Hi everyone,
Just taking a break from cleaning my old house. We have a new house! I am almost completely moved in. By the end of today my share of the old house will be cleaned and all my stuff will be in my new house and pretty much unpacked! The new house is a four story town house/ apartment. It is in a complex located right near the docks. Very close to where I lived last time. Yesterday I saw two seals walking to class, they are often near the docks. One of them got so close I could see it's tummy. So cool!
There is also a resident kitty in the complex. It's name is Stig (for those of you who watch Top Gear). I think this is as close as I am going to get to having a pet cat for a while. It is so sweet and so tiny.
We also have a new housemate as of tomorrow. She seems really nice, so fingers crossed!
My room is HUGE! It feels like a hotel room at this point. I haven't lived in a room this big full time in years. It has a double bed and a single bed (great for when friends come to visit). It is en-suite and has a desk. Everything I wanted and more! New mattresses and more storage than I know what to do with. All for less than I am paying at my old place! I am over the moon this all worked out so well.
Pictures will come once I am all moved in and no longer have a giant pile of stuff in the middle of the floor.
More to update on, but I need to get back to cleaning! I should have cable and Internet in my new place tomorrow, so should be soon for a follow up post.
Hope everyone is doing well!
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
New House (fingers crossed)
Hello all,
So it's been a wonderful start of the week. Yesterday I had my second class of Polish lessons. They are free through the college and I finally am able to go because I don't have Monday night classes. It's a bit tricky...similar enough to Russian to be confusing. But, I am loving them. This is in part because of the language and in part because the teacher always brings load of amazing Polish snacks for us to eat. It is a really fun class, only like 7 of us in the course and she focuses a lot on Polish pop-culture. So it's a nice mix of learning a language and getting a taste of Polish culture. It is also helpful because it is an excellent opportunity to pick up some ideas and tips for when/if I do end up teaching English in Georgia next year.
I might/ probably have a new house. I just got off the phone with the woman who works for the agency that lets it out and she said she needs to pass it by the owner to make it official, but she doesn't anticipate any problems with that. It is cheaper than what we have now and my room is huge! Room for me to put in a thrift store desk :) Fingers crossed it goes through. I have been sooo busy with viewings and making appointments, and trying to convince people that even though I am a student I will make a good tenant. I have gotten considerably better at talking people in to things...which is an extremely useful skill. We will have a fourth bedroom to fill, but one of my other housemates said he would spearhead the search. We will have a six month renewable lease which is perfect, they were originally asking for a one year lease, and possibly a parking space that we can rent out....(this is Shane's baby, but if it works that means about 80 euro a month we can put towards electricity). Our old contract was just that we had to give one months notice...so the race was on to find a new place before the end of the month.
Went to a candidate forum for the upcoming elections last night. That was interesting. I was none too impressed with the candidates and none too impressed with the audience. So much obnoxious heckling. Don't people understand that part of a democracy is allowing others to speak their piece even if you don't agree with them? Apparently not...blerg. And it appears Irish politicians are just as (un)skilled at question dodging as their American counterparts. At least I know that the American system might not be as awful as everyone here would like to believe :) Oh but there was something that was kind of cool, most of the candidates delivered their pleasantries in Irish and English.
Tonight there is a free comedy gig on at the college as part of the NUIG arts festival. Hoping it is good, but even if it's just ok...IT'S FREE. Gosh I am going to miss college!
Last week I went to see Paul Collier speak. He is a prof. at Oxford, works with the IMF, WB and UN as a consultant for economic development. I would highly recommend reading some of his stuff. Interesting and extremely intelligent guy.
Classes are going. My Human Rights and Development class is still a bit odd. And by a bit I mean super. No one but the professor seems to be getting anything out of the class. It is all Masters level Poli. Sci. Now I know a little bit of Poli. Sci., but I am by no means qualified to discuss let alone understand development theory at a masters level. I am not alone...last class one of my classmates turned to me and said "I can comfortably said I learned nothing today." Thank goodness I am writing my term paper for my economics class and not for this class!
I am loving Galway though and am up to my eyeballs in working on my papers. Both topic which I actually really enjoy. So all in all this has been an excellent kick off to the new year. Oh and so far I have managed to keep my new years resolution to be more active and eat at least 4 of my 5 fruit and veggies a day. Sam and I bought a badminton set and a soccer ball. So we've been doing that when the weather is nice. It is still too cold for kayaking...
Hope everyone is doing well!
So it's been a wonderful start of the week. Yesterday I had my second class of Polish lessons. They are free through the college and I finally am able to go because I don't have Monday night classes. It's a bit tricky...similar enough to Russian to be confusing. But, I am loving them. This is in part because of the language and in part because the teacher always brings load of amazing Polish snacks for us to eat. It is a really fun class, only like 7 of us in the course and she focuses a lot on Polish pop-culture. So it's a nice mix of learning a language and getting a taste of Polish culture. It is also helpful because it is an excellent opportunity to pick up some ideas and tips for when/if I do end up teaching English in Georgia next year.
I might/ probably have a new house. I just got off the phone with the woman who works for the agency that lets it out and she said she needs to pass it by the owner to make it official, but she doesn't anticipate any problems with that. It is cheaper than what we have now and my room is huge! Room for me to put in a thrift store desk :) Fingers crossed it goes through. I have been sooo busy with viewings and making appointments, and trying to convince people that even though I am a student I will make a good tenant. I have gotten considerably better at talking people in to things...which is an extremely useful skill. We will have a fourth bedroom to fill, but one of my other housemates said he would spearhead the search. We will have a six month renewable lease which is perfect, they were originally asking for a one year lease, and possibly a parking space that we can rent out....(this is Shane's baby, but if it works that means about 80 euro a month we can put towards electricity). Our old contract was just that we had to give one months notice...so the race was on to find a new place before the end of the month.
Went to a candidate forum for the upcoming elections last night. That was interesting. I was none too impressed with the candidates and none too impressed with the audience. So much obnoxious heckling. Don't people understand that part of a democracy is allowing others to speak their piece even if you don't agree with them? Apparently not...blerg. And it appears Irish politicians are just as (un)skilled at question dodging as their American counterparts. At least I know that the American system might not be as awful as everyone here would like to believe :) Oh but there was something that was kind of cool, most of the candidates delivered their pleasantries in Irish and English.
Tonight there is a free comedy gig on at the college as part of the NUIG arts festival. Hoping it is good, but even if it's just ok...IT'S FREE. Gosh I am going to miss college!
Last week I went to see Paul Collier speak. He is a prof. at Oxford, works with the IMF, WB and UN as a consultant for economic development. I would highly recommend reading some of his stuff. Interesting and extremely intelligent guy.
Classes are going. My Human Rights and Development class is still a bit odd. And by a bit I mean super. No one but the professor seems to be getting anything out of the class. It is all Masters level Poli. Sci. Now I know a little bit of Poli. Sci., but I am by no means qualified to discuss let alone understand development theory at a masters level. I am not alone...last class one of my classmates turned to me and said "I can comfortably said I learned nothing today." Thank goodness I am writing my term paper for my economics class and not for this class!
I am loving Galway though and am up to my eyeballs in working on my papers. Both topic which I actually really enjoy. So all in all this has been an excellent kick off to the new year. Oh and so far I have managed to keep my new years resolution to be more active and eat at least 4 of my 5 fruit and veggies a day. Sam and I bought a badminton set and a soccer ball. So we've been doing that when the weather is nice. It is still too cold for kayaking...
Hope everyone is doing well!
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