School again

Well I've completed my first week back. I still have a bit of work to do from my winter class (all due on Feb 1st) and I already have a lot to do for my classes. I have 4 ITP (interpreter training program) classes and 1 ASL class. In some ways I really enjoy being submersed in the signing every day but I also feel it might get intense sometimes. This is also the first time I have had all of my classes with a lot of the same people. There are quite a few people that I see on a daily basis, which isn't a problem at the moment but can quickly become one under the right circumstances. I suppose it is good training for if (when?) I get into the program and have the same 20 people in every one of my classes. Anyway, things are going well so far. I really enjoy learning about something I know I will need and use a lot for my job.

So I'm not going to make you all look at my gross stitches on here, but I got my gums cut open on Friday morning. I have had an absess for a while and we finally got it fixed this week. It still hurts quite a bit and the medicine they gave me made me really sick (yes, I really did eat something with it) just like when I had my wisdom teeth out. So... I'm sticking with ice and tylenol for now. Like I said, I could post pictures, but everyone seems really grossed out by it.

So instead I will put on some of my pictures from Ireland. Of course I will post some more again later, but since I can't focus too well on my homework at the moment and I wasn't going to sleep I figured I would put some up.

One of the buildings in the center of Dublin (not really sure what building) and the river Liffey in the foreground.
St. Patrick's cathedral
A memorial in Phoenix Park.
This is Abbey, we also spent New Years Eve together. She's pretty cool =] The shirts we are wearing say "The Quays" (the keys) which is the pub we were at. By this time the last clean shirt I had was one that said "London, England" on it so the guy brought out a shirt and I happily bought it and put it on (I wanted a shirt from Dublin anyway).
This is a famous sculpture at Trinity college. I beleive it is called sphere in sphere, or something along those lines. You can tell how much I pay attention to the names of things...

More to come!

Thank you Grandpa

for fixing my door and putting in the shade in the window! It's nice not to have that street light shining in at night. =]

Busy

It's been a busy couple of days here in Dublin. We've seen a lot of historical sites including Kilmainham jail, the General Post office (main headquarters of the 1916 easter rising), a lot of the monuments around town, a memorial to the people who were executed after the rising, an exibit about the rising at the national museum here in Dublin, and a lot of other places. I think you can see a pattern there. We also visited the Guinness storehouse and took a tour and saw the view from the 360 degree gravity bar. We saw an Irish play tonight called the Seafarer, which was pretty good. I bought a new Claddagh ring that I'm very happy with. The weather was a little crazy today and the Irish don't know what to do with themselves when it snows so the buses stopped running and the sidewalks were all icey and it wasn't even snowing that much. We did make it back to the hotel alive though and I guess we'll see if we make it home on time. The local airport is closed today but mommy said it should be open again tomorrow. Pictures to come when I get home and sort through them and have internet for more than an hour at a time in the lobby.

Wicked New Year

Today I slept until about 11.30 and then I got up and showered and went to class at 13.00. We finished around 15.00 and went to have lunch at a little Italian place. After that we made our way to the natural history museum for a little while and then back to the room to get ready to see Les Miserables with our class. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at this ticket booth and got lucky and got tickets to see Wicked tomorrow night for 35 pounds. There was no seating chart there but I'm pretty sure they're really good seats, I guess we'll see tomorrow when we pick them up at the theatre. Even if they're not that good, I am sooooo excited to see Wicked! =] Here are some pics from today. Not a lot since we went to the play and I didn't get up very early.


Dinosaurs at the natural history museum
Part of the human biology section at the museum.

Yeah, that's real... and really creepy.
The outside of the museum.
The tube. We got on the tube and it was light out and 20 mins or so later when we got out at the museum it was dark out at only 16.30 ish. It made it feel like we'd been in the tube for hours.

New Years Eve

Yesterday we woke up at 7, got breakfast (I drank a whole pot of tea although it was probably the size of a large drink at starbucks) and then we got on the bus at 8. We drove 2 hours to see the Dover castle where they have underground tunnels that used to be a hospital and communication center in WWII. We toured the tunnels and then climbed up in the castle and looked off the top. After that we drove about 20 mins to Canterbury and saw the Canterbury cathedral. We had free time for a while after that to wander the shops and get food. It was so cold! We finally took the bus back to the hotel and then we went out to a New Year celebration. We were on the Waterloo Bridge (we think) and saw the fireworks that they were shooting off from the London eye.

The view off of the top of Dover Castle.

Canterbury cathedral

A view from the bridge where we were waiting to see the fireworks
The London eye is there on the left.
The crowd. It was crazy.