It's all about the niños

I've just made it home, totally exhausted, after French Fair Day. Each year, BYU hosts what I have heard rumors to be some of the largest foreign language fairs in the country for school kids. Students of Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish gather in different parts of campus to present skits, songs, and poems, compete in trivia and spelling competitions, and to speak the languages they are learning with thousands of other students from across northern Utah.

My day started at about 5:30 this morning when I got up to hurry to school so I could leave sub plans for the students who wouldn't be attending (I don't take my French I classes--they just get to stew in anticipation for next year while the rest of us take off). After that, the day was a rush of meeting times, permission forms, roll calls, bus rides, passing out handouts, reminders about schedules, digging for the right CD, final rehearsals, calls to the bus driver, and kid-rangling.

This was not my first French Fair experience. This was my second year with students, and I had volunteered as a helper for three years as a BYU student (in addition to one year at the Spanish Fair)--long days of listening to poetry or passing out pastries or checking passports. Even without my own students there, the French Fair days were exhausting.

Talking to my school's Chinese teacher on the bus ride back from the fair, I realized I wasn't the only one who was glad all the rehearsals, memorizing, and transportation arrangements were done for another year. My colleague had her own students to manage while she was at the Chinese fair, but had also been saddled with setting up and running the karaoke booth for the whole fair. During the bus ride, we also chatted about the exchange she's arranged for six years now between her students and a students at a school in Taiwan, as well as the video contest her students enter annually.

As we talked, I thought about the extra time she spends on these projects. If she's like me, like other foreign language teachers I know, like the BYU professors who organize the language fairs, like the college students who make it run, there isn't really anyone thanking her for doing it or noticing that she does. She doesn't get paid more for doing it all. Maybe that makes it all the more amazing that it happens.

One of those organizing BYU professors--of Spanish--sent out emails to the grad students of the department explaining how their help was expected at the language fair. "If you start to feel unmotivated, lethargic or frustrated," he wrote, "just remember, it's all about the niños!" On the bus ride today, I had a moment of such amazement about how many people had taken that to heart during the day. What an amazing thing had come together because of that: hours of preparing students, of careful organization, of listening to and encouraging these learners, of set-up and take-down--all of it fueled by not much more than some good hearts. As I was walking out of work this evening, another colleague stopped me and told me how she had overheard some of my students talking to each other in the hall about how much they had loved the French Fair. That made me want to think it's worth it.

From Pounds to Euros

Yesterday we saw a bit of Belfast in Northern Ireland. I thought about my family at Carrickfergus Castle...

...learned a bit about Northern Ireland's complicated past...

...then left Great Britain and the Pound to re-enter the Euro Zone. We spent the night at Cabra Castle. It was beautiful, but not the most pleasant night. The walls were very thin, and we got to hear most of the next door couple's raging argument at four in the morning. 

This morning, after a final look around the castle, we were off to some of Ireland's ancient sites. The "passage tombs" of Knowth and Newgrange were built before Stonehenge and Egypt's pyramids.

Our guide at Knowth, our first stop, was quite enthusiastic and friendly.

You can't walk in this site, but you can peak down the passage.

We got to Newgrange, and after our guide there told off a kid for making too much noise while standing on the gravel, Natalie dubbed him the "Newgrange Nazi." It is a spectacular place to visit, though. We got to go inside with our guide--where he was in his element. Overall, visiting the sites was an amazing experience.

After that, we drove off to the Hill of Tara. It was here the ancient high kings of Ireland were crowned. It was another cold day, but the sun was shining. It was absolutely beautiful up on the hill, walking among all the mysterious mounds and circles formed in the earth.

Easter and the Outdoors

Happy Easter! A bit belated, I guess. Saturday night, when we were still at Ashford Castle, someone from the hotel knocked on our door and gave us a great big chocolate egg for the holiday. At another point, someone came around with a little notice about setting the clocks back an hour at midnight. Seems we got in on Daylight Savings.

Sunday morning, we checked out of Ashford Castle. We were both sorry to tell it goodbye. Someday, when I'm wonderfully wealthy, I'm going to spend a week there doing everything they have to offer.

After that, I insisted we attend Mass. I read all sorts of things about Ireland and set in Ireland before we came, and a recurring theme was definitely the influence of the Catholic Church. So we had to go to mass. It was a modern building (though it was on the same grounds as the ruins of a very old church), and it was packed for Easter Sunday. The priest's sermon focused on baptism--how it was a miracle that Christ rose again, and how we partake in that, and how that is because of the promises made vicariously for you at baptism (I think that's how he went). Then he walked up and down the aisles sprinkling the congregation with holy water to remind us of our baptisms.

We next jumped in our faithful little car again and headed to Lough Key Forest Park. We were all excited about doing this (as in, we had talked about it since before we left):



When we actually got there, though, we were told we'd need at least three people. I went up to a group of three girls and asked if we could join them. They said yes, but then went in without us. We didn't do it. It was all very tragic.

We spent the night in Donegal and saw the castle there first thing this morning (well, after a giant Irish breakfast at the bed and breakfast). It turned out to be one of my favorites so far.

I wouldn't mind a room like that in my house someday.

Then we drove to Northern Ireland. Ireland is, of course, its own country, while Northern Ireland is part of the UK. I made sure to have my passport accessible this morning as we were packing up, not sure what the boarder crossing would entail. We had quite a bit of driving today. At some point, some of the road markings started looking a little bit different, and then the GPS (in metric) started displaying odd, uneven numbers for the speed limit. And then I thought, "I think we're in the UK." And I was right.

No offense to the Irish, the British road markings are just a bit clearer. And no offense to the British, but things are expensive here.

Before stopping at a rope bridge that goes to an island and then arriving in Belfast for the night, we went to the Giant's Causeway. The story is, there were two rival giants, one in Ireland, one in Scotland. The Ireland giant, Finn MacCool, was full of bravado, and built this causeway across to Scotland daring the giant there to come fight him. The thing was, the Scottish giant was a lot bigger and meaner, and as soon as Finn saw this, he ran home and had his wife disguise him as a baby. The Scottish giant (who I guess is nameless) stormed over, saw the size of the baby, imagined the size of the father, and ran away back to Scotland, tearing up the causeway as he went.

The place has some really unique geology, formed by volcano lava cooling.