my school has the worst pizza, and the best history teacher i've ever had. scratch that the best teacher ive ever had. My hitler, nazism and the second world war professor is a german man teaching in ireland and he is one of the most animated invested teachers ive ever seen. in a lecture class of 200 he still engages students. still cares if they show up, and notices. today (as it's the last day of class and the paper has already been turned in) he showed up to teach anyways, and there were 8 of us, 4 of whom were americans so he asked where the rest of the class was hiding, checked under a desk or two, then handed out copies of the comic Maus (which i have been meaning to read fo 3 years!!!) and started to talk about what connects and separates totalitarian dictatorships and facist dictatorships. amazing. the man is simply amazing. he walks up and down the aisles of the classroom translating directly german passages into english. just. amazing. thank you for teachers like this existing who can turn a graduation requirement into my most frustrating and favorite class. nine times out of ten when i am writing here and thining about something, it is because of this class, it makes me connect what i learn to my world. teachers like this, they make the difference between school and education.

hey all,

it is that wonderful time of year again when the christmas lights go up around town (theres plenty of time for them to shine around here as the sun sets at 4:30!!!!!) cheery electronicized music sings down the streets and out of shops, and all of the students are in a blind panic writing papers and taking tests. yup, finals season.
in addition to my usual hibernation i'm going to be awol for a while longer as between writing papers and apparently walking around thinking i'm fine with a 104 degree fever and 2 ear infections (oops...) i don't seem to have a huge amount of time on my hands. BUT i am not dead in any way ( although mom does seem a little worried...) and my intelligence has been questioned several times regarding my intrest in attending classes rather than sleeping. yes, insane. we've been over this, moving on. so anyways, enjoy you candycanes and hot cocoa, know i'll be holed up in my apartment writing about nazism and singing christmas carols, and for all of you lovely davis people i'll see you after the 19th! and trust me, i can't wait!!

merry christmas!

as the french say: attencion!

officially, as of 8pm last night, my cousin Ester is the coolest person in the whole wide world. She got me a puppy. yes folks, that's right, the very thing i've been whining about for years, she got me a big brown eyed fuzzy puppy whose place of honor is curled up in bed with me. I have decided to name him Puppers mcFlufferson, as he is very fuzzy, soft, and a stuffed animal so i won't dishonor his lineage and pride with such a name. i think he and huggabear will make great friends. huggabear can tell him about those of you horrible people out there who have scarred him for life. support groups are key ^_^

a grand weekend, great craic all around really, although i now am taking some much needed recovery time for my body to catch up with all of the fantastic goings-on. This weekend - for those of you who don't know - was trampolining intervarsities hosted by none ofther than the colaiste na hOillscoile Corcaigh (now i'm justing getting fancy, that was irish for UCC). Trickelning then flooding in thursday and friday trampoliners from all over ireland, from queens in belfast to UCD (hahahaha yeah, it always makes me laugh that i came to ireland to hang out with kids from UCD) in Dublin to get their bounce on. and bounce we did indeed. Way too much fun, I apparently did pretty damn well, taking 4th in my category (novice, i'm a newbie) and basically having an amazing time! now it's on to all sorts of flips, seat dropping wars and crazyness...plus seeing how much i can do with tumbling while not killing myself...too badly) i did kind of land on my head about three times trying to pull of a oundoff double back handspring on the airtramp, and it just gives you so much lift i was flipping for the first and then not having the momentum or wrist strength for the second. apparently i gave some people heart attacks, hehe. Oh and i got to teach one of my tiggerful friends Adam how to do a back handspring. i felt pretty damn cool. so all in all life is trampoliningtrampoliningtrampolining and a bit of hoemwork and sleep thrown in aorund the edges, which i'm sure will change as soon as mo mhamai comes to see me!!!! yayyyy mommy! anyhoo, a grand weekend of bouncing flying moves (my favorite is the chicken on a bycicle) and drunken debauchery...oooh and really really good junkfood! so now it's back to life, papers, new ways to fly, and ramndom movie nights with the pilosophical outpourings that i like best. this is why philosophy majors are wonderful, long discussions between toffee and donnie darko on globalization and economics..*sigh* happy. oh, and not only have i rescently been adopted, apparently i AM charlotte from sex and the city (score!) and joey fram dawson's creek some too....but mostly charlotte..but less WASPy, haha.

I believe in the sun even when it is not shining.
I believe in love even when feeling it not.
I believe in God even when God is silent.

text found written on a wall after Kristallnacht.

we are studying the beginning of the holocaust and the whole day this song, a song i performed years ago when i could only begin to grasp what it meant, was running thorugh my head, giving me chills. how. even while i'm studying exactly why and how this could happen, i still just...don't understand.

and i don't understand how my classmates can sit in class and hear it and not feel like crying for all of the pain, hatred and horror. how it can be a subject. it was life. human lives, blood, tears, souls.

ah nostalgia...

know what I'm missing right now? the leaves turning all shades of fire on the trees, that welcoming in the winter with colors like burning. not to say it isn't beautiful here, because it really really is. I just miss that final salute to summertime, the real honest to god fall in all it's glory. the leaves going yellow and drifting downward just doesn't quote do it for me. as awesome as crunching to school through leaves is...i miss the color.

on the topic of life the universe and everything the current post UPS ideas are as follows:
*Teach for America ( 2 year contract to teach in areas of the us where there is need of teachers. no degree required)
*A similar group (there are millions) but international
*med school (after some time getting classes and MCATS up to snuff)
note: this may mean going back to Davis (could we stand the whole fam living there again? blackhole! blackhole!) or staying in Seattle, or moving to SF, as SF state is in the top 3 consistently for best med (practical rather than research)
*midwifery (god knows where I'd start on this, but Anne Kreider who is a total genius came up with it and...well...it fits...)

just thought I'd share, feedback, other suggestions, whatever is all appreciated. I'm basically taking time to figure out what i love and toying with the idea and feasibility of it.

happy winter folks, it is officially upon us!


(oh and note: getting out of bed at 7:30 is hard when the sun's not up yet!!! and i still can't believe that it really sets here at 5:30...just...weird! i'm going boho for the next couple days cause my apartment lightbulb burned out and i'm feeling lazy so i'm living by the light of christmas lights...i feel very seasonal...)

now THAt right there my friends, was a damned good weekend. i left on thursday for london (thank god for english classes, because they have reading week which allows you to leave school!!!! and as much as i adore my classes, sometimes getting away is just amazing) anyways, i caught my plane to london, promptly calles my mate areta (who is AMAZING) to meet up with ehr and throw my stuff at her place before heading out to sightsee a little and stuff....and promptly ran out of phone minutes. with the one phone carrier that dosn't have any stores outside of ireland. whoops. so long story short, i wandered around king street for a while, ooked at the amazingly pretty shop windows and finally found a pay7ohne and phone card and met up with areta, snuck me into her res hall ( yes i am hannah kramer..*cough**cough*) and went out to see the world premier of The Lightning Play. this was unbelieveable. like really, holy shit gave me goosebumps..it's about what people don't say and the interpersonal connections that make up our life, especailly our connection to ourself that is so ofton severed and..just..WOW. okay, so that was amazing, next day woke up and wandered around the city via the undergorund which is the coolest thing EVER!! i'm pretty much obsessed with mass public transit, not gonna lie. i went to see St. Paul's cathedral and well, it was....just unbelieveable. i wasn't allowed ot take any pictures inside, and iw as actually happy about that, but it really is alot bigger than you'd think...
as you can see...and even cooler..they weere putting in this little carnival right beneath it with a dragon roller coaster and everything..






it made me really happy...so i walked around the long way, cause i generally do things the long way it seems and saw St. Peter all tall and gold








He was right next to a (temporary) monument made for all of the soldiers dying overseas today.




so i kept on walking and found myself - to my delight - face to face with the steps from mary poppins!!!! you know the steps in the song feed the birds? well, i coud totally be wrong, but the steps in front of St. Paul's looksed EXACTLY like those steps...so of course...i took a picture....




see? okay, so more people, but the same damned pigeons who i had to havea rumble with later to keep them from eating my hotdog...but i'm getting ahead of myself. St. Peter's...it was...really deeply holy. i know this sounds a little obvi as deidre would say, but really, ive seen so many monuments and so many chapels, adn this one really was just...holy. i walked in to the room that they had set aside and i sat and prayed for a while. really prayed. that's something i've been doing for the first time in a really long time since ive been here. being moved by religion, the honesty of it, of how it is practiced here moves me, it's slowly restoring my faith. there is alot that i don't agree with the church on, but sitting in St. Pauls surrounded by commisions made years ago by men who not only believed but really loved their god, it stirs something. i lit a candle for Carrie, and not because i was sad, but because i could feel something there something incredibly rare in my life, i noticed tears were running down my cheeks. i lit the candle and said a prayer for her, and for Grandpa who is happy where he is, and for Uncle Jack, because i knew it is something mom would do for her irish catholic uncle and wandered thorugh the rest of the cathedral. everywhere, there were mosaics, gold foil, paintings all made in reverence of a man who touched the hearts of so many people that even today they bless his name and create monuments to that incredible love. i paid my respects to the statue for John Donne, to the monument for the american soldiers who lost their lives fighting in britain during the second world war, then climbed the 400 something stairs up to the whispering room where a whisper to the wall will travel across the open space fo the great dome and osund like you're talking right next to the person across from you, where the stone is worn into deep grooves by so many feet, then up to thye very top of the dome, another, what 200 ish stairs or so to where you can look out all over london. and as the sun was going down it was simply breathtaking. then i ran over to the british museum to eat a street vendor hotdog and almost punched out a pidgeon who was trying to take my damned food, i began to understand how hitchcock could make a movie like the birds, those buggers are vicious bastards! i'd believe they could go homicidal. anyways, i wandered thorugh the museum and spend a good couple minuets paying homage to the library room, dear god...so...many...books...!!! old mustysmeling books fo goodness, almost worhty of belles library. if there is one thing i want to have some time in my life, in the home i have one day, my dream home....it's belle's library. i couldnt tear myself away from that place for a while...eventually i went over to look at the egyptian and polynesian exhibits...incredibly cool, but also brought up for me that question...about the importance of preservation and edification for many versus the desanctification and clinicalization of a cultures sacred objects...i'm still stuck on that one to be honest.....then met Areta, who really is one of my favorite people, to go over to see another museum whose name i trgically can't remember in trefalger square where i oohed over the fountains and ran up to sit between the enormous paws of a big bronze lion around the obelisk, and then into the museum to see face to face works by VanEyek, Bottocelli, DaVinci, Raphael, Seurat, adn Van Gogh. we actaully stood inches away from Van Gogh's sunflowers..it was...just...unbeliveable...all of them, looking at davinci's work, looking at the artists i studies photos of last semester and seeing them in person, was just so exciting...next goal is to find out where carravaggio's work is and see that in eprson, as he's my favorite..we saw alot of works inspired by him, but not his as he tended to work in really large scale and on walls rather than canvas if i remeber correctly....and get run out of town rather frequently.....anyways, then we went over to Brick Lane , the Indian district and haggled for our amazing (and cheap) indian food...sooooo gooooood..haaaaappy...then over for some italian ice creme (no not gelato...sad face, i'll get that when ig o over to venice ^_^) and watched the notebook which i have been alittle sceptical about but really, is not in my top five list of movies. i now need to buy it, just for those nights when i want to happy cry, or need something to believe in...good times. then i went home, in a very roundabout way as i kind o missed my plane a little..or rather came in 5 minutes too late to check in so go rerouted to dublin and found a train station that would get me back to cork. crazyness, and now my fingers are turning into icicles, so i need to get back home to my hot toddy (seriously, really good with nutmeg when you wanna get all warm fast) and grey's anatomy, cause my brian had been crammed as full of french as it will take today.

love. Peace.

taking a small break from the happy picture uploading and story time, i have a bone to pick.

now i am the first to admit that this is not necessarily my area of expertise, but i scan the headlines of papers from all over the world, i scroll through blogs from all over the world, i talk to people from all over the world, and it scares me. the state of the world, and more specifically of the US right at this minute, scares me.

it's home, i love being an American, i never have loved being an American or really understood what it meant until i was so far away from home that it mattered. i am choosing to keep my accent, to make a distinction between my government and my country while i am here because i love my home. but i don't love a lot of what i hear about reports from home, and god knows that the worst face of the government comes out at election time. it reminds me of junior high, honestly, all of the kids in a peacock contest strutting around while scrambling furiously to lie cheat, or steal their way into power with lipstick still intact and not a hair out of place. and i can't help but feel that this is a symptom.

blame what you will, the modernist literature I've been exposed to, my current study of dictatorships, being young and a liberal, whatever, but all of this going on, the automated phone call scams, voting booth malfunctions, officials covering up recent trials, whatever, all of this seems to me to be symptoms of things going very wrong on a scale that surpasses my state vs your state, my country vs your country, our hemisphere against theirs. Sheer numbers of overpopulation, not enough living space, stubborn unwillingness to put money behind looking for alternative solutions to world energy, the fact that with as much beautiful land in the world that will support god knows how many mouths, children are dying of malnutrition and neglect and people are killing each other over what god you pray to, dosn't it seem like the horrible symptoms of a worldwide disease to anyone else? wake up world, we are all dying slowly, time to save ourselves, if only we can go about it little step, by little step

and on a tangent (i swear by the way that despite this somewhat critical looks at life the universe and everything, i really am quite happy and loving life at the moment, i mean, i get to fly through the air propelled by myself and a trampoline four days a week and have amazing gay boys who sing rent with me...life is good!)
what is is about us, our current culture, that makes us so incredibly phobic of expressing strong emotion? i feel like it is a widespread phenomena that has taken root in my own age as destructive sarcasm. now, i have nothing in particular against sarcasm, the Irish i have found can razz each other to death and keep it light, friendly, no one leaves with that sour taste in their mouth or feeling crushed, you aren't discouraged from loving whatever it is that you love....unless it happens to be a person of the same sex, but that's a whole different story. what is it exactly that makes us shy away from the expression of strong emotion in ourselves and others outside of a certain shallow few socially acceptable topic (ie boys and how cute they are, puppies and children and how cute they are, and sports teams...sometimes the fall line of clothing) yes, I'm oversimplifying, but not as much as one might think. to paraphrase DH Lawrence (yes, i know I've been doing a lot of that, but he had specific ideas that resonate with me at this moment) my friends would never think of letting me sit upon some sharp object, would keep me from harms way if i was to try and jump from something tall, but would ridicule and cut me down mercilessly if I expressed a profound emotion toward an ideal.

now that hit close to home. aside from a select few (i love you fabulous few by the way) when expressing an interest in something outside of the norm, or something that packs a punch, be it the incredibly fascinating process of procreating all the way through (the human body is so cool) to politics and what is wrong with the world, to how incredibly excited you are about creating a novel, or finishing the most amazing literary experience of your life, anything that dips below the surface is taboo. you just. don't. talk about it, not seriously. you can bitch and protest a little, and then apathy kicks in, this well, i guess we have to muddle on through, or worse an attitude of nothing that WE can do, when that is anything but the point. no, we don't have a lot of power now, but look at the third reich (not my usual site for inspiration, but run with me a minute) it hinged upon the youth in large. it started in the schools, in teaching a whole new way of thinking, and the tide of mass hysteria (which i am not advocating) that propelled change was with the youth. because kids grow up. because kids don't stay kids, like Les Miserables says " never kick a dog because he's just a pup, you'd better run for cover when the pup grows up." so don't give me that bullshit about kids our age not mattering. we are one of the most underrepresented demographics in the country and we could be making the biggest changes. so care for gods sake, care and care about the people around you enough that they can trust you with their passion. because a soul and a country without passion gets us to where we are today and worse, and I'm not going to settle on a dystopia.

okay, so more cliffs of mohr...

so basically, to go see this fantabulous place, we got up at the crack of dawn (literally!!) to get on a bus to see it,. and found out to our dismay that the visitor centre didn't open for another 30 mins, boooo, so we huddled under the awning as it began to pour, and whimered and made puppy eyes at all the people inside who wouldn't let us in!! ->











basically it was really really perdy.. and this was the road...with a sign i couldn't get a picture of that said "Bull, keep out" but we never saw this alleged bull so we figured it was okay.




past the big sign that says:
information which we of course ignored, cause that's where it started to get interesting!








<- the touristy shot of everyone who was with me (jon, meaghan, eileen, deidre, mb and moi) the cliffs from the other side (oooh, ahhhhh) ->








ooooh, look at how far down it goes.....and there are the cliffs from the other side...















pretty green cliffs, and there we are, the wee people! We were very fixated on the top of the ledge...our goal! i think we were having some kind of a powow or something, i'm not too sure...







i got a little excited about the pretty waves below. i coudn't get a good picture of it, but there was this HUGE cave with waves crashing and it was awesome!

and all of us checking oout the edge
(i kind of gave Deirdre an ulcer...oops!) and now as i'm basically speeiding you through my last couple weekends to get you all updated...











Climbing mountains!! (yes, i do this for fun....)
we basically just up to a farmer, asked him if we could traipse on through his lands and he said yes, so on we went.





and out of nowhere, literally,
a lake just kind of ...started...and one side was a little lower so it just ran down the hill, totally chill. anyways we kept on walking






through a bog. we got VERY wet and muddy, me and Rin are baddass ladies, only badasses get THIS muddy! SHUAH!
Checkit! there are alot more goofy pictures of us and meg when in the middle fo chewing etc, but i thought i'd spare allaya..







and then we just kind of..started on up the hill, and as you might be able to tell, there is NO path...whatsoever, just alot of scrambling over rocks.....
i felt a little mountain goatish.
It reminded me alot of scrambling around the redrocks at gramma....except wetter...with gorse..those suckers HURT!





aand, this would be the steepness of the cliff face that we were weaving across...and grabbing handfuls of weed and physically hauling yourself up the cliff face with....in the middle of a cloud bank...yeah, badass....
me and meg had alot of fun..hehe...they couldn't believe that
we were still smiling at the top of the mountain!


epically gorgeous clouds....we really were hiking in a cloud bank








<- and as my computer is really about to run out of battery, i leave you with the sad sadness as we came out into Kilkenny Forest, (theyre trying to replant them, it's wierd seeing trees here though!)
and i tried to make friends with the sheep....
but
the sheepies don't love me!!












that was my sad pouty face..apparently sheep aren't a big fan of being chased...

picture and story update (finally..sry...) so farm pictures!!

i milked a freeking -> cow!!!!

<- marybeth, Ifer and I being hottie farm girls, woo!
i had to put bags on my feet cause the boots were still all wet and gross inside. |
V


okay, so that's the farm, next set of pictures (i have alot to update, are from right after the farm, the gardens that I think i talked about. so gorgeous, anyways...

down here is the "secret garden door" it owuld have been cool if this led into the rest, but it was just random and made me happy, so i put it in...


over here one of the many little glens, i seriously walked around here almost in a trance. so incredibly peaceful.





a bridge over the little babbling brook. this was almost an adorable picture of Matt and Arpil, but it was a little too far away, and they moved. sad day.

seriously, this place went from jungle (that's Kate's back by the way) to bamboo jungle...
just in case you were wondering, the thoughts behind this are a) I'M A PANDA!!! and b)i finally made friends with bamboo, grudgingly after the enimity we earned in Seanny's backyard...
these lovely ladies who are pretending to be in the jungloe book are top Mary Beth (aka MB), Left Chris, Right Kate, and the spazz at the bottom is moi.
and over there is a pretty woody glen that i thought looked like a faerie mound. thus endeth the farm pics.

next up (haha, you thought i was done? muaaahaha)
the Cliffs of Mohr!
pretty pretty cliffs....
so please don't fall off of them!! (check, we got that one down...)

okay, i'm just gonna post this and put up the rest of the pics tomorrow, as it's cold outside and my butt is getting flat, love you all! and more cliff pics, haloween pics (woowoo) and possibly "wet hot american night" pics....now what a wet hot american night is i'm really not sure, but it sounds interesting. my friends are crazy! should be a fun night though!

Slan.

have you ever noticed the cyclical nature of life? the way things tend to wrap around, and wrap around and teach you the same lessons in escalating degrees of intensity if you don't manage to learn them right the first time? these last few years (especailly the last two) i have really seen alot of that. the same lessons from different angles, peeling back the layers of protection and exposing the things that need work. the areas you need help in. while i'm here, i am nose to nose with the areas where i am weak. with the things that i will change, and with those little lessons. like this one "let go" or another "how to rely on and live with yourself" or still more "intercourse is not the same as sexual awareness" to quote DH lawrence, "sex is really only touch, the closest of touch. And it's touch we're afraid of. we're only half concious, half alive. we've got to come alive and aware [...] the touch of bodily awareness between human beings." an ideal that i have subscribed to for some time...but this is in truth a different rant for a different time.

there is a similar phenomena in school that again, in another subtle layer, is mirroring the larger life web i was just speaking of. where all the different areas and subjects that i have studied are starting to intertwine, similar to watching wisteria over a long period of time. it creeps slowly, lazily wraps a tendril around a railing, and the next thing you know there are solid, interlocking branches as thick as your forearm. amazing. i am taking literature classes in modernism, and history classes on the second world war that are currently closely mirroring and helping me to understand, not only one another in the context of post industrial disillusionment and loss, but the world i am starting to see around me as i become a litle more aware of my surroundings. and it seems to me that the hope offered in these novels, history texts, poems, are the same then as it is now. that return to "blood conciousness," the natural world, a realization of the body as holy, as the foundation for a new kind of life. and the healthy and natural sexual interaction of men and women as the great primal healing force for a barren world. see Children of Man if you can, it explores this in depth. DH Lawrence and TS Eliot were two writers who were deeply worried about the state of the world after seeing everything around them shattered by war. today, we have grown numb to that horror. after the wound was cut open over and over again, the nerves have been severed, and we no longer see the pain of humanity, we distance ourselves, we hide, we disbelieve. we want so badly to believe in the good things in the world that we are ignoring the bad. this is why education is mandatory, if a flawed system: for the hope that one day, far enough along, the pieces will connect and children (i include myself in this category, for as close to that adult time as i am, in many ways i remain ignorant, a child) can begin to see.

for this reason, i continue reading, and digging, and trying to understand. Education and nature are the foundations for our salvation. to be truely concious, to be truely in touch is a painful, frightening, and trancendent thing.

okay, playing hookey from gymnastics so I can get my bank transfter finalized and finish my resume. soooo while i'm waiting i thought i'd finish posting. cause i'm cool like that. okay, so...this weekend....yeah, so we went out again...cause you do that in ireland...and the next day they took us over to "one of the hidden houses of ireland" basically a tourist place that's tucked away so not that many people know about it. the coolest part was that because kate's family rents some of the land from the people who own this place, we were the only people there, and didn't have to pay. sweeet! so basically, it is a huge park / garden area. this is one of the most lushly beautiful places i've ever been. it's once of those places that takes your breath away and makes you think of midnight picnics with candles, blankets, a bottle of really deep red wine and a special someone in hand. it is unbelieveable, and you'll see it in a second, as i took way too many pictures. i wandered through this faerie wonderland like it was heaven...totally in a afterglow kind of happy moment. so amazing, one of those places that is so earthily holy that it touches you soul and makes it sing. there seems to be so many places like that here. the land is just unbelieveable.

so i'm now back home and trying to fit in a little studying around all my fun. i went to rugby with kate yesterday and dear lord..i have found my sport! this game is unbelieveable. it's a game full of sweepers (soccer position i played...) it's all hard tackles, short bursts of run till your heart stops action and then down time. they started calling me speedy gonzales cause they had us sprint so i did....apparentl;y i'm fast? so i was told i'll probably play wing. for all those nervous family members, that means less contact ^_^ so it looks like i'm going to be doing that, gymnastics cause it's amazing and i get to fly, hopefully volunteer at a hospital as i'm about to go turn in my resume to mercy hospital, and maybe some judo...we'll see if i stay with that. anyways, hope you all are having a lovely time in life, huge hugs!!

hullohullo, I'm back from a fabulous weekend and kicking my own ass profoundly in the best possible way, but first things first, the farm (pictures later i promise! i have to get some from some friends)

this weekend me and a couple of friends (chris, ifer, april and mary beth herafter refered to as mb) went home with our irish friends matt, alistair, and kate to their parent's farm in fuenog (again, i don't actually know the spelling) which is about an hour outside of cork. it was, in a word fantasmagorical. they live just outside of the little town, down the road from michael flatley (if you don't know who this is look him up....think lord of the dance) who was getting married that weekend to their milk farm. first night out al, matt and kate's mum fixed us a glorious dinner, we had copious amount of really good french wine (as well as some "american sludge" from the napa valley, lol) and then went out to the pub down the road. this place was tiny. i mean, tall people beware clean your clock on the ceiling tiny with two rooms, one for tossing hoops (a game that is way cooler than darts) and drinking, and one for music. i (well duh) wandered into the music room like a cat to cream, sat down and listened to the fast fiddle, crazy banjo and guitar, and as people went round taking turns and requests, the whole room singing together, couldn't help raising my voice to james taylor's sweet baby james. this is one of my favorite songs in the entire world. and as the song ended, the man with the guitar right in front of me turns around, tells me i sing like and angel and to quick, pick something i can sing from the book. we do the water is wide and the room stops dead. no joke. it was amazing. this whole room full of people who are there on a friday night because they love to make music together and we all sang and clapped untill it wasn't night anymore. i love ireland.

then went back to the farm, which after living in the downtown city center (which i never really have) was such a breath of fresh air. it smelled like the country, there were deep glowing green trees everywhere, the earth smelled damp, ivy twining around everything, laundry out on the line, the two herd dogs running up after the car and covering you face with shaggy loving dog kisses, scads of farm cats' eyes peeping from behind tractors that are waiting to be fixed and barn doors, and gardens, flowers, everything growing and loving and alive in abundance. i was really deeply happy.

the next day we headed out to see a rugby match, munster versus dublin. now, for anyone who dosnt know. cork and dublin dont.get.along. according to everyone i've ever met in cork, dubliners are prissy, rich, stuck up, materialistic, shallow, snobs. and i havent been to dublin yet, so i can't really speak for them. the match was, needless to say, incredibly entertaining. it got down to 23 munster 21 dublin in the last five minutes, and dublin scored, putting them up at 26...we were dispelased. but the match was amazing, and kate ( who is incredibly fabulous by the way, she's also the only girl after three big brothers) talked me into trying lady's rugby with her, so that will be later today, striaght after which we are planning on marching muddy, buised, sweaty and sodden into choir practice to sing our little hearts out! anyways, after the game kate and i were hankering for some chips (read frenchfries....now who here is suprised?) so we walked thorugh the town to a little takeout place (this is kate, mb and i) and got curry chips, garlic chips, and straight up no nonsence chips respectively and pigged out in front of the store. glorious. the it was back to the farm

we milked cows. need i say more? we went in, cleaned off the teats, had milked each one to make sure they're not infected or anything's wrong, then hooked them up and milked them. so freeking cool! i got used to slapping them good to make them move down, and feeding them to get them to stand in line, and having milk fights with kate (if you aim the teat as you're squeasing, the milk will fly really far...aim takes practice, so much fun) and dodging cow shit (...ew) and god it was awesome. totally messy fun. and i'm looking at the time so i have to get going. but ill write up the rest of our day's after class. that night was just drinks and ten fingers, not too terribly exciting. more to come!

this is really just for seanny, but really i think everyone could find something beautiful in it for themselves... check it out!

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/09/13

okay, where was i? right. okay, so we're on the fabulous island of inis mor and get to go on this super cool tour with the crazy gaeltacht (from a pimarily irish speaking area) irishman.
first cool fact, pog mo thoin /pogue ma hon/ means kiss my ass in irish, second cool fact, this was the original name of the irish rock group the Pogues before they got outside of ireland. then the english had issues with the crudity of the statement, and they were shortened from pog mo thoin to the pogues. woo!


okay, moving on to the tour, the picture below is one of three memorials for all of the people who have lived and died on the island. very pretty, and it shows you just how insulated of a community they are, they really do rely on the community for everything, it's really nifty.
the next is one of the seven ( i think...) beaches on inis more, we actually saw some crazy boyos going out to surf the gravel beaches, whoah.


there are over 7,000 MILES of stone walls, built by the celts a couple hundred years ago for the sole purpose of clearning the land enough that they could plant crops. we saw a bunch of walls with pieces missing and animals chilling inside, and what they do to keep their sheepies or goats or any other quadruped really from wandering into their neighbor's yard if the stone fence isn't up all the way is looping them together by the leg (if it's a sheep) with rope, or by the leg and head (for more frisky goats) and the round thing at the top of this picutre is one of the ringforts, an duhronag, where we headed next, it is the inhuman love of my life.

this sign was posted at the beginning of the hill leading up to an duhronag and as you can see, it points toward the rest fo the world, in fact, New York was only 3,000 miles from where we were. and I like the additions by passerby ^_^



the guy there is my friend Billy as we are all climbing up to the entrance. i thought this was a pretty picture, as it shows the steep hill, and really the kind of feeling even walking up to this place gave you. Majestic. It is a ringfort up on the top of a cliff, built by the early celts on the island for shelter, and for meetings.

the cliffs of inis more



as we all look out sitting on the edge of the cliff, i haven't been that happy in a long while. the water was so blue, and so wild, and so powerful, and i wished that there was a way i could jump in and not die. but as there isn't i remain here ^_^ anyways, the wind there was so incredibly powerful, you could atcually stand and lean into it and it would hold you up, it really was something else. a force of nature. An duhronag had pride, and personality, and a fierce love. it was just...ther are not enough words in the english language to describe this. so with one goofy picture of some of my friends:

i'll stop trying (that was Dierdre and Dolker, by the way)
moving, on, the other side (the ring wall side) of An Duhronag:
and on to the rest of the island. The seven churches (there's actually only 3 churches on the island, 3 churches, 3 schools, 3 graveyards....and 6 pubs. tells you what's important eh?)


it's named for seven friars that once were there. and the tour guide sworre that they really didn't tear down the prosetsant churches...they just stopped being used! (the island is now totally catholic) it's interesting though, you drive around the island and see thigns like this all the time, places where most or some of the walls are standing, and ivy and plants are groeing all aorund it, there's remanants of houses in people's backyard, some converted into gardens, some not, like the past is right there living with them. they don't try to make it the present, but it is there nonetheless...
they still use these as graveyards as you can see from the modern headstone, very anachronistic looking ^_^ and all gravestones on the island face east, toward the "holy land" cool.
artsy shot, i really liked this place...
I'm not sure how well you can read this, but that is modern irish ^_^
this guy made enourmous baskets in his front yard as tourist attractions to promote the hand woven baskets he sold further on into town. our tour guide tried to tell us that they were for this special breed of "really bigg chickens...huge eggs!" uuuuhuh...i believed THAT!

anyways, that wraps up most of the galway trip, that and a relaxed night at one of the local pubs seeing the nightlife of Galway, and a really really drunk irishman who tried to convince the five of us to go to this club to dance all night, and the "hen party" complete with women in lingere and flashing bunny ears (no, i'm not joking) apparently having reserved the little room that we all thought we were so clever for having found. as a very well muscled man came in with screaming women arrayed from ages 20 to 40 and started to strip, we thought we had probably been mistaken about our cleverness.... anyways a hilarious night all around ending - as all nights should - with irish frenchfries from supermacs...mmmmm. anyways, there's a couple more pictures, but these really are the very best, so huge hugs, and as soon as my friends post the pic they took on facebook, i'll yoink em and post em here. love, peace, and crashing ocean waves..


~Jean~