i love cookies!

Well, I was off to a late start today, but all turned out well in the end. A rather relaxing day, I've had five million cups of coffee and painted a picture. I call it "A Gift for the Water Nymph"! The picture is supposed to be from a photo of my little sister Amaya blowing out her birthday candles, but I've transformed it into her blowing out a dandelion puff. Trust me, it may not look like it in the photos, but it's a dandelion puff. My camera is just not cool enough to capture the details and what not and colors of my paintings. Maybe I just need to adjust my lighting. Anyway, although I'm continually noticing what's wrong and how to fix the problems in this particular painting, I still appreciate feedback. Meanwhile, cookies are awesome. I had spaghetti for dinner. And I really like my anglo-irish lit teacher's reading voice. That's the crux of my day and now sleep. Oh, and I must mention that I actually had to remove my jacket while walking to class today, it was that temperate!

oh and i happened to capture the laundry tokens in the above picture. one of them has a hole in it!




I was trying to show some of the detail I put into the piece, but the photos just don't show it. Waaah...

shopping...world's best exercise

Shopping is never so healthy as when the stores are a thirty minute walk away and then you spend the next five years walking the entire length of city centre to see what you can see. We saw some interesting things, even some worth purchasing. I for instance found a nice red shirt and a cadbury cream egg. I took a quick video, which unfortunately I found later was too quick to really get an idea of what the city looks like. But here it is nevertheless...

And here is an example of one of the many unique samples to be found in Schuh (german for shoe). They have some really amazing footwear, which sadly tends to run in the over one hundred euros range. They definitely tend towards the side of whimsy.

Our last shopping stop was Tesco. I try to look as much like a tourist as possible, so I took pictures there too.


By the time we got home we were ready to collapse. I took the easy way out of dinner with a bowl of Ramen noodles, as seen in this creepy looking photo.

Meanwhile, today was completely non-eventful. I met Edward at 4:30 to receive a refund for Victoria Lodge being cheaper than University Hall. Went to my art history class. Came home. Ate a sandwich. And am now reading for Anglo-Irish Lit.
"To speak, look, and do what your own soul from its depths orders you, are credentials of greatness which all men understand and acknowledge," says Thomas Davis.
Next up is William Butler Yeats. Last but not least, everyone has to tell me what they think of the one doodle painting I've done since I've been here. These are details; they're blurry and discolored, but close enough. At the rate I'm going, I'm going to have exactly four paint sketches by the time I get back. I definitely need to up my output, which is why I dropped accordian.

a good day

So, today after classes and what not, Laurie, Sarah, and I went to the lunchtime concert at the Glucksman Gallery. Today's featured band was Trio Tekke, a group from Greece sporting a Grecian-Reggae style. One guitarist, a celloist and a tiny mandolin thing make one awesome mix. Here are some samples of their music. I had to make them videos because I haven't found a way to upload sound files yet.


I also have here a video of a city scape as seen from UCC.

and a video of the music building, as it's awesomeness cannot be captured in one shot.

Nevertheless, here's a picture of a music building window.

Meanwhile, Laurie and Sarah and I also traveled to Tesco where I purchased a coffee maker with which to brew the delicious coffee that my grandmother sent me!! While there I also bought some amazing sun glasses. Check it out...

Above is a picture of laurie taking a picture of our first cup of brewed coffee.

Last but not least, a shot of the wheelchair races done for rag week. pretty humorous.

Sorry that this post is mainly videos and pics. We all hung around my place drinking coffee and watching the movie Serendipity, so now it's quite late and I'm a bit too tired to go into details. Just trust me that we had an awesome day. Laurie got some glasses just like mine, but they're red and they wouldn't let me have them because they said it clashed with my hair. Eh, what do they know? Goodnight all!

Home Sweet Home

I realize that my video tour was rather dark and hurried and shows nothing at all of the apartment building itself. So here's a closer look.


The video was taken about an hour ago as Laurie and I got out of Anglo-Irish Literature. I emphasize the hour ago, because that's how long it has taken me to upload everything and get it posted.


Here's also a better idea of my room. There are differences between everyone's rooms, so they don't all look like this, but this is the general idea turning counter-clockwise.



Also, as I'm sure everyone has been told. This week is rag week. When universities all across Ireland are celebrating the week after exams. UCC is on the semester program, so is just celebrating for the fun of it. Part of the festivities included sumo-suit wrestling.

Different things happen everyday, most of it quite amusing. The person tossing up their cookies right outside my window the other night was not amusing. I thought I was going to be sick and really wished the walls in this place weren't so thin. I can hear every group of late night revelers as they approach the building, come in the door, down the hallway, up the stairs, and sometimes on the floor above me if that happens to be their destination. Oh well, who needs sleep anyway?
OKay, folks, seriously starving. Laurie called a while ago and said she was going to eat her hand off. So I'm going to go join her. Oh, and she finally has internet access! Yaaaay!!! And the fire alarms have never been tested in this building so they've been turning them on all yesterday and today while one solitary man goes around and checks each room! Boooo!!! That is all and goodnight.

Taco Par-tay!

Ok, as I was saying before I was booted off, I'm going to make this post in two parts, to save me the sorrow of losing a huge long post. Taco Night was a great success with freshly diced tomatoes, green peppers and mushrooms, ground beef, freshly grated cheese and warm tortillas, not to mention the special sauce! All was delicious and with Jimmy Buffet playing we could almost believe we were somewhere warm. Kudos to Laurie for a fabulous idea!!


This is while we were trying to entertain ourselves before dinner was ready. Obviously taking lots of crazy pictures is one way to do it.

toast

Hi everyone,
I'm just finishing up some cinnamon toast while waiting for the internet to quit being evil. The connection is terrible here, always booting me off or freezing up. We're also still having trouble with the site. If you're wondering why all the posts are from me, that's why. No worries, we'll sort it out eventually. More importantly, brown soda bread is amazing and I don't know why everybody's not eating it. It has a thick amazing texture, so even when sold in small slices, pictured below, it's still really filling. And no I didn't burn the toast, it's just bad lighting.

The walk to the music building was especially lovely, not to mention cold, this morning. I'm glad I had Mika to accompany me.



Watching the green tower of the old building come ever closer is always amusing.
Hopefully pictures from last nights amazing taco party will be up soon. We put on Jimmy Buffet and thought warm thoughts. No telling what the plans are for tonight.
Later, homefrys

Back from the Big Game

Ohhhhh nooooo, Munster lost!! On our own turf! Aggghh! So, Rugby is pretty awesome. Even if we lost, the game was quite exciting and contained a lot of things you don't see in American football. Like when the team picks up a player cheerleader style so they can catch the ball. Or the crazy tackles with no protective gear on. Or that one guy with thighs bigger than my head. Oh wait, that was all the rugby players. Anyway, we all met our new API friend Ashley from Texas and her Irish roommate Anita and walked to a nearby pub where we squished into a corner to watch the game. Afterwards we all headed back to my apartment, so I could have myself some dinner. The rest of the night was all talk. I'm including a picture of where we met up with Mika, at the main entrance of UCC. The picture is rather blurry, but...oh well. The hour is late, so goodnight to all, from Ireland!

Ashley is the one farthest back.

Friday, Mika and I were delighted by an oboe soloist doing his thing at the Lewis Glucksman Gallery on campus. He definitely made some crazy sounds, played without a reed, used circular breathing, and even played the musette.


The museum itself is beautifully designed and contains all video art. It was quite amazing to see video pieces that I read about last year for art history, including works by Nan Hoover, Nam Jun Peik, and Vito Acconcci. Although, one of Vito's past works included laying under a specially constructed floor in a gallery, so when people came in they could hear him moaning while he did...um...stuff...under the floor. The title of the piece was called "Seed Bed" if that gives you any ideas as to what he was up to. So, definitely plenty of videos that you wouldn't want to be alone in a room with. The first video to meet my eyes was this one, two people screaming non-stop into each others faces. Another of Vito's films included a shot of him pointing at you, his face obscured by his accusing hand, and *dadada* his finger seems to follow you wherever you move in the room. creeepy...

Afterwards, Mika and I had lunch and went to the music building to practice our respective instruments. I'm definitely going to build up some left arm muscle. Here's a picture of Mika playing and even a video of me. So I mess up at the end... I get nervous in front of an audience!!

Waiting in the amsterdam airport, tired and ready to go. I'll bet you'll never guess where this plane is going! this is actually back in birmingham when the flight was delayed yaaaay! our luggage has returned!!! This is the original quad, which is bad luck to walk on. My art history class is in the west wing of this building. that's the library way back behind sarah Blarney the beautiful!!
this is the east wing. doorknobs in the middle of the door are more common here Laurie inside the student center. there's a cathedral on the left and the o'rahilly building directly behind where my Book of Kells class is. okay, so i'm only pretending, but geez, germs, gross sarah's in the oven!! windy tiny stone steps are scary! the grounds of blarney are soooo beautiful a nice cup of cappuccino after touring around the castle Sadly, we must give in to McDonald's convenient cheapness sometimes squirrels to UA as black birds to UCC pretty river flowers