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.