Academic Life in Ireland

Today was our 11th day here and the end of our second week of classes (that's right, it is Wednesday night and I am DONE with classes for the week). That is not to say that our classes are easy, and they are definitely not short, but it is nice to have long weekends in order to give us a chance to experience Europe and especially this beautiful country of Ireland. We generally have classes every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 10:00-2:00 and then we meet later Wednesday night for our International Studies Special Topics class with Dr. Konecny. While this schedule is super nice because it frees up our schedules to have more travel time, it does mean that our classes go pretty long. On Mondays we work with Jane Marie (who owns the hotel we are staying at) on the Gaelic language. This is not at all an easy class. As the case is when learning any new language, things do not always translate directly which is a very hard thing for me to grasp. Not only is the translation thing difficult, the words are often hard to pronounce and are not pronounced how I would guess they would be based on how they are spelled. For example Dia Dhuit is pronounced gia hwich, and it literally translates to "God be with you" but actually means "hello." It is not hard to understand my confusion...Also on Mondays we learn about the Irish culture. This week we talked about the influence of the Catholic religion on basically every aspect Irish life including their customs, language, and even politics and government.

On Tuesdays we meet with our Irish Literature professor. This week we were fortunate enough to read through the Oscar Wilde play "The Importance of Being Earnest" which is actually a really light and funny read. We will be reading a play again next Tuesday. We have also picked a couple books that we all have to have read during this semester by Irish authors. 

Our classroom (it's dark because it is 10:00 here)

Our history class is probably my favorite, and we basically learn about (surprise!) Irish History. This class is very interesting for me because I have taken world history before, but Ireland's specific history is something that was never really talked about in any of my classes. It is really interesting to learn about what Ireland is going through during other historical events that I have learned about. One thing that I was not aware of was the struggle that Ireland has endured for CENTURIES for their independence. 

I will finish this post by saying that today was BEAUTIFUL outside (no rain!) so Michael and I went on a walk and went out to the ocean, where I got some awesome pics. That ocean scenery just never gets old...

Me. On a rock. By the Ocean.