Moving back to MN

Hiya,
Just a quick post to say I got a job and am moving to MN! I will be working as a Family Literacy Member for Minnesota Reading Corps. I am so excited to be employed!

CELT

Hello all! As you may or may not know I spent the last month taking an intensive Teaching English as Foreign Language course. I will soon be a certified TEFL teach! I turned in the last of my work this afternoon. It was a 140 hour course over the span of a month. It was a ton of work, but I haven't had that much fun in school in ages. It was such a good group of people. I loved the teaching aspect of the course and I earned distinction in all my teaching practices. Long story short I am so happy I did it. I really feel like it gives me a worst case scenario fallback and a skill that hopefully I can put to good use regardless of what I end up doing.
I have a interview with Minnesota Reading Corps, which is a branch of Americorps, on June 7th. Fingers crossed. I made it through the initial interview round. I would love to be back in Minnesota for a bit. Georgia is off the list; the program has really changed since last year and I am no longer comfortable participating in it. Then the plan is back to grad school for a history PhD. I love human rights law, but is readily apparent that history is my passion. That and I really feel that one of the reasons human rights seems to be failing rather epically on some fronts is because history, economics, sociology and political science are not taken into account when analyzing a situation. That and conclusions based on bad history are going to be bad conclusions and there is a lot of poorly conducted history research out there. I would like to make some small contribution to curbing this trend.
Heading to Amsterdam to visit a friend of Sam's on the 1st. I can say that it is never a city I would have chosen to visit, but a free place to stay and I'll go almost anywhere. It does actually look like a beautiful city however and I am really hoping to see a flower market. I love all things botanical, can't get much better than Amsterdam for that kind of thing.
I am currently nurturing a few house plants. I have four lilies that Sam bought me. I am fairly sure they are going to bloom like crazy just as soon as I leave for vacation. Then I have some rocket, spearmint and cilantro which are happy as can be. My sage and basil are hesitant to spout, I keep hoping.

Happy summer! Hopefully the weather is better than the rain here!
Working on my thesis...it is crazy to think that I am only an 8th done. Seems like I've been at if for ages. But, it will get done and hopefully it will be something worth reading!

Organic Farming and calves

Two weeks ago we went out to Kinvara with Sam's mom and brother. It's just a bit outside of Galway. A beautiful little town, right on the water with a picturesque little harbor and an old castle. We walked around the town, played with a so little sheep dog for a while, and watched the tied come in. The we went on an organic farm walk. I had never seen anything like it before. Such a process. I had no idea how much works goes into running that sort of operation. He is constantly cycling crops through and has to have everything timed to the day, because of limited amount of space he has. He had a few huge green houses which he weeds by hand. This alone impressed me. Never mind the amount of work that goes into running and maintaining the whole process. Then on the drive back into town Sam's mom pulled over so I could pet some calves! They were sooo sweet. Then out to eat at Eddie Rocket's, which is the Irish version of the American restaurant Johnny Rockets. I always find eat there a little surreal. But, after a walk around an organic farm and petting some calves, nothing really satiate the appetite like some non-organic beef...(the irony was not wasted on me). Hope all is well with everyone!

AHH...Haven't updated in ages!

So, my mom pointed out today that I hadn't updated in ages. I was sure this wasn't possible, but unfortunately it is. Today was a great day. The weather here has been absolutely amazing. Sunny and warm! Sam and I started the morning going to a training session at the gym with Sam's mom. It was soooo much work. I really don't get much exercise other walking, so it was a bit of a surprise for me. But, good fun and a great way to kick off a Saturday morning. Then back to his mom's house for lunch and a bit of a hang out. Then on to the garden center. I bought pots, for planting herbs and Sam's mom bought me a mint plant. Then we got to feed the chickens which they have in a coop out back, which was really neat. There was a particular variety that had blue feet, something I had never seen before. It's a really strange set up, it isn't like a Lowe's type garden center. It started off as a families private house where they grew some extra plants to sell at the market in Galway on the weekends and from there it just kept growing. Now it is a huge complex, still family run, and it has chickens and rabbits and all sorts of plants and a tea room. The family still lives on the premise as well. It was doing great business when we were there. This weather must be so good for business.
Easter here was nice, but I did miss having Easter with the family. Sam's dad cooked some amazing lamb, which was such a nice treat. Opened my Easter basket from my parents on Skype, which was full of goodies from America!
I'll update soon and go through some of the backlog that I have built up of events that need to be covered. I am just to fried mentally and physically from papers and working out to do them any justice right now. Hope all is well with everyone!

First Visitor and Family

Hiya everyone,
I am moved in, settled and loving my new place. I had my first guest this last weekend! So happy I can put my spare bed to good use. Dora, a friend of Sam's that I met the first time I was here came to visit from Dresden. It was so nice to have a visitor! She is such a sweet interesting person and it was so good to see her. We went to Burren with Sam's mom for a hill walk, which turned into a bit more of a trek than I was expecting. Little pockets of sheer rock face, which were covered with a mixture of water and cow poop= extremely terrifying to climb up in wellies. I was convinced I was going to break a leg and mountain rescue was going to have to save me. But, it was totally worth it because we saw WILD HORSES! More like wild ponies really, but they were so cute and fuzzy and completely perplexed by us. They looked like tall Shetland ponies. And there was a white one, which Dora said looked like a unicorn :) We also did some shore walking and there were little tide pools all over the place with starfish and crabs and sea anemones. The weather could have been better for her visit, but at least it didn't rain.
Tonight I am going to see Women without Men at the college. This is a film I have been trying to see for ages and it just so happened they are showing it for International Women's Day here. I can't believe the chances of that. It is by an Iranian artist who lives and works in the United States. It is her first full length film so it will be interesting to see how her background in photography and short art films translates into a full length feature. Might be a bit weird for my taste, but should be good.
Just sent in my application for Teach and Learn with Georgia last night, so I need to start sending in my medical records and supporting documents and hopefully will hear back from them soon.
Then in big news...MY FAMILY IS COMING! They arrive in Dublin on Friday and I am so excited to see them. We are going to do a mini-tour of Ireland and we will be driving...watch out Ireland!
Hope everyone is doing well!

New House (for real this time)

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!

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!