It’s Thursday morning here and I’m sitting in Starbucks (how American) paying for internet because I had to send some attachments and we can’t do that in the only lab they give us internet. It’s right by the hustle and bustle of the city though, and nice to get out of the Trinity College gates once in a while.
Today we will have finished our first day of class. I have class in a few minutes, followed by a quick lunch break for errands, and then UW-Madison and Michigan students have their film class for 3 hours in the afternoon. After the first two days of chaos, yesterday settled down a bit. I realized I even typed chaotic in my last post. Things settled for two reasons.
1. We have chosen our classes so aren’t attending all of them anymore. I am taking Drama, History, Film, and Visual Culture.
2. The main professor had a little chat with us about differences in American and Irish lectures. He pointed out that in America, we are expected to read ahead of time and know answers to things…in Ireland, they lecture by being less interactive and just lecturing, and the readings supplement but they don’t put a focus on having the readings done as you go. Needless to say, you can imagine how flustered they were as 30 students were freaking out about handouts and books! (and our history book will be in on Monday, to which the professor said “You only have to finish the 300 page history in 5 weeks…plenty of time”)
So, now that we have some free time in either mornings or afternoons, I think everyone is feeling better. We have to sign in for everything we do, however, and some people feel like they should go to classes they aren’t taking, because the people here have made numerous comments about getting graded based on overall attendance (taking every opportunity to learn from great people)….which is awesome, we all get that. But we also need time to explore the city and get errands done, and in my case, go to the gym…..taking all 7 classes with the night events planned that’s just not possible.
Speaking of night events, last night Fintan Vallely and friends came to play for us….they play traditional Irish music and dance. It was absolutely amazing! There was a Irish step dancer, a woman who sang solo with no instruments, 2 violinists, the irish pipes, and a clarinet type thing. They were all quite wonderful and everyone was impressed. Sadly, I didn’t get any pictures but I’m still humming some of the tunes. The thing I found most interesting was that they don’t use scores and read notes from pieces of paper. In Irish music, they learn a song and everyone plays the same notes….the song becomes melodious/unique based on the individual styles of the person playing. Interesting!
Oh, about the weather. The professors love us because they say we’ve brought nice weather…I don’t know what happened to this Ireland rain, I’m sure it will come back, but it’s been sunny, gorgeous, literally blue skies…and since the sun here doesn’t set until about 10:30 at night, the sun is still hot at 6. Which means yesterday I sat outside and read from 4-7 and I got a tan. woohoo!
Okay, time for class. A group of us is taking the train to Galway this weekend to see the Aran Islands, Cliffs of Mohr, and other things….my first time on a train! I’ll write more when we return on Sunday night!
No comments:
Post a Comment