Haters gonna hate, potatoes gonna potate

It was our first full day in Ireland, which we spent driving from site to site in our little black rental car:

We started out in the morning by going to get some lunch supplies at the grocery store, where I found this:

I am butter.

Our first site in Ireland was the Rock of Cashel, an old fortified church on a big hill. A rocky hill. Hence the name.

After that, we drove on to Cahir Castle, which is actually pronounced "care." Here is a picture of a medieval toilet from said castle. I am not guessing. The placards actually said that.

We did some more lovely driving to get to this pile of rocks. It is actually an ancient tomb. The placard here had an odd anecdote about a woman who lived under the shelter of these rocks in the 1800's.

Then we drove on to Limerick, checked into our bed and breakfast (much nicer than the hostel from last night, which never did warm up), and headed off to a guidebook-endorsed pub for dinner.

Almost everywhere we have parked has felt slightly illegal--in a church yard last night, in front of someone's house for the Rock of Cashel, and this parking job. I am actually rather proud of myself for parking like a European.

Maybe you can't tell. I'm parked on the curb.




We got to the pub and kind of wandered and found the restaurant part. No one was really paying attention to us, so we finally kind of asked if we could just sit down. We were told yes. This strangeness continued. Someone came to take our order, and it came after awhile. After that, we watched as the two waiters bustled around all the other tables--asking how things were, asking if the people at them would like a drink or a dessert, getting and taking the check from one table, etc., etc. Through all of this, they never even looked at us, let alone come over to talk to us. We were a pretty solitary island in the middle of all the hustling and bustling. I finished and no one cleared my plate. Natalie finished. And we sat there. And sat. And sat. After a bit, I finally asked if we could have the checks.




As we were walking back to the possibly illegally parked car, Natalie and I talked about this. I thought maybe it was because we were Americans, but Natalie pointed out there were two other tables of Americans that got great service. We thought some more, not coming to any conclusions..."Unless," Natalie said, "they thought we were a couple."


Oh the discrimination.

Ireland: Day 1 (or is it 2?)

I'm in the sitting room of an old Irish house-turned-hostel. It's finally warm in here, with the little stove going. I think I have been cold since I landed in Europe earlier today. The movie I am Legend is going. I hate that movie. This is the only place where I can get wireless, though, and it is warm. So I'll write quickly and head off to bed.

My friend Natalie and I are in Cashel, Ireland, staying in site of The Rock of Cashel, which we were supposed to visit this afternoon. Our day started at about 9:00 Sunday morning when her parents drove the two of us to the airport.

We flew to Dulles, which went fine, but then found our flight to London was delayed about an hour. The flight was long, but good...then we got to London (where, I swear, our passports were checked at least five times). There we found out we could make our connecting flight to Shannon, Ireland, but our bags would not. So we got on the next flight there--six hours later. It made for a long travel day.

This is me after a two-hour flight, a layover, a 8-hour flight, and four hours of layover. I stole a blanket from the British Airways flight, and boy was I glad I did when I had something to wrap myself up in in the cold Ireland-bound section of Heathrow.

Once we finally got to Shannon and through another round with the passports, we got our rented car! This all made me feel very grown up, and then it made me sad to find out it wouldn't be the 200-ish Euros we thought we booked, but rather towards 700-ish Euros. Plus E100 deposit for the gas. Sad.

I kept trying to psych myself up for driving on the left--visualized it and such. Even so, we put our bags in the trunk and I opened up the driver's side door and my first thought (honestly) was, "Where's the steering wheel??"

Later today, I saw a really nice car take a fast corner and I said to Natalie, "Woah, that driver was like, 12!" And she looked at me and said, "He wasn't driving."

Anyway, we got here, and we're ready for adventures!

Random

I've been thinking about my blog lately, and how I should add something. I just have some random bits and pieces, but here they are.

• The Church is creating a Seoul South mission. I left Korea in March 2010 just as the Seoul West and Seoul missions were being combined (changing the number of LDS missions in Korea from four to three). They told us this was in part because there were fewer new missionaries (the "boomlette" was ending) and because the missionaries that were going out were going to more diverse areas of the world. Now, this article says, because the age has changed for missionaries to go out, there are more again. Why not re-open the Seoul West mission? Who knows. 

• I am going to Ireland for two weeks this spring. A friend and I had started talking about this more than a year ago. Last summer I was in Colombia, and for the next two summers I'll be doing grad school full time. Looking at the calendar, I realized the only time I had to go was Spring Break. So that's when we're going! I'm taking a week off work in addition to that, which I feel guilty about. But I'm definitely looking forward to the trip! 

• We have Netflix, and I end up watching a fair amount of TV while I grade, work out, and that kind of thing. Recently I got kind of obsessed with the show "LA Ink," about a tattoo shop in LA (until the later seasons when all the people on it are just nasty to each other). I was just struck by how so many of the people going in to get tattoos were getting one to mark or work through something hard in their lives. It's just been an observation lately--hard things happen to all of us. 

• I've been really tempted lately to get an iPhone, but always go back to deciding it's too expensive (please see the Ireland bullet point, above) and that I can live without one for at least a bit longer. Recently I took a class on African drumming through the University of Utah's Continuing Education program, and I think if I'm not going to buy an iPhone, I could probably buy an African drum.

The Year is Dying in the Night

I love New Year's. It's one of my favorite holidays--a time to look back on what you've done and to look ahead towards a fresh, clean start. Before officially looking ahead, though, I wanted to make a quick list of some of the things 2012 brought (in no particular order):

• Survived my first year teaching and started my second
• Traveled to Canada
• Traveled to Colombia
• Started grad school
• Presented at a professional conference
• Celebrated Hanukkah
• Learned some salsa dancing
• Learned some African drumming 
• Re-did my bedroom (I'll post about this sometime)
• Got an iPod touch
• Broke the screen on my iPod touch
• Got a new nephew 
• Picked up archery 
• Got bangs

Before and After (mostly after)

I got all my work done tonight, and I promised myself some gratification if I did. I never do things like that. I always just do the fun stuff until it's suddenly midnight and I haven't even started what I need to get done. But that's a whole 'nother thing to blog about.

What I have been wanting to post about is my classroom (which is at the junior high, where I am every-other day. It is so nice to have a classroom. At the high school, I run between two floors and three different rooms--one of which has only chairs, no desks--to teach...but, that's a whole 'nother thing to blog about).

Did you know new teachers in Utah only get about $150 of state funds to do things like buy supplies and decorate their rooms with each year? And after three years of experience (because you accumulate stuff) that number goes down. Anyway, last year I by the time I bought a set of white boards, those teacher-y bulletin board boarders I thought I was supposed to have, and a couple reams of colored copy paper, there was no money left. So I cut up a calendar I had, and that, pretty much, was my classroom decoration for the year. It looked like this:

This year, I decided to suck it up and sink some money into making my room look more like I wanted it to. I'm pleased with the results.

The beautiful plant and stand (the latter made by my grandpa) until recently lived at my grandparents'. My parents took care of it over the summer while I was gone. It's a family effort. Since classes started, one student has insisted that he's afraid it's going to eat him.

The "found French" bulletin board is for students to pin up things they find in French. (Things they find outside of the classroom, I have to keep reminding them, as happy as I am that they realize how all those handouts and worksheets I've been making them are, in fact, in French.) And those are brooms from the dollar store on top of the cabinet. For broom hockey (go Canada), not so much for Quidditch as some have suggested...though, you know, you never know what will happen.

Yes, these are all flags from French-speaking countries. If you don't know which country, I challenge you to figure it out! (Imagine I said that in my teacher voice.)

Times in different French-speaking cities. This took like a million years to set up. Maybe part of that was because I wanted to synchronize the second hands.

And the rug. A lot why this started was because I wanted a story-telling rug (which I found for 30 bucks at Ikea). I learned from my professor Cherice Montgomery that even high school students enjoy coming to sit on the floor while you read to them. Boy was she right.

If you would like to see my whole list of reasons to study another language, click here to find the Word file.

Revival!

Last night, my friend Natalie and I went to a free concert on Temple Square: a conjunto of local musicians who get together to jam with LDS hymns and gospel music and who call themselves "The Lower Lights." My mom sent me a CD of theirs while I was a missionary in Korea. I put it in the CD player and fell in love. It was the kind of music I had loved listening to before I had left...but hymns! I was sad when one of my companions decided it was best for me to put it away. I took it out after we got transfered, though, and future companions loved the music, too.

Anyway, I saw them live last night. It was in the Assembly Hall at Temple Square. It was the first concert I'd been to in awhile where people sit down. And I kind of struggled with that. Natalie and I ended up sitting in a window sill with our legs dangling (because it was a full house), and I danced in my seat while we listened. A little boy stared and pointed at us for the whole time. But I couldn't help myself.

The group just came out with their third CD--"A Hymn Revival, vol. 2." They have some tracks on their website they invite you to embed, but my favorite for the night wasn't on there: "A House of Gold." This video doesn't do it justice. I loved the big, pounding drums, which remind me of Elvis Perkin's music. I guess I'm a sucker for those drums, acoustic instruments, and a bit of twang.

Twenty-Four

This is my last night of being 24 years old. The other day, a song named "What's So Bad?" by a band called Motive came up in the shuffle on my iPod. I had forgotten about the song. The only reason I had bought it several months ago was because it is about being 24--and I'm 24. But that won't apply tomorrow.

This got me thinking, though, about songs that talk about age and about getting older. So I'm going to share a few, in chronological order (kind of).


Frank Sinatra--It Was a Very Good Year

I first heard this song on some TV show when I was probably about 8. I thought it was absolutely hauntingly beautiful.




Five For Fighting--100 Years

I was about 15 years old when this song (about being 15) came out. I remember watching Channel 1 at school every morning. There was an anti-drinking ad that asked, where will you be in a year? In five? In 10? I remember counting the years on my fingers, thinking about how old and where I'd be. Interesting that that 10 years has past.




Bright Eyes--Landlocked Blues

I discovered Bright Eyes sometime towards the beginning of my time in college. This song--and it's line about being 22--was in a playlist I would play almost every night.




Motive--What's So Bad?

...which I bought because I was 24. 

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