First Couple Weeks

Hi everyone, Sorry that it has been so long since my last post, but it the last couple weeks have gone by really fast, and I've been busy with classes and stuff. Classes started on January 6th, and I have 6 of them, so they keep me busy with reading. I'm taking history classes on the "Spanish Armada," "Politics, Society, and the Irish Novel," and "Hitler, Nazism, and the Second World War," all of which are interesting. Then, I'm taking three English classes, "Shakespeare," "Contemporary Literature and Culture," and "Of Monsters and Men: Old and Early English Lit." The classes work a little differently in Ireland than in the States. I'm used to writing at least four papers during the semester, and then probably a final paper or something at the end, but here I'm only writing one paper for each of the history classes and then an exam at the end, and for the English classes I only have to take an exam at the end. I don't know if I like it or not, but it certainly means less pressure in the early part of the semester. Still, I'm trying to get work done on my essays early because RAG Week is the same week that my essays are due. I had never heard of RAG week before I got here, but evidently its a big deal. Basically, everybody just drinks the whole week and doesn't go to classes (an Irish holiday if ever there was one). Anyway, other than school I've just been trying to check out the city, both the sights and the pubs. The Holy Trinity Church is literally right outside of our apartment complex, and St. Finbarr's Cathedral is down the road about five minutes. Both of them are very impressive churches. I also visited the Red Abbey and the Elizabeth Fort. Cork itself is a nice city. It isn't overwhelmingly expensive like Dublin (although it is still almost twice as much as in the States), and we live close to the city center, so there is always something going on. Since my last post, I've also been on my homestay adventure. I stayed at an Irish home with one other guy from my program group. Well, it turns out that we had a widow with two grown sons, and her name was Maureen Barry. She was a funny elderly Irish lady, who talked all the time, often switching subjects too fast for us to follow. One of her sons was married and living elsewhere, but the other still lived at home, though we only saw him once the whole weekend. Maureen was great, though. It was a little weird with it just being the three of us, but she was very nice. She let us sleep in, fed us a lot of food, and even drove us down into town on our last night to go to the pub. The house itself was a smaller house a little bit out in the country. She lived on Raffeen Hill in a town called Carrigaline, which is only about ten minutes outside of Cork. During the day on Saturday she also took us out to Crosshaven to a lookout spot, where we could see the whole bay. It was a terrible day, though, so it wasn't impressive as it should be, she said. That was pretty much the extent of the homestay. It was fun and a good experience, but it wasn't my favorite part of the trip so far. As far as everyday stuff, Laura and I are doing pretty well with sharing food and dinner and stuff. We mostly survive on sandwiches and easy soups and stuff, but we've made some real dinners too. Laura usually does most of the cooking, and I'll help a little and do the dishes afterward (I told you it would happen Mom). We have five other roommates in the apartment, so it's little crowded and the fridge space is limited (I don't know why but the freezer on the fridge is the large part and the fridge the small part) but they are cool for the most part. The washer/dryer that we were all excited to have in our apartment turned out to be pretty ineffective. It takes several hours to do a small load of laundry and it doesn't even come out completely dry. So I'm wearing the same clothes more than usual out here. Other than that, we have just been visiting the pubs, gone to a couple clubs, and I've watched a lot of soccer and rugby, which is great. I'll upload some pictures at the bottom. Anyway, I love everyone and I hope you are all doing well. Talk to you soon. Love, Jamie For some reason, it won't let me upload pics right now, but I'll publish this post anyway and just try to put up pics later.