Thursday, October 2, 2008

Week 1

Rachel [finally] attends "regular" classes.

After the end of the early start class, there was a one week break for English majors; literally, no regular classes were held. We had a session on Wednesday for visiting students in literature to learn more about finalizing our enrollment, and that was it. Which meant, naturally, that Monday classes were the stuff of typical first days: Here is a syllabus. I'll read it out loud to you. Now you can go.

I have never had a literature class taught in a lecture format before. I have had profs who lectured the entire class period even though they told us we would be discussing, but none of us liked them and we tried not to have class with them in any future semester. Now, I'm expected to be silent and absorb every word of a fifty-minute lecture when I'm accustomed to a little classroom chemistry interrupting the monotone of notes read aloud from an outline.

This basic difference aside, I found the material interesting. My classes are as follows: 18th Century Literature (Robinson Crusoe; The Female Quixote), Contemporary Irish Writing (Not sure yet, but so far just poetry), Traditional Irish Music, and Irish History for Visiting Students. Not a heavy load, by any means, but my month-long early start class will transfer back as two separate classes, leaving me with the equivalent of a 15 hour semester. I have my two literature classes Mondays and Tuesdays, and the music class and history class on Monday evening and Tuesday evening, respectively.

What have I done with my free time while patiently waiting classes to begin making demands upon me? Baked (soda bread and banana muffins), wandered (found a local coffeemaker, cozy coffee shops, more hole-in-the-wall pubs), read (found a great used book store AND got a library card), read (checked out the maximum six books from the library and am already on my second set of six), read (what can I say? I have all this time and when it's windy AND rainy I have to stay inside), read more (okay, so there are probably things unique to Ireland I could be doing. I can read books the rest of my life. I'm only here once. I'll work on it).

Those critical of my activities in the past two weeks will be pleased to know the Cork Folk Music Festival is this weekend, so I plan to get out and experience that, in part because I'm required to by my music class. My music class is incredibly low key. We show up and learn about how there is no sheet music in traditional music, and no distinct "songwriters," only set tunes that are "dressed up" by the individual performers. Randomly she will brandish an instrument to demonstrate (the Irish Flute and Irish Pipes so far; who knows what else she has in her arsenal). On my agenda for today: errand running to the four-corners of Cork, figuring out the Irish post office once and for all. Tomorrow: locate and figure out the stable the equestrian club uses for lessons and figure out whether I need my own equipment to ride there, and read Robinson Crusoe, also, at some point.

My next post will be a comparison of the attributes of European and American candy bars. We'd heard there was a distinct difference in quality, but is it true...?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Who would be critical of your activities? Shame on them, if there are any such people.

Cold, rainy, windy weather -- baking bread and reading books -- the universal human response!

love,
mom

Patty said...

Reading about your 2008 fall semester made me think back to your freshman year and how hectic your schedule was with the equestrian team, the work out schedule and classes... must say this schedule change came at a good time. Enjoy! your ap

Anonymous said...

an Irish poem by an Irish poet

The Red Heifer

The river field sinks into the dark,
raindrops drip from the slates of the cowshed,
the paper sprawls across the kitchen table,
it says it's hot in California.

A cow serenades the night with vulgarity,
a bony sister cow gazes
from the front of the Irish Foreign Missions,
beside her a bony tribesman grins.

My father stares through the kitchen window.
The red heifer tried to get out today, he says,
better fence the gap in that hedge
or she'll be up the main road tomorrow.

Could she make it as far as the city, I wonder
to marvel at buses bigger than ricks of hay,
streets louder than the bull in Welsh's shed,
newsboys bellowing the Herald, the Press

while we search the fields by the road to Dublin,
peering into the deeper ditches,
my father already grieving the heifer,
as she halts, bedazzled, on O'Connell Bridge?


PADRAIG O'MORAIN

Anonymous said...

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