and bought a month-long pass, because apparently january is a rainy month. (unlike all the others, thus far?) I returned to the apartment and napped for a while, then got up and watched a bit of t.v. with the new roommates (becca and lauren/lindsay?). a couple of their friends came over later and I suggested we order chinese food, since I haven't had an opportunity to do any food shopping. so they had their fist adventure in irish-chinese cuisine, and now I'm sitting in my room, contemplating sleep and the beginning of classes on monday. oy vey.

no doubt left...

USC TROJANS NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!!!

USC: 55
OKLAHOMA: 19

I'm so proud of my school...

sometimes I am amazed by the series of accidents that is my life

I've been reading a lot of kurt vonnegut lately, which is why I don't say that I have good luck. I'm inclined to subscribe to The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent, a major institution in his book "the sirens of titan." the main character malachi/unk returns to earth after a stay on the planet mercury, and when the people who found him asked what happened to him, he says "I was a victim of a series of accidents. as are we all." the idea is that people only get ahead by accident, not by luck, which would imply that there is someone out there, watching us all and choosing his/her favorites to be "lucky" and those he/she doesn't like to be "unlucky". the society in his book sees a spate of self-imposed handicaps which attempt to make everyone equal, so that the accidents that befall people (such as being attractive or strong, etc.) are evened out. makes for a level playing field.
I won't say that I would like to live in a society where everyone does their best to be average, but people sure would be a lot more polite and generous than they are now.

anyways, that doesn't really have much to do with my past few days. after spending a couple days in california - one day in san pedro with brenda and danny, then one day in lake forest taking kevin and logan to see the "incredibles" - we went back to l.a. to catch our flights. I didn't get to see adam again because he was sick (that christmas pudding must have had an adverse reaction in his kosher stomach). I got onto my america west flight (with real tickets: I got to wear jeans!) to phoenix, which was an hour late and forced me to run across the terminal to get to my flight to flagstaff, which took off about 10 minutes after I got there. karen was at the airport in flagstaff waiting for me, and her dad drove us to their house in the suv, since the weather wasn't very nice. they live about a quarter of a mile from the famous "route 66", pretty much in the middle of nowhere. over the next couple days we went into flagstaff and visited a bunch of yuppie/touristy stores, spent time in a couple excellent bookstores, went ice skating (I didn't fall down!), and watched lots of father ted. we had a quiet new year's eve, but that was fine because I had to be at the train station at 7.15 the next morning.
the roads weren't too bad, so karen decided that she would be able to drive me down there (rather than call a cab). her dad and brother had gone on a road trip with the suv, which left only karen's 1969 viper green vw bug named mozart. after we gave him a good long chance to warm up, we took mozart into town where there was next to no one on the roads. as we were pulling away from a random traffic light that had turned red despite no one else being near it, we all of a sudden here sirens and see flashing lights - we got pulled over! apparently we were going 45 in a 40 zone (dumb) and her right tail light was out. she got away with just a warning (has anyone ever gotten a written warning? I've never heard of that being done before). we got to the train station plenty early anyway, and soon I was in the shuttle on its way from flagstaff to phoenix airport. I was supposed to be meeting mike there around 10.30, but we got in half an hour early and mike, of course was not awake. as I waited for him to get his butt in gear I had the brilliant idea of checking in then, since it was a shuttle by united flight which gives out seats according to check in time, rather than seniority. my flight wasn't until 4.55, and they wouldn't let me check in until 6 hours before the flight. so I was checked in by 10.56. eventually mike came to pick me up and took me back to his house where we ate (his mom offerred to make me a STEAK! I declined, but did have lots of veggies and chips - karen's mom had also packed me some of her fresh baked bread) and watched football games and father ted. mike and his brother james drove me back to the airport where I got the very last seat on the flight to los angeles (wrong direction, I know). I had gotten my stand by ticket for the flight to chicago as well, but again, a late airplane meant that I was cutting it pretty close. when I got to the gate they were just starting boarding, and things were looking very full (rose parade marching bands take up a lot of space). I double checked that I was on the list for stand by, but was not reassured when they started calling revenue-standbys. I heard what I thought sounded like "peck", but I couldn't be sure, so I waited until they announced it again, this time saying "peck" very clearly. and wouldn't you know, I got the very last seat on the flight. I imagine that there are some people somewhere who are none to happy with me. but I got to fly first class, sit next to a very chatty pilot, and have a steak dinner and ice cream sundae (seperately, obviously). I got home late, slept in late, and today helped take out the christmas tree. that's about it.
going back to ireland on the fifth. but before that "GO TROJANS!!! BEAT THE SOONERS!!!"