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.