Monday, March 14, 2011

School Days!

Bloggers!
It’s been too long, but it has been a very busy couple of weeks!
So the last time I checked in, I had just returned from my weekend with the SMC-ers in Paris, and returned from my study trip in Stratford. So, since then I have been cracking down on the homework front. I had lots of papers to write, which I wanted to get done because I knew I was going to be away the weekend before most of them were due. However, papers didn’t keep me locked up inside during all of my free time! My roommate had lots of visitors in the past two weeks, so we went out when they were here. I also ventured up to the Royal Crescent and The Circus one day when it was actually sunny! The Royal Crescent is overwhelmingly large, it actually reminded me of the Louvre a little bit in terms of size. However, that is probably a very inaccurate statement since the Louvre is like the biggest freakin museum I’ve ever laid eyes on!

So this is someone's house, and I thought it was the most adorable thing ever!
This is the Royal Crescent, it is so long that I couldn't get it all in one picture!
The Circus! Or at least part of it anyways
Me at the Circus, courtesy of Elysia.
Me, Zoe, and Katie on our way back from the Circus and the Royal Crescent! Again, courtesy of Elysia.
This past weekend I flew to Cork to visit my SMC friends Ellen and Becca. Ellen’s birthday is this coming week (Happy Birthday Ellen!) so I figured that I would be the perfect gift ;) I flew in Friday afternoon, and left Sunday. Unfortunately, there were a lot of mishaps during this trip, but it was so much fun to be there with my ladies that I would do it over again if I could!
Saturday we ventured out into Cork and did some things that are not necessarily what you would typically do when visiting Cork. We first walked through her campus, which is gorgeous, and stopped in at a gallery that was being held in one of the buildings on campus. The gallery was called School Days, so it was totally up my alley! It was all about the social culture in schools, and there were some interesting exhibits on the Hidden Curriculum that was really hard to understand. But, I think it had to do with the things that students pick up from the social interactions between them and their peers, them and the faculty, and them and the staff. I think the part that I was most interested in was the artistic depictions of a student’s walk to school. For the sake of copy right regulations, I’m not going to post any pictures, but if you are interested in looking at some of the pictures from the gallery just email me or let me know! However, I can’t tell you about this without explaining to you how Ellen, Becca, and I got stuck in the gallery! There was a seminar going in the same building as the gallery, so they were using the elevator in order to not interfere with the seminar, but the elevator was slightly broken (not sure how we were still using it since it was broken?!). Anyways, when we were ready to leave we went to take the elevator and it wouldn’t come up to the third floor and the stairs were blocked off since the seminar was going on. After calling the place to see if they could send the elevator to us and no one picked up, we ended up ignoring the blockade and walking down the stairs into the seminar! There was no other option though, so even though we felt really bad we had no choice!


A Building on Ellen's Campus, it looks like a castle!
The crest of UCC, there is some myth about not walking on it, but I foget what happens when you do...oops!
So this was the extraordinarily large elevator that we took up to the gallery. I needed to add it since I have a picture of the really small elevator in Paris.

FRIENDS!

Me in the so called old school furniture, but it was actually a really comfortable chair.
After the gallery we walked to the other side of Cork to the Butter Museum! Who knew that Cork used to be the butter capitol?! I was a small museum, but interesting none the less. We got to learn about how butter was made, how cattle raiding was a popular hobby during that time period, and how butter quickly became Cork’s name to fame. The only bummer was that we didn’t get any free samples at the end. However, it was an enlightening experience and it was certainly worth the 3 euros that we paid to get in. I would definitely recommend it to anyone whose looking for a cheap, interesting place to check out while in Cork!
Saturday night was Ellen’s birthday celebration! Becca and I made her dinner and we bought her a cake too! It was a very relaxed weekend and birthday celebration, but I think it was exactly what we all needed. After spending hours chatting and catching up, we popped in a movie and called it a night! Sunday I flew back to Bath which was an experience since my plane was delayed 3 hours and they lost my luggage, but like I said before I have no regrets about the weekend!
What’s coming up? Well we are all here for another week and then we all head to Oxford for a week. Then we have another week in Bath before Spring Break! It’s going to be a busy couple of weeks, but I’m looking forward to them. I will also be teaching my first lesson with my primary school students the week before Spring Break which should be fun since they are going to be writing letters to pen-pals in the United States! It’s going to be a great lesson! I’ll be in touch soon!
Peace!

1 comment:

  1. I agree, the Royal Crescent does have a similar feel as the Louvre! Looking at both for the first time made me feel so overwhelmed with how grand and spectacular a building can look. Certainly not something typically found in the states.

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