Happy Halloween!

The first half of my day was all good!
- Woke up to write through my essays for my test again to find that I remembered EVERYTHING.
- Went to sociology lecture which was really short so that we could have more time to study.
- Went to rescheduled politics seminar. She made two session options for today because the first one that worked for a lot of people was during my sociology test so she made another one for the hour after. I was the only one that went to that one so we just kind of talked about random stuff for a couple minutes and that was it.
- Went for a meeting with my sociology prof to find out that he decided since I'm having to take my final in December before I leave and that puts me at a disadvantage from the rest of the students who have all Christmas break to prepare I will get to see my test questions 2 weeks before my exam to start preparing! All the other students, the questions aren't seen until the day of their exam. Yes...milking the "but I'm an international student" as much as I possibly can!

***This is what I had written earlier today. Went on the Derry trip with the internationals tonight for halloween celebration. Details and pictures tomorrow...we left Derry at 1:30am and it's a tour hour bus drive home I'm done for the night. :P

Study Study STUDY...and no pumpkin carving...

I was amazed at myself this morning when I woke up at 11:30 today...finally a weekend morning I'm up before noon! Then...I realized that October 30th is Northern Ireland's daylight savings so it was technically already 12:30. Oh well! I made up for it with all my brilliant studying today!!! Ally and I were in the library from 1:30 til almost 5! I got sooo much done! My essays are all ready for me to throw them on paper at my test tomorrow I feel so prepared and that feels really good. Both essays take me a little over 15 minutes each to write out and I've written them so many times I could literally recite them practically word for word for you (I did with my one on Max Weber on skype today...poor mommy haha)!

Tonight my flatmates and I were supposed to carve pumpkins. Neither of them had time to go to Tesco today and buy the pumpkins so I went on my own when I was done at the library. Ten pounds worth a taxi ride to find out that Tesco is all out of pumpkins...ugh. So no pumpkin carving for me this halloween. That's fine, I still have my tiny pumpkin Robert sent me that I drew a face on with pen. :)

I have been craving sweets all day so I was going to buy a slice of cake while I was at Tesco but I was good and didn't. I did buy a pack of diet coke and some more grapes so that the trip wasn't a total waste but I really did not NEED that cake. :P I still have some candy left between what Robert and my parents sent to me so I can use those as my sweets fix...still not as good as cake... (Obviously I'm am a wee bit regretting the absence of cake in my flat).

Oh! I know I had mentioned that I have been searching food blogs (best invention EVER) but I haven't mentioned a recipe I found that I will be trying very soon!!!! I don't know how I've never thought of it before but...CAKE BATTER pancakes!!!! You take out part of the actual pancake powder from the recipe and replace it with cake mix! I'm beyond excited! I think I'll wait until I'm back in the states though because the syrup here is funky and I'd like good syrup. I also found TONS of other great looking recipes both desserts and dinners so I'm really excited to start trying them when I get home. :)

Alright...morning = 9:15-10 sociology lecture, 10-11:15 study more for sociology exam, 11:15-12 sociology seminar where I take the exam (AND ACE IT), 12:15-1 rescheduled politics seminar instead of Tuesday. Let's kick some Monday Exam butt!!!

Halloween Weekend Night #1

I did a bit of studying today but the bulk of my studying is getting done tomorrow when Ally and I go to the library. So...I mainly just wasted away my day doing nothing productive. I did shower and do my hair and make up and get dressed up for my first halloween weekend night out. Tonight was the Belfast Ghost Tour and I was soooo scared! Thankfully I was more scared than it actually was scary haha.

Ally and I got into Belfast perfect timing to wait a few minutes for the Ghost Tour Bus to get there and we hopped on. It was a double decker bus and we sat up top next to these two girls dressed as cheerleaders who were very friendly. The bus part was not scary at all...it was mainly there just to get us to and from the graveyard they took us to. There was a woman on the bus though who told ghost stories the whole ride but she was a bit hard to understand, not even really her accent but the speaker she was using. When we got to the graveyard I started to get nervous haha. They picked the best place...it was such a creepy looking graveyard! AND it was dark out!

It was a bit scary at times with the people they had going around trying to scare you but we were in a large group and I stuck towards the middle so they didn't really get to me much. The "ghosts" that took us around the graveyard told interesting stories and they were all brilliantly smart and witty so it was a good time! I didn't have a need for being as nervous as I was other than for the relief I felt when it wasn't as bad as I'd imagined. On the bus ride back to where they picked us up we were on a dark road that didn't have any street lights and the bus stopped working. When they were trying to get the bus to start up again it was so funny because we all sat there like...is this part of the tour?...is something else going to happen? But no, the bus just had a minor problem and it got back up working no problem.

The two girls we met on the tour invited us to go to a pub with them and so we did.

Although when we got there we realized they weren't much fun to hang out with so we moved on and found these two other girls, Amy and Nicole, who took us over to a club and they were very nice. We hung out with them for a while, took some pictures (with them and with some other people that we met at the club with fun costumes), exchanged names for Facebook adds and left.

It was late and Ally and I were cold and ready to head home. We decided to walk to an easy place to call a taxi to say where we were at and on our way we found a cute little pizza place called "Little Italy" (crazy that it was still open..hardly any food can you find that late any night of the week) so we stopped in to get some pizza before calling up a taxi. The whole time we were walking around our shadows kept us entertained because they were just so cute!

Now I'm back home and in my pajamas and pretty close to trying to sleep. I'm not tired which is bad. It's already almost 1:30am and I HAVE to go to the library to study tomorrow! It's my last day before my sociology test. Ally and I are going to go to the library from probably about 2-5pm. I might go in a little earlier (it doesn't open til 1) but Ally's not going til 2 so I might just wait for her. I think Jessi is planning on going to our study session too. Tomorrow night I'm carving pumpkins with Jessi and Rachel and her mom because tomorrow is when she gets here! Her mom will be here from the 30th until the 5th. I'm very happy for her...I can't WAIT until my parents get here!!! :) 49 MORE DAYS!!!!! Miss you mommy and daddy!!!!!

Ready for Halloween (minus the ghost tour)...

Not a lot happened today but I seemed to keep myself busy most of the time so that was nice. When I have time to just sit and do nothing it gives my mind time to think about how much I really do miss home and everyone back home (even though I do love it here). But there wasn't much just sitting around yesterday so that was nice. I woke up late because it's weekend for me (no classes on Friday's...yay three day weekends) and when I finally did wake up I watched the movie that I have had loaded on my computer for the past two nights as a fall asleep movie, The Hunchback of Notre Dam. I go to bed so late that when I finally do I'm really tired and am out in about two seconds flat. The Hunchback was very cute, hadn't seen that one in a VERY long time. I have kinda given up (I know...already) on watching the classics list in order. I'm still watching those movies, just not in order of when they came out.

After I finished watching the movie I went Grocery shopping with Ally. We also went to the Abbey Centre and I was able to pick up my halo from Pound Town. Now I am all ready for both nights I am dressing up! PS...I'm not really dressing up. Just going to wear normal clothes and one night my ears and one night my halo. I know it's boring but it makes sense. I'm only here for two more months (TODAY IT WAS EXACTLY 2 MONTHS LEFT) and so at the end of that I'm either going to have to be able to fit everything I've got into stuffed suitcases to get them home, or throw them away/give them away. My things that I've bought here like towels and bedding were necessary buys but I will definitely just be giving them away when I leave because I have no need for them back home. I don't want to spend money on costumes that I won't want to bring back home with me and waste my money so I'm just not dressing up.

When we got back from shopping Ally went to study a bit with Jessi because they have a class together and I WAS going to study but it didn't happen. I've discovered recipe blogs and there are tons of them with great recipes and even better pictures! I should have discovered these AFTER classes are done... After quite a while of looking at these online Ally knocked on my door and asked if I wanted to make dinner with her and Jessi so then we did that. Made chicken and some noodles (tried to get as close to alfredo as we could...wasn't really that close other than the fact that it was white sauce, but it tasted like ham) and some steamed vegetables.

After dinner Ally and I went down to her floor and watched Bee Movie because I bought it at Tesco cause it was really cheap and it's a VERY cute movie and Ally hadn't ever seen it. When we got finished watching the movie I came back up to my room and studying for a very short amount of time, talked to Robert on skype for a bit and then went to bed. I didn't feel too bad stopping studying because Ally and I made plans to go to the library for a couple hours on Sunday to just pound it out. That's all I will really need, it isn't going to be a hard test I just need to memorize some stuff.

Tomorrow night is the Ghost Bus Tour...we'll see if I live through it to give you guys another post...

Loser of a blog :P

Today's blog will be short and boring...and I don't even have the excuse of being sick like my other short boring blogs (not that I'm at all complaining about that). I stayed up last night skyping Robert really late here so I slept in majorly. Woke up and ate some scrambled eggs and grapes and headed off to my only class of the day. When that was over I came back to my room and that was really all I did. I've sat around looking at things online the rest of the time. I really miss being able to cook and be creative in the kitchen. It's just so expensive to do here because I'm starting with an absolutely empty kitchen so to make anything you have to buy EVERYTHING. Like the apple pies I made...it was expensive cause I had to get all the ingredients plus the things like pie pans, measuring things and a rolling pin. So I spent my afternoon reading different cooking blogs and looking at recipes and photos and such. I am excited though because I found a fun and cute cook book called "100 Recipes Every Woman Should Know" and I actually ordered it off Amazon because I found it for not too bad a price. So now I have a package to look forward to!

Just finished eating a PB&J...Robert just signed on skype so I'm going to talk to him...Hunchback of Notre Dame is loaded on YouTube and ready for me to then fall asleep to. :) Oh! Five weeks of class done and seven left! SEVEN WEEKS TIL I GRADUATE (given I pass this stupid UK politics that threatens to be the death of me). Night!

More sun!

Today was sunny out! I sort of wasted it though....I did have my curtains pulled open so I could enjoy it from inside! I had my sociology lecture this morning and I actually enjoyed it. I think I'm starting to like sociology a lot more. The first couple weeks were looking at the key theorists of sociology like Marx and Weber, and the sociological perspectives and things like The Enlightenment and The Industrial Revolution...it mainly felt like a history class and I am NOT a fan of history. :P Now that we've gotten the introductions of sociology out of the way we're learning about things like culture, family, crime, education and religion and it's getting to be a lot more interesting. Which is good because I tend to do a lot better in classes that I actually like!

After class today I came back to my room and decided I really needed to do a little grocery shopping. All I had left for food was one egg, butter, one apple, a 1/2 box of cereal and syrup. I called a cab and went to the Abbey Centre Tesco and got some different things. One of the great things about living here is that the fruit is incredibly fresh. I got more apples, grapes and strawberries and they all look and taste SO good! There is a chance the strawberries...well and the ice cream I got...are already gone. I said I had been craving ice cream! I also got some milk, bread, chicken, ground beef, noodles, spaghetti sauce and some bottled water. When I was headed out of Tesco I saw that they have pumpkins that are two for three pounds so now my flat mates and I know where to go to get our pumpkins to carve! I would have just got them then but I don't know how I would have managed four pumpkins, grocery bags and a thing of bottled water all on my own! I came back to my room and ate some strawberries and ice cream. Pretty sure that ended up being my dinner cause I don't think I'll get hungry again before I go to bed. I strongly suggest ice cream and strawberries as a dinner as it is quite lovely. :)

I spent some time tonight in the kitchen with Jessi and Rachel talking about our travel plans and it looks like Jessi might be going with me to Galway! Rachel was planning on it too until she found out that she would need to miss a class which she can't miss that day. We told her we would take lots of pictures for her! She's actually already gone to Galway with her program since we've been over here...but they didn't take her to see the Cliffs of Moher which I think is terrible. They are so close to each other and also so far away from Belfast that I would have thought it would be the main reason for them to go to Galway! Then Ally came up because her and Jessi are in a class together that they are helping each other out on some paper so we talked for a bit but now Rachel and I are leaving them alone to actually get some work done!

Some people have been posting a list called "You know you're not in America when..." and I thought I would share it with you!
You know you're not in America when...
- The back of your box of sugar has suggestions on how to use it.
- Your phone didn't charge because you forgot to switch the outlet on.
- You have to be 21 to purchase a pair of scissors or knives (even butter knives), and you get carded.
- Everyone wants to know if you have a gun back home.
- No one drinks coffee.
- You have to use coins to pay for things.
- You are sure you are about to die every time you see a car coming down the other side of the road.
- You can't understand any unit of measurement even though something tells you that it makes more sense...
- Your food goes bad hella quickly.
- People look at you funny when you use the word "hella."
- You don't go to school you go to college, it's not class it's lecture and it's not lab it's seminar.
- Girls willingly wear four inch heels to everything. Even college.
- Bouncers at bars laugh when they see you're wearing jeans on a night out, then see your ID and understand why.
- No one knows what a grilled cheese or PB&J is.
- People are very put off by anything being pumpkin flavored.
- You don't get directions in street names, you get them in landmarks.
- You have to go to eight different stores just to make dinner.
- It's not a store, it's a shop.
- Favorite, color and honor are spelled favourite colour and honour.
- Organization is spelled organisation.
- Z is not a Z it is a Zed.
- Mac n Cheese is a canned food.

Pretty fun list...and all very true! One more class and then it's Halloween Weekend!!! :)

Bad Test/Good Weather

Not sure where exactly I went wrong but my test today did not go as I would have hoped... I went through all the slides for lecture a couple of times, I read the chapters of the main book that go along with the things we have covered thus far and I also skimmed a couple of the other books that were on an extended reading list we were given. The professor had said the questions would be straight forward and they weren't...most of them were really quite difficult. Wouldn't have been so much of a problem but it was a timed test with only 30 minutes for 40 questions...I didn't even make it through every question! :( My score sucks...I'm not going to announce it on here but I'm really going to need to get my points for this class somewhere else because this test did NOT help my grade.

I'm used to doing really well in my classes so this really put a downer on my day. I came home and got in bed and stared at my computer while first Pinocchio played and then Fantasia played (three on the classics list down, next up is Dumbo then Bambi, I'm excited...haven't seen those in forever!)...also took a bit of a nap because I had a terrible headache. When I woke up from my nap I figured I'd done enough moping and decided to not waste the beautiful day it was. Today was our first bit of sunshine that we've had for awhile! I have realized that, although I have posted many pictures, I haven't actually posted any for you all to see where I am living.

I had mentioned in a much earlier blog how they have very cute houses here so I also took some pictures to show you those.

I took a walk down to the park across the street from campus and took some lovely pictures! It was a bit chilly but the fresh air made me feel a bit better and the walk helped me clear my head. The views of my town are breathtaking and I've realized again just how incredibly lucky I am to be having this experience. It is one I will never take for granted and never EVER forget. Other than classes I feel completely free here.

I wasn't out too awfully long because it was later in the day that I went out and the sun started going down on me. It is already cold in the day...night is obviously colder but I stayed late enough to get a picture of the sunset. Had to...not sure how many clear days we'll have the farther into fall and winter it gets. On my walk back I saw a very cute group of dogs! I'm not a dog person by any stretch...but how can you not think five little chihuahuas together is cute!

Now that I'm back in my room I reheated myself with a cup of tea (of course) and did some revising on the list of things that my parents and I are going to do while they are here. I edited our itinerary to spend less time in Dublin (not that much I want to take them to do there anyway) and added in an extra day up by Liverpool...well a little ways from Liverpool but up higher north before heading down to London. I want to go over to Leeds and Bradford. My mom is very into Castles and I know there is a good castle in Leeds and then I really want to go to Bradford. I watched a television series of restaurants in the UK and one of the restaurants was Prashad, a vegetarian Indian restaurant in Bradford. I know...sounds like a strange place to want to go but the restaurant was the one in the show that really intrigued me and if I'm already over here then why not!?

It's getting late. Robert gets off work in half an hour and I feel like skyping tonight so I'm just hanging out waiting. Listening to some Norah Jones and eating a snack (apple slices with peanut butter...amazing). Two more days and two more classes and then it's Halloween weekend! My plans so far are Saturday night - ghost bus tour with Ally, Sunday night - pumpkin carving with Jessi and Rachel and Monday night - Derry trip for Halloween celebrations. Day time will be study time as I have my first Sociology exam on Monday. This one will be better because it is an essay style exam and we know the questions that will be asked so I can prepare completely. I've been craving ice cream since ten...I know the exact time because I looked at the clock and realized the student village store had JUST closed...of course. My apple and peanut butter will suffice for tonight.

Nasty outside...good thing I've got lots of MAIL!!! :)

The weather is not very happy lately. I know it rains over here and the random showers we've gotten each day are fine...but lately...goodness! It hasn't really let up! Just rainy and windy and very loud on my window (especially when I'm trying to sleep at night)! I walked to class today with my hood pulled practically completely over my face because with the combination of wind and rain you aren't safe with just protection from up top. The rain goes sideways most of the time (hence it attacking my window...and my face). Class SUCKED today. I don't really mind my sociology class most of the time but today we had a new guest speaker who was a girl and she was very monotone and completely just read what was written on her PowerPoint. I really considered not going to class this morning (because of the weather...well and because I was tired) and now I really wish I hadn't gone! I got nothing out of it that I couldn't just get from printing off the slides. Oh well...I would have had go onto campus a couple hours later for the seminar anyways. Between class and seminar I chose to stay on campus and just go to a library computer to waste the hour. Usually I come back to my room but with the sucky weather I chose to stay dry for an extra hour.

When I came back from class I stopped off at the place where we pick up our mail and to my surprise I had FOUR LETTERS AND A PACKAGE!!!! I love being this far from home in the fact that people find it necessary to shower me in mail. :) If anyone feels like sending me love I always appreciate it! My mailing address is at the top of my blog off to the right above the picture of Robert and me. :) But anyways...three of the letters were from Kay and had tons more fun pictures in them! I tried to be creative on my wall with them this time haha.

My walls are looking so much better than when I first got here! Such a depressing thing to have four very sad white walls hahaha. Now my walls are getting filled with letters and pictures from my favorite people! :) The other letter than I got in the mail was from Felicia and then my package was from my mommy and daddy! :) It was a very fun care package!

- I'm already wearing a pair of the socks...very nice. :)
- Candy is ALWAYS appreciated...the skittles were already open and half gone though...someone got hungry on the way to the post office!
- Kleenex are always good...especially these travel ones that you can put in your coat pocket. When the air is cold outside I tend to get the sniffles haha.
- The band aids are post its as are the items above the band aids...love post its!
- iTunes...yay!
- Vitamin D. Found out that my parents only meant to send me one bottle and that the other bottle was supposed to stay for them but they each packed one and then searched the car for the other hahahahaha.
- Strange big cow paperclip...can only be the workings of my mother. :P
- The gold purse thing unzips to be a reusable grocery bag!!!
- A folder...which is funny that it says Jam and not Jelly. My friends and I were discussing different foods during seminar (we may have been supposed to be talking about Durkheim...nonetheless we discussed our "red cup party" and the differences in the foods in Northern Ireland and America) I mentioned peanut butter and jelly they all went "EEWWW." Found out that here they only call jelly "jam" and "jelly" is what they call jello. Peanut butter and jello I would go ew too.
- Red cups for my Irish friends "red cup party"that they are so excited for...I think it's rather funny!

Anyways, yes as I just mentioned our red cup party we have decided to do it on Thanksgiving and also have a Thanksgiving (which they have never done) because that is apparently Thursday's are their day they have no class. I'm supposed to come up with a menu of things for us to make and I came up with a list of the main things that I usually have at Thanksgiving:
- Turkey (except we all discussed the fact that we like ham more...so we will be having Ham)
- Stuffing
- Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
- Green Bean Casserole
- Deviled Eggs
- Rolls
- Pumpkin bars (I like making those more than pumpkin pie and Aisling said she has tried pumpkin pie before and did not like it. They are very put off by the idea of pumpkin...it isn't something eaten over here. I told them they will probably like my pumpkin bars. They're also going to make some different Irish desserts too.)
- Maybe the pink salad I make every year for Thanksgiving..but we'll see. Our list is already quite long.

I was originally planning on going to Dublin for the weekend of Thanksgiving but I think I'm not going to do that anymore (the train website must have known I was going to change my mind...really glad you couldn't purchase tickets so far in advance). My main reason for wanting to go was to get to see my Dublin friends but I'm going to be seeing them the two weekends before Thanksgiving weekend anyway. Plus...how often do you get to show your friends from a different country how to celebrate a holiday from your own? Also...it would be nice to just have a weekend where I don't go anywhere. All but one of my weekends coming up will be away from here and it would be nice to have a little break. I know I'm only here for so long and that I should get done all the traveling I can but that weekend was going to Dublin and I will have already visited and seen Dublin two times before that. It will save the money it would cost to get there and be there too...more money for other traveling weekends!

Jessi and Rachel and I got together tonight and talked about Scotland. Sounds like we are going to go Dec. 9-12, which is a Friday to a Monday so I will just have to miss Monday's class which is no big deal. I don't plan on missing any other days and I will let my professor know I'll be gone...but one day is really not a problem. We want to fly Belfast to Edinburgh and then halfwayish through the weekend take a train to Glasgow and end up flying back to Belfast from Glasgow! I'm really excited and think it should be a lot of fun! :)

Tomorrow is my online exam for politics and I have not been able to force myself to study any more today...oops. I'm really not so worried about it though. My professor and seminar leader both said that it should not be hard and is more to award points to the students who have attended lectures and seminars. I also can study a little in the morning if I feel like I need to...it's only a half hour test and will be open to us from 9-3:30 so I have all morning to study and then take it if I want.

Back when I said I was going to watch Snow White the other night...it didn't happen I just fell asleep. So, today I watched it and of course it was so cute (I've seen it before...but forever ago). Next on the list is Pinocchio. I've got it all downloaded onto YouTube so I'll be watching it sometime in the near future. :)

Stuuuuuudy.... :P

I did what I said I was going to do today and studied a TON! I went through all of my lecture notes and retyped them all up so that I really paid attention (I seem to pay attention better if I actually write or type out what I'm reading...not sure why) and did that for a very good portion of my morning. I definitely tried really hard to procrastinate at the same time though...when I don't want to study I always have to come up with other things to do that are actually still productive so that I don't feel TOO bad about the whole not studying thing. I straightened up my room, took a shower, took out my garbage...that type of stuff. Ok...maybe some of the things I did weren't quite that productive...

It's just a pumpkin without a face! Now it's a jack o'lantern! Even if it's just drawn on with a black pen... I was planning to head to the library right around when it opened today (Sunday's it is open from 1-5) but right around 1 o'clock it was terrible weather! I felt like the rain pelting against my window was going to break it! However, since I've been here for over a month now I am very aware that the weather can change quite often throughout the span of a day. I chose to continue studying and head to the library a bit later.

I think I ended up at the library about 3:30 or 4 and it was really nice that I waited because it was still yucky out but it didn't rain on me at all! Got some books that are on the recommended list for my politics class thinking that they might pay off on a question I'm hooked up on during the test. From the selection I'm now sporting I had better do well on this multiple choice exam...

I also took advantage of the fact that I was in the library to print off all my confirmations for my weekend trips that I've been saving in a file in my email. They were starting to add up. I printed my flight confirmations for Amsterdam and Paris, my tour confirmations for the Ghost Tour, Amsterdam and Galway and my train confirmations for going to and from Dublin for my Galway trip. I tried to go online to buy train tickets to and from Dublin for Thanksgiving but apparently you can't buy tickets that far in advance. I have to wait a week or two to get those. It doesn't really matter to me, I feel better when I can know that my trips are set. Jessi, Rachel and I were going to get together tonight to talk about Scotland but it's 10:30pm so I think that's going to probably happen another day. I'm excited though cause it seems like we should be able to work it out and go! If we can't...I'm still going to go because I'm not missing out on Scotland when I'm this close! I would just have to go on my own...which wouldn't be too bad so I really hope that the three of us can get the dates to where they work for all of us. It would be a lot of fun if we could all go together. :)

I did get distracted with the internet and skyping my mom for a bit when I got back from the library...but I did eventually get back to studying and studied for a couple more hours. I did realize when I was in the library that, while I was thinking that my test is tomorrow, it's actually on Tuesday so I have a lot of time tomorrow that I can study more too! Oh goody...haha. It's been REALLY cold in my room lately. My heater sucks and doesn't help at all. I've been layering my clothes like crazy and bundling up under my covers and that helps for the most part but my feet just don't ever seem to warm up. Maybe I will need to purchase one of those heaty pillows that you stick in the microwave... Tomorrow is Sociology bright and early. :P

Souvenir Ideas :)

Today was a sleep in day and then the rest of the day was spent with Ally in Belfast again. We decided to be lazy and not deal with the train and just call a cab (a ton more convenient but a bit more expensive...that's why we usually take the train). Our plan was to go to Belfast today so that we could see a movie, get Ally's hair cut and buy me a halo...we only watched the movie. BUT...the movie was sooooo cute! Really good movie to go see if you just want a cheesy cute little teen film. However, teen audience members come with teen movies and I guess I had forgotten this. That was by far the loudest theatre I've ever been in. Little people are annoying...but I got over it. Oh also, please don't go to the movies if you have a cough that makes you sound like your hacking up a lung through the who film...thanks. Even with all the noise it was a very cute movie and I'm glad that we went. We didn't get Ally's hair cut because we went to the place and asked about prices and it was too ridiculous that she's just going to wait until she gets back to the states. It was only 13 pounds for a half inch straight trim...but if your hair already has layers your out of luck on that deal. If your hair has any type of layers the price shoots up to 30 pounds! That's like 45ish dollars for a trim! No thanks... Then, we didn't go buy my halo because it was raining really hard and I had a headache and just felt like getting home so we called a cab.

One of the really good things about the movie was that one of the girls in the movie had a charm bracelet and it gave me the great idea of doing that for my souvenir!! I still want to get a claddagh ring when I go to Galway (as my main souvenir from Ireland) but buying charms from the places I go will give me and easy thing to get in like Paris and Amsterdam and London! I already have a charm bracelet back home so I won't need to buy a chain, just the charms! Ally and I were thinking about the different things you could get as charms to represent the different places like an eiffel tower for paris, that sort of thing, and we were having a hard time coming up with one for Amsterdam. Neither of us really fancy the idea of a pot leaf on our charm bracelets (oh yeah...Ally wants to do a bracelet too!)...but I came up with the idea of getting a mushroom! They're cute and not always thought of in the illegal drug sense haha.

When I got back to my room I still had a headache so I just wanted to lay down and watch a movie. My tube plus that I had been watching doesn't seem to be working right lately so I've just been watching movies on YouTube (they will have movies in 10-15 min segments and you just have to load the whole movie on different pages) and this afternoon I decided The Lion King was a cute movie that had been too long since I've seen (it definitely made me cry). I've really been in an animated/disney movie mood lately...they're just so darn cute! The description under the movie was saying how The Lion King is the 32 movie in the list of Walt Disney Classics so then I wanted to know what the whole list entails. I looked it up online and I found a list that shows all the classics in order of when they were made and there are about 40 up until it starts listing the stuff like Lilo and Stitch that I don't really consider to be classics anymore. I think I'm gonna try to watch the list in order....I probably won't get through the whole list before I'm done here but I get tired of trying to think of movies to watch and this way I won't have to hahaha!

Tomorrow is my study study study marathon. That's what I plan on doing from when I wake up to when I go to sleep (with little breaks here and there...you have to understand that for a college student, even more a senior college student *cough*senioritis*cough,* a full day of studying doesn't completely mean a full day of studying). I want to go through all of the lecture slides that we've done thus far in the semester, look through each chapter in the book that I have for the class and also I'm gonna go to the library and get a couple more books that are on the recommended reading list (the one I have is the required) and look through them a little. The test on Monday we do from home...it's a multiple choice test that we take online and it's 40 questions in half an hour. I want to have as much reading material to look through as I can have just in case. Oh...one thing I learned last week in my seminar for this class (my politics class) is that multiple choice exams are very uncommon here! When our teacher was talking to us about them and explaining stuff she asked us how many had taken a multiple choice test before and me and two other students raised their hands! Essays are mostly how the assessments go over here. I just found that surprising from how common they are back home.

I'm going to probably watch one more movie before I go to sleep and what better one to watch than Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (the first movie on the classics list)! Ni-night!

GOT AN ACTUAL CARE PACKAGE!

Woke up this morning to a WONDERFUL surprise! Colleen had messaged me on Facebook saying that when she was down where you get your mail she saw I had a package (second time in a row I've been told...strange) so I changed out of my pjs and headed down all excited because I knew I had only ordered one textbook so this was an actual package! I figured it was going to be from my mom because I know she was planning on sending me red cups soon for our "red cup party" but when I got down and they gave me to package I was surprised and excited to see that it was from Robert! :) The United States Postal Service Customs Declaration on top ruined the surprise a little bit because it says "Candy Candle Pumpkin and DVD right on it haha...but I didn't know WHAT KIND of candy or candle or DVD it would be so it was still exciting! He sent me a pumpkin spice scented candle (THE BEST) candy corn salt water taffy, a pumpkin pez dispenser, halloween pop rocks, a tiny pumpkin, It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown DVD and a note. :) He's the best! Even though I just told you everything that was in it....here's a picture!

Ally and I went and spent the day in Belfast again. She had a list of things that she wanted to buy like face wash and soap so we decided to make a day out of it. We went to Victoria Square and Castle Court which are shopping centers and looked around a lot and tried different things on. One of the places we tried things on had a very fun mirror with a cute quote so I had to take a picture.

It says:
WELCOME TO THE BIG MIRROR
The try it on code:
          Take lots of items into the changing rooms or else
          Try a style you wouldn't be seen in
          Try a colour you'd never wear
          No hiding, come out and face the big mirror
          If the person next to you looks good, tell her.
I realized I wasn't going to be able to take a picture without being in it so I made Ally come stand with me to take the picture! As you can see in this picture I look like I'm actually tall. It's so strange of a concept for me here but I seem to be taller than most of the people I'm around. Very different for me haha. Anyways...so my plan for today was to buy nothing but my train tickets to and from Belfast but that didn't end up working because I found a very cute sweater in one of the stores we went to.

I have always been drawn to similar shades of this color and apparently that's never going to go away haha. But I really liked it and it wasn't that bad when it comes to price so I got it. I also bought food because we stayed in Belfast long enough to need a meal. We went to this Noodle Bar and it was very good and very inexpensive! We decided it was a fast food restaurant for asian food...I guess you could say that it is similar to Panda in the states.

When we were in Victoria Square we went to see what movies were playing at the Odeon and one called Monte Carlo (we saw a preview for it when we went to see Footloose...looks like a cute teen movie that is very unrealistic but cute nonetheless!) is playing but we had missed the times for the day so we now have plans for tomorrow! I really like going to see movies and that is like the one thing here that seems to be cheaper than back in the states so yay! Ally wanted to get her hair trimmed today but by the time we got to the hair cutting place it was closed for the day. So tomorrow our plan is going to Belfast to see a movie and get Ally's hair cut. I'm also going to buy a halo to wear for halloween because we are dressing up for two nights and Ally got devil horns so we decided I need a halo and I saw one at Pound Town (like the dollar store back home) so it's perfect! On halloween I will be a bunny but Ally and I are also dressing up Saturday night. When we were walking around Belfast today we were handed a flyer for the Belfast Ghost Bus Tour and we decided we would go on it and bought tickets today. I'M SO SCARED!!! I don't do scary things well...but apparently I'm going to go on this ghost bus tour which also takes us to the Haunted Graveyard...AT NIGHT! Aaahhhh...I don't know what made me decide to say yes haha.

That was my day....now I'm back in my room doing nothing and writing this blog. Probably going to eat some of the candy I got in my care package. :) No studying happened today...oops...but it will happen at some point this weekend. I'm a really good procrastinator but I do get things done when it's important like studying for an exam.

4 weeks of class down = 1/3 done = 8 WEEKS UNTIL I GRADUATE!!!

Had my Leadership in Management class for the second time today and it's going to be a complete piece of cake! I only have the class every other week for two hours on Thursday. It's supposed to be on weeks 1,3,5,7,9 and 11...this is week 4 but the prof moved week 3's class to this week because she had a conflict. But as I said...EASY! Our whole grade comes from two assignments that are easy in themselves. 70% of the grade is taking an organization (spelled organisation in Northern Ireland...they really don't use Z's) we've worked for and explaining in a 1,500 word paper their culture, communication styles, structure and leadership of the management. Then, 30% of the grade is a 500 word paper keeping a journal of what we feel were the most important things we've learned in the class and how we can use them in the future. That's it! Love having an easy class like that. :)

After class I came back to my room and did a lot of nothing. I did purchase my ticket to go to Galway and the Cliffs of Moher!!! Sooo excited for that! I talked to my Dubliners and Catherine is going to be in Paris that weekend but Jess will be home and she said that I can definitely stay with her Thursday and Saturday night and she is really considering going with me...I'm sooo excited!! All I have left to book is Scotland and then I've got all my travel plans made! It's really exciting to plan trips and talk about them..but it's sooo much more fun when you actually book the things and KNOW that you get to go! I definitely took some time to think about just how incredibly blessed I am. In 3 and a half months I get to go to Killary Adventure Co., Dublin 3 times, The Giant Causeway 2 times, Bushmills, Derry, Galway, the Cliffs of Moher, The Burren, Connemara, Cong, Paris, London, Liverpool, Bath, Stonehenge, Amsterdam, Scotland and probably more...all while living in the suburbs of BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND! Crazy! I guess I should take a second to say...love you mommy and daddy...you are amazing parents! :)

My afternoon was very uneventful, but later I got a message from Ally asking if I wanted to go to dinner with her and a few of the girls in Carrickfergus. I said of course and so Ally, Rebecca (Texas), Meghan (N. Carolina), Colleen (Illinois), Nikki (New York) and Jennie (Colorado) went to Papa Brown's for dinner in Carrickfergus. It was very good food, reasonable prices and great service! We will definitely be going back there more! Like I just said...two of the girls are from Texas and N. Carolina and one of my flat mates is also from N. Carolina (they are actually from the same school...didn't know each other before this trip)...I'm not going to end up coming back with an Irish accent I'm going to end up saying things like y'all! It's already slipped out of my mouth a couple times...

At dinner we discussed girls fashion choices here. Not so much their clothes because all their clothes are usually quite adorable but their make up is NOT. The girls here tend to really cake on their make up it's crazy! You also see lots of fake eyelashes that don't really look so good. The make up is intense but even worse is the fake tans! They don't fake and bake like girls do in the states but they use the self tanner lotion here and it's terrible. Their knuckles and knees and elbows and ankles are sooo orange and gross...not sure how they think it looks good but a lot of girls do it!

We were standing outside the restaurant after we finished waiting for our taxis to get there and one of the waitresses came out for a smoke break and so we asked her to take a group photo for us. She was very happy to and stood there and talked to us for a while. She was really friendly and gave us the names of some good clubs to go to in Belfast. I love how nice the Irish are!

Now I'm back in my room after dinner pretty much just in for the night. Thinking about getting up to get myself some socks because my feet are like icicles. It's getting a little colder here and it isn't that noticeable just being outside but the part that is noticeable is how much colder our rooms are getting. I haven't had to turn on my heater just yet...but I'm thinking it will definitely be happening in the next couple weeks. It is going to be a quiet weekend because most of the international students are heading to Edinburgh, Scotland for a couple days. I would have gone but I opted out because I have my first test on Monday and I wouldn't have gotten back in time. Plus I plan on going to Scotland in December so I won't miss anything I can't still go see. Ally isn't going to Scotland either so I will still have her to hang out with and I will need to definitely do some studying too. All of the Irish students go home on weekends. Weird...but they do so there is going to be very few people actually on campus this weekend.

A PACKAGE!!! ...a textbook... :P

Wednesday is my easy day of class. I only have one lecture and it's sociology (which I like much more than politics) and no seminars (which means I'm not held accountable for anything...like readings so I can answer questions...just have to listen). Today's lecture was actually really interesting. We had a guest speaker and she talked about culture. I thought it was interesting because one, it gave us a break from trying to figure out what the heck sociology is and two, it gave me a chance to learn a little more about the culture of Ireland and some interesting facts.

She brought up some different sayings that people not from the North would have no clue what was being said to them. If someone says to you "you've got a face like a lurgan spade" they mean most simply that you look down or sad. Also, if someone says to you "bout ye?" they are asking "how are you?" I've heard the bout ye before since I've been here and knew that one but had never heard the lurgan spade one. Apparently the Irish believe that American's are bad at forming queues? She was explaining about how the people of Northern Ireland seem to be known for queueing well and mentioned that American's are very bad at it and very impatient. I hadn't noticed this...I think we tend to be good at standing in lines when need be? One other thing that she brought up that I found interesting is that high fives are an American thing. Someone came up to try to give her a high five once and she had no idea what they were doing. Irish students are picking it up because they watch American movies!

I stayed up pretty late last night skyping with Robert so after class I came back and took a wee nap. ;) When I woke up and looked at my Facebook I had a message from Aline (another international student from France) saying that she saw in the mail that I had received a parcel!!!! My first package!!!! It was super exciting until I got down there and these is what it was...

Which is really nice and all to have gotten it this early as I have my first assessment next Monday...but it made having a parcel a little less exciting. :P  However, I did get two letters in the mail from Kay so that was nice too. :) I bought potato chips today that are "flame grilled steak" and they actually taste like it and it's kinda freaking me out...

Later this evening I got a text message from one of my flatmates saying that she'd made a "cleaning kitchen rotation" thing and that it's posted on the fridge. I went and looked at it and just sort of laughed. One part is for washing dishes and I thought...you have got to be kidding me. Yes, it will be nice to have the garbage actually get taken out and I am completely willing to take turns doing that, but I'm not going to wash the other girls dishes. I have not left a single dish in the sink, I was them right after I use them. She did say on the chart that it wasn't doing everyone's dishes that it was just for things like "lingering silverware" but no...I'm sorry...if everyone would just wash their own dishes after they use them there wouldn't be any "lingering silverware." That is my opinion on this topic tee hee.

This is what our kitchen looked like TWO DAYS after I took the garbage out and none of those dirty dishes are mine. So like I said it will be nice to have the garbage taken care of since we all use it..but it looks like there is more than a "lingering silerware" problem here. I'll continue to wash my own dishes and hopefully this chart will help. But if not...I have less than two more months that I have to live here (under two months by one day...but still under!).

I've learned that it's really difficult sometimes to know how to pronouce someone's name by how they spell it. There are quite a few irish names that are spelled using gaelic and it's practically impossible to guess the pronunciation! Here are a few examples:
          Caoimhe = Keeva
          Aisling = Ashlynn
          Saoirse = Seersha
          Sinead = Shinade
          Maire = Moyra
I really like the last three but that's crazy that they get those pronunciations out of those spellings! And teachers back in the states have had troubles pronouncing MY name haha. Oh! also...a "frock" is a dress and flapjacks are NOT pancakes!!! They're like...a type of granola bar thing?

I've been doing some research on how I'm going to manage going to Galway and to the Cliffs of Moher and in my research I found the PERFECT tour package!!! I can:
- Take the train to Dublin on a Thursday night.
- Spend the night with my Dublin buddies.
- Get on the tour bus Friday morning and head to the West Coast.
- See The Cliffs of Moher Friday
- Stay in a Hostel that is paid for through the package Friday night.
- See Galway Saturday.
- Get on the tour bus Saturday night and go back to Dublin.
- Stay with my friends Saturday night.
- Head back to Belfast sometime on Sunday!
Maybe my Dublin buddies even want to go to Galway/Moher with me!!!! Even if not I'm TOTALLY GOING!!!! I even know what weekend because all my weekends are officially full...crazy! (Other than this weekend...which I'm going to get ready for this first exam and try to do really well.) These are my weekends....
     Oct 28-30: Halloween weekend with trip to Derry.
     Nov 3-6: Amsterdam with Ally.
     Nov 11-13: Galway/Cliffs of Moher.
     Nov 18-20: IFSA Belfast Weekend and Giant Causeway.
     Nov 24-27: Dublin for Thanksgiving.
     Dec 1-4: Paris with Ally.
     Dec 9-11: Scotland with (I think) Rachel and Jessi.
     Dec 16-18: Packing and PARENTS!!

Alright...today's blog is filled with lots of random things...I only have one more class tomorrow and then it's WEEKEND! I don't have anything exciting planned though...I have my first politics exam on Monday so I think I need to do some revising (that's the word they use here instead of studying).

Everybody cut FOOTLOOSE!

Today was my day full of politics... I learned some new things that are pretty exciting that I will talk about next but I also wanted to mention a couple things I've noticed first. One, there isn't such thing as being on time here. I'm so used to my classes back home starting when they're supposed to and here it's completely different. Class is supposed to begin at 1:15 and sometimes the prof doesn't even get there til 1:25 let alone starts teaching. Usually starts lecturing anywheres between 1:25 and 1:35. I sit there continuously looking at the time on my phone and notice I'm the only one who cares...just not something I'm used to. I've also decided that my politics teacher must be taking a class on how to use PowerPoint haha. Each week his slides improve. First week of class it was just black text on a white background. Couple lectures in he started having fun colored backgrounds and the like and this week he even had pictures! I'm guessing next lecture he's going to start adding animation to the slides! Tee hee...

Anyways...good news made today much better than yesterday! I have now found that it should be quite easy for me to not fail my politics class. There was confusion between what I was thinking my professor had sent me as an old multiple choice exam for this class and what she was actually sending me. Since I have actually caught up on my reading for this class and have attended all the lectures (which these are the two places she said that the questions would come from) I was fairly confident in asking how I was supposed to know those facts. Apparently...what she sent was... First, not the information that would be on this test. Second, not even a sample from this class. Third, a sample from a class test from 5 years ago (which would explain why when I tried to look up some of them I was having troubles...especially with questions on current political figures). HOW WAS THIS "SAMPLE TEST" SUPPOSED TO HELP ME?! Her reason for sending it she said was to just show the types of questions that could be asked...show that the questions would be straight forward and come from the book or the lecture slides. I think if she just would have told me that in the first place and not sent me that strange test it would have been a lot better. Here I was thinking they expected me to know the stuff on that multiple choice test when it isn't even one for this class. HA! 

Also, the 30% of our grade that I had mentioned comes from weekly newspaper clippings we must bring with us to lecture...they're going to be easier than I'd thought! We have to bring a newspaper clipping of an article we find that relates to the previous lecture with us to each seminar. At the end of the semester we hand in all of those clippings we've collected (ten in total) with descriptions we've written for each on how they relate and why we chose them. I had assumed these would be graded on by our descriptions we write but that isn't the case. For each week of seminar you either get 0 points or 3 points...0 if you don't show or don't bring a clipping and 3 if you are there with a clipping. So pretty much if I go to seminar every week (10 weeks) and bring my clipping I will earn my 30%! Looks like I can start breathing again and expect to graduate in December. :) Good thing...I kept thinking of how embarassing it would be to come back to the states and have to explain to people who thought I was graduating that I couldn't because I failed a class!

After classes today I went for a night out with Ally, Jing and Fatim. Had some nachos for dinner and then went to the movies! The Odeon has 3 pound movies every Tuesday night so we went and saw the new Footloose! It was soooo good. The only thing you have to get past is the fact that they are supposed to be high schoolers and all the actors are easily mid to late twenties. I already really like the first Footloose and this remake was definitely NOT a disappointment! Makes me wish I was a better dancer hahaha. Oh...one of the strange things about the movie theatre here...when you buy a ticket to a movie you are purchasing and actual seat. My seat was row H seat 13. I asked a couple in front of us if they were sitting in the seats designated to them and they said yes but that if not many people show up you can sit wherever you like. Only the four of us and two other couples were there so it's safe to say we could have sat anywhere we liked...but our seats turned out to be perfect so we stayed. 

Since we went to the last showing of the movie we got back home late so I'm not even going to have to try to keep myself awake so I can skype Robert...he only has 10 minutes left at work so that's what the rest of my night looks like. Skyping and sleeping. Finished with two days of classes and have two more ahead of me. Let's get through this week and on to the weekend! :)

When it Rains it Pours..

Sucky start to my morning when I realized that one of my credit cards is not in my wallet... I have no idea what I would have done with it! I always stick it right back in my wallet after I use it. Last time I used it was two weeks ago to buy my university sweatshirt and I checked online and that's the last purchase that has been made so that's good and I can just cancel it and get a new card sent to me but I'm a little mad at myself because I don't know where I would have put it. I tore my room apart searching for it and it was no where. Overturned everything on my desk and went through all my books and papers, went through every item of clothing I have here looking through pockets a such, looked through my garbage and checked the bag I took with me to killary two weekends ago and didn't find it... I've talked to my mom and she cancelled my card and ordered me a new one (Thanks Mommy!).

After searching through everything I went to class. I had sociology lecture and seminar which went fine. I still don't know that I understand what sociology even is...but neither does anyone else in the class so I don't feel too bad. After class I headed back to my room and it was POURING outside!!!!!! Got back from class, stepped into my building and slipped because my shoes were wet and fell completely flat on my back...knocked the wind out of me... I also landed with my book bag under me which has left this nice bruise on my lower back. My whole body is sore and unhappy with my clumsiness...my morning was not the best.

This picture serves two purposes apparently. Shows my ouchie but it also shows the shirt that I got from IFSA on our Killary Adventure weekend...and it's my favorite color! :)

The rest of my day has been pretty uneventful...which with the events I had earlier in the day I'm thankful. It has been raining suuuper hard and I've sat here watching people run around trying to get places super fast before they melt. A small river of water has formed going down the parking lot and it's actually quite large. Since I have my politics class tomorrow I was finally able to force myself to read a bit more...I'm going to wake up semi early tomorrow so that I can read a little bit more before I have class (semi early is waking up sooner than 30 min before I have to leave at 1 to go to class...tee hee).

I wrote a possible outline for the days that my parents will be here...I sent it to my mom but she hasn't replied yet so I don't know if she would want to change anything but this is what it looks like thus far:
- 18th (they fly into Belfast @ 10:30am) Check into Belfast hotel, head to Carrickfergus Castle, check out Newtownabbey and Jordanstown campus and move me out.
- 19th Day trip up North to the Giant Causeway and Bushmills Distillery and back to Belfast
- 20th Belfast Black Taxi Tour (dad will want to do this), be in between Belfast and Dublin at dusk to see Newgrange, Dublin for the night
- 21st Dublin Guinness Storehouse, Jameson Whiskey Distillery, Harley Davidson Store (I know someone who is probably expecting an Irish Harley T-shirt) and whatever else we find to do.
-22nd Ferry from Dublin (actually a little south of Dublin from Dun Laughaire) to Holyhead then to Liverpool for the night.
- 23rd Liverpool first part of the day and head to London that afternoon/evening.
- 24th London
- 25th London
- 26th Train in the morning to Bath (only takes 1.5 hrs), check out Bath for the day and stay the night.
- 27th Do a Coach Trip from Bath to Stonehenge (easiest way to do stonehenge w/out a car) when back in Bath take the Train back to London for one last night.
- 28th In London ready to head home...my flight leaves Heathrow at 10:50am.

Looks super exciting so far!

1st Month Down!!!!!

Today marks me being here in Ireland for an entire month!!!!! That means I'm down to 2 and a half months and I've got almost every weekend I have left booked with fun things to do!!!

It was the last day of my weekend so I decided to make it a lazy day. :P I slept in which was really nice and then when I did wake up I had a major craving for some french toast! It was one of those cravings that was a need and not a want and so I found myself at the grocery store buying eggs, milk and bread and heading back to my place! Weird thing about over here...the eggs are in cartons in ten instead of cartons of twelve! Strange! Also...they are really fresh...so fresh that there is still dirt and gross stuff on the egg shells. Kinda gross... Once I got back I wanted to start making french toast but I had to do dishes first. I haven't been in the kitchen at all for the past couple days I just live with girls who still think their mommies are around to clean up after them. A little annoying to always have to wash a dish I didn't dirty before I can eat anything...but whatever...only 2 more months left in this living situation. After doing dishes I made my french toast and ate it! Back when I bought pre packaged pancakes (ahh alliteration)  I had thought that they tasted good but had some strange taste to them I wasn't used to. I have now realized that that strange taste is coming from the syrup...just a little different but it was still good french toast!

I was FINALLY able to make myself read a chapter of my politics book!! Boring... :P I'm a little worried after reading a chapter and skimming through the book though. We really are just supposed to know the questions that are in the multiple choice tests... Oh I'm not sure that I've explained that part of my class yet. My politics class is split up by a different couple things for our grade:

30% = the weekly newspaper clippings we have to bring with us to seminar that we find
30% = two multiple choice tests each worth 15% of our grade
40% = a final exam that is pretty much an essay

In our seminar the professor had mentioned to us that the multiple choice tests are nothing to worry about and that they are just meant to help our grades because the questions would be easy. She brought us copies of a previous multiple choice test and everyone else seemed relieved and I'm just horrified...I'll show you some of the questions:

- What has been regarded as one of the most fundamental challenges to the traditional constitution of the UK?
- When did the present British Monarch accede to the throne?
- Who succeeded Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister?
- How many seats are there in the House of Commons?
- What is regarded as the most powerful Whitehall department?

I DIDN'T KNOW A SINGLE ANSWER!!! So I read a chapter of my textbook and it doesn't go over these types of things. It's just a politics textbook so it goes over what politics is, what democracy is...things like that. I don't understand at all how I'm going to be able to pass these multiple choice tests. We'll see...

After I read some I skyped Kay and Felicia for a bit and Felicia came up with the BRILLIANT idea of looking to buy a UK politics for dummies book and I found one!!! I can buy "British Politics for Dummies" for 8 pounds on amazon...definitely considering it. Also Felicia asked me to post the names of some songs that I've heard over hear onto this so here are some that I have heard:

Two Door Cinema Club - I really like their song Undercover Martyn...but I bought their whole CD and like a lot of the songs.
Ed Sheeran - The A Team
The Script (yes you've heard of them...but I hadn't heard this song before) - Science and Faith
The Fratellis - Chelsea Dagger
Bruno Mars - Marry You
Steve Earle - Galway Girl

That's a really small list but I really haven't heard a lot of songs over here that aren't also played in the US...sorry.

Now I'm in the middle of trying to plan out exactly where I need to take my parents when they come to visit so that we can figure out how many nights we need to stay in what hotels so we can get all that stuff booked. When I figure it all out I'll post it so you can see! It's getting late here and I have class in the morning so goodnight!

Shopping Spree! :)

First half of my day consisted of trying to force myself to read for class and being unsuccessful. The shirt that I put on this morning...it was my first time wearing it since I got here and when I put it on I found two little Tessa hairs on it! Made me smile. :) Since I didn't read I spent some time watching a movie until Ally and I started talking on Facebook to plan what we wanted to do for the day. She doesn't have a phone here with her so our way of talking when we aren't together is pretty much Facebook...which actually works quite well!


Ally is my savior here...she is my biggest reason that this place is feeling more like a home. I've found your home can be anywhere, the only thing you need is people you love to make it a good home and I'm definitely feeling like I'm in a good place right now. We can talk about practically anything and everything and probably have and if for nothing else I'm glad to have come here to be able to meet her.


We decided to go to City Side Mall because it is a mall that we pass when we take the train into Belfast and finally decided to check it out. We were glad we did...but our bank accounts are not! Haha...we did some good shopping! :) I bought pretty much an entire outfit...a pretty dress, some very fun colored tights (the dress is super short so I figured colored tights would help look like pants...kind of?), and a pair of short black suede boots!

Ok...yes my tights are the same color as my door...strange. But other than this outfit I also got a pair of little gray tennis shoes because I needed another pair of just plain little shoes to walk around in and my fun purchase was my leather bomber jacket! 

Ally got the same one but in chocolate brown and they are very fun! After we went shopping we went to lunch at a little restaurant where we got panini's and chips and it was very tasty! :)


OH!!! Yes the leather jacket was my fun purchase...but my OTHER even BETTER purchase was these!!!!!

Now I won't have to miss a year of being a bunny! Phew! This will be year #7 of being a bunny and the perfect thing about this year is that no one here has ever seen me as a bunny before!! A bunny IS the best halloween costume in my opinion. :)


We didn't end up going on the walking tours from the cards that Arlene gave me because it was a really yucky and rainy day...we'll save those for when it's a little nicer. One of the nice things about being in Ireland for an extended amount of time is that you can plan your outings by the weather. If it were a short vacation you would want to get things in rain or shine...but we have time so hopefully there will be a day soon that is nicer out so we can go on those walking tours cause I'm really excited to do that!


When we got home from shopping I tried on all my stuff (that's when I took that picture) and took a shower and got into some comfy sweats. Good news of the day...ROBERT FINALLY GOT INTERNET AT HIS PLACE! So we're skyping because we can. :) No more plans for the night other than possibly trying again to make myself read for class...we'll see how well that goes. :P

Dinner Date...and possibly drinks ;)

First part of the day was lame. One of my flatmates asked if I wanted to go along to The Giant Causeway today but left while I was still getting ready so that didn't happen. That's alright though...I get to go there with the IFSA group and it's already paid for so that will be nice. It's about a 45 min drive just to get there so it will be nice to not have to pay for transportation when I do go. Tonight was a lot of fun though! But...before we get to tonight! Ally and I found these things that make you have perfect buns! :) I tried mine for the first time today!

Ally and I decided that we needed to go on a dinner date so we hopped on the train to Belfast! Ally had been watching a show that had hamburgers in it so she decided we needed burgers! We knew of a TGI Friday's in Victoria's Square so we thought that would be a safe bet for a good burger. It was very good...and we ate waaay too much food! Burgers and possibly dessert too... :) After dinner we decided that our night couldn't possibly be finished so we headed out in search of a pub. We weren't quite sure of where to go so we asked a couple that was walking in front of us where we should go and they were headed home but took us along with them to point us in the direction of a pub called The Duke of York. It was a very fun pub with really good energy! We had some drinks and talked with some scottish men. One of the guys we talked to continuously discussed my hair color and the fact that I shouldn't go to Scotland because they don't like them...but then kept saying they all have red hair...? He was really drunk so he didn't make that much sense. The other guy was even more drunk and kept insisting Ally and I were both from Michigan. Not sure where that came from haha. But after we finished talking to them we finally found a place to sit (it was VERY crowded) and just had a nice talk and some drinks. :)

When we were finished at the pub we headed off to find a taxi. We ended up running into the same Scotts we had been talking to in the pub and they tried to get us to go back to their hotel with them (don't freak out...they were nice and not pushy...more joking really) but we got a taxi and came back to our building. We have made plans to go back to Belfast tomorrow to do some shopping which will be fun! :) Also I think I'll bring some of the cards Arlene bought me that show walking tours you can do of Belfast so that we can possibly use some of them! If we do one of the card walking tours I will post what the card says and pictures of what it says to look at! :)

Almost missed a day...

It's 2:30am and I was asleep and almost missed writing my blog today but I'm awake again. My flatmate and her friend that is here visiting just decided to get in a screaming fight with each other so I'm guessing everyone on our flat is definitely awake....and judging by the amount of door slamming everyone in our building may be awake too.

Today was my LAST day of resting. I feel pretty darn good! Did a lot of sleeping and a lot of movie watching and ordered some pizza. The pizza was yucky...tasted like tomato paste on floury cardboard. Talked to my aunt on Facebook today and told her to have good pizza for dinner for me and she said she would...so you're welcome for dinner Elyse and Claire! Alright...yelling is back on...this really needs to stop or at least leave because it's 2:37am and people are trying to sleep. I believe I've heard more "F Bombs" than I have in my entire life and really it isn't an exaggeration...

Tomorrow I will have a less boring post because it won't just include me talking about my bed.

No Need To Read.

I'm only posting because I haven't missed a day yet and don't plan to. Still feeling crummy... I've been resting all day (except for the hour that I went to sociology lecture) and now it is officially my weekend. I'm supposed to have my every other Thursday class this week but the prof pushed it to next week. My plan is to rest tomorrow so that when it is other people's weekend too I will be all better and ready to have some fun!

Sickness #2...

I've done nothing but feel like crap, lay in bed and go to political science all day today. I don't have a thermometer but I assume I have a fever. I've had the chills and sweats all day and feel yucky. I had to go to poli sci cause it's my one class I can see giving me troubles and I can't afford to miss. At first I had thought it would be no problem seeing as it is an INTRODUCTION to government and politics...but then if you think about it...back home in the states an introduction class like that would have previous things they would expect you to know because we've learned about American history throughout our years of schooling. Well...same here except I know barely anything about the UK...

Anyway...that's my whole post for today. Time to sleep some more.

IRISH FRIENDS!

I've stayed up til almost 4 in the morning and woken up easier than I did this morning after a weekend away at Killary. My body is so tired and sore no part of me wanted to move haha. Nonetheless, I was up and ready in time to go to my 9:15 Sociology lecture this morning. I was brave this morning and went and sat next to one of the girls I was grouped with last week for seminar and talked to her for a bit before class started. She is very nice but it was really just a short conversation and then we ended up having a guest lecturer who you had no option but to pay attention to. He talked to us about suicide practically the entire time so it was a bit of a downer lecture. His way of lecturing makes your hand cramp. He doesn't use the board or any type of visual, he just talks. However, he talks slow and pauses for good amounts of times very often to give you time to write what he's just said. But he literally has it down to a science. You have enough time in his pauses to write what he's just finished saying and you honestly write constantly the entire lecture!!!

After lecture I had an hour's time before my sociology seminar so I figured that was enough time to attempt to tackle the library. I went to the information desk and the lady there was incredibly nice and helped me a ton. She even helped me find the books hidden away behind the sea of computers! I was able to find one of my sociology books and checked it out, made a few notes on the Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution and Urbanization (these are the things we were going to discuss in the seminar) and had just enough time to head to the seminar. Once we got there we did the same thing as last week. The prof split us up into groups of four and asked us to discuss what we had read about. My group talked about the different topics for about 5 minutes and then I was bombarded with questions about America. One of the girls was sooo funny...she said that if she could choose she would be American because it is so glamorous and they have so much fun! It was me and four other girls and they all wanted to know everything about what they called "red cup parties." They've seen in movies (and the one girl watches Greek...I think she knew more about our greek system than I did and they don't even have that here haha) where all the college parties everyone uses the party cups and they have always wanted to go to a "red cup party." So two of them gave me their names and said to add them on Facebook and I'm going to help them throw a "red cup party" and they said they'll have to take me out and make me do shots with them. Their names are Brea and Aisling (pronounced Ashlyn) and at one point Aisling was talking about something and one girl turned to me and said, "Do you know what she is saying?" I said yes because I actually did and she said, "I don't know what she's saying half the time!" I explained that you get used to following a conversation even though you miss a word here and there haha. Aisling has a very thick accent and the two are good friends so they talk very fast to one another. BUT....you know what this means? I'VE FINALLY MADE SOME IRISH FRIENDS! It's taken me almost a month...but looks like I'm getting there. :)

After class I headed back to my room and on the way I stopped to check the mail and had two pieces of good news! One of the letters was from Ulster Bank letting me know that my wire from the states had gone through (yay money) and I also got another letter in the mail from Kay with MORE PICTURES! :) There is a possibility that I also went into the convenient store and bought caramel squares too. I was getting ready to snuggle down and watch a movie when I got a message from Ally on Facebook asking if I wanted to go with her to Tesco. I didn't have anything I needed but I didn't have anything better to do so I went along. I ended up buying a pair of wellies...which I had wished I had this morning, a sewing kit because I have a whole in a pair of leggings, and a newspaper so that I can do my political science assignment. Then, when we were headed out I mentioned that I really wanted to get a couple more towels because I only brought one here with me. We took a taxi back home to put our stuff away and decided to take a trip into Belfast so I could get towels and Ally could get a blanket she saw at Primark that she wanted. We road the train!!! It was my first time on the train and it wasn't that bad. On the way there it was very quick. It took a while coming back because we were coming back around the same time everyone was getting off work.

I came back to my room and am starting to really feel myself getting sick again...I thought it was just going to be another cold but I have been really light headed and getting the chills a lot. I took a shower and just sat on the floor under the spray to get warm and that seemed to help a bit. I've also been drinking a lot of tea (but that isn't straying too far from the norm). Jessi and Rachel just got back from Rome and Jessi's friend Mo from home also got here today and will be staying for the next 10 days. Jessi said she's a "redread" which is a red head with dreads lol. She's very nice and we just got done spending about an hour in our common room talking and eating dinner and drinking tea. We also had some type of cake for dessert that was really good! Now I'm back in my room getting ready to snuggle down and watch Hot To Train Your Dragon and HOPEFULLY fall asleep. It's only 9:30pm but I don't feel well and sleep usually helps. I don't have class Tuesday's until 1:15pm so that will be nice.

I forgot to mention yesterday in my blog about a fact I learned when we were drinking our guinness at the end of our hill walk. I don't know why exactly the conversation came up but if you ever come to Ireland do not order a Black and Tan at a pub. Our guide explained it a little...but I wouldn't repeat what he said without messing it up so I googled it and this is what I found out:

Black and Tans is the nickname given to the British paramilitary force, largely made up of English WWI veterans, formed to suppress the Irish Independence movement in 1920 and 1921. The Black and Tans employed brutal tactics in an attempt to suppress the Irish Republican Army's guerilla war, massacring civilians and burning Irish towns. They were called "Black and Tans" due to their khaki military trousers and darker police uniform shirts. As a result of their mistreatment of the Irish people, Black and Tan is pejorative term in Ireland and calling someone a Black and Tan is an insult. Ordering a Black and Tan in a pub in Ireland with an American accent might not be taken as insult, but would certainly be considered quite culturally ignorant. To bring it back home, ordering a Black and Tan in today's Ireland would be like ordering a Red Coat in early 19th century America. So order a Half and Half instead. Similar to a Black and Tan, it is half Guinness Stout and half Harp Lager, making it all Irish.

Nice little fact for you!! Cheerio!!