Stories

I forgot to write this down: Maddie and I were at the pub, sitting at the bar. She's Australian and was talking to one of the guys about being Australian, and I was talking to PJ about his name or Spain or our studies or whatever, and I wasn't paying attention to Maddie's conversation. And then I can just see the guy she's talking to point at me and say something. I didn't understand him so I asked him to repeat himself. Still didn't understand. After the third time we all got it--everybody was listening by then. He was saying "And you're an aboriginal I reckon." I just started laughing. I told him no I'm from America, and I'm half Mexican. Then some know-it-all try to tell me I wasn't Mexican, but I just ignored him. I reckon none of them have ever seen a real Mexican in person anyway.

Another time I'm standing by the bar waiting to order drinks and this guy asked me "Are you native?" I didn't know what to say so I said I'm from America. He just asked again "Are you native?" It really wasn't clicking for me so I kind of just frowned at him. He finally goes "Are you a native American?" Oh yeah my grandpa is blah blah blah. Then he turns around and goes "Aye yeah I knew it. I can see it in your eyes, nose, hair, and face." Whatever man. Some people just like talking.

The bus back here straight from Derry took longer than I thought. It took almost four hours. It doesn't seem that long on paper, but it did drag on. I didn't leave until 4:30 either. Got back here at 11 because I had to wait for the Dublin-to-Maynooth bus for an hour. But it was fine. There was nobody here.

I couldn't force myself to study for my exam until around 11 last night. And by then I was tired again so I just tried to think of what was likely to be on the exam. He told us the things that definitely weren't: Sparta and women. Grand. I just picked two things and rewrote notes and thought about how I'd write essays on them and skimmed over the other stuff. And I totally lucked out because the things I chose worked perfectly. I reckon I passed. Hallelujah.

Other than that--even with that actually--today has been pretty uneventful. I woke up at 6am for a few minutes because the sun was shinning directly into my window. It was cool, but almost painful. Woke up again at 7 all nervous like I missed my alarm. Then when I really needed to wake up I didn't really care. This testing room is so obscure though. I don't think they teach classes there so nobody knows where it is. Somebody actually made a youtube video of it: How to find Lower Loftus in 90 seconds. It's brilliant.

I went to the store. I bought cheese because I figure I'm probably only going to go to the store twice more before I go home, so why not? It was the most expensive thing I got. I bought meat and eggs and the cheese was the thing. Lame.

Up until 8pm I was just waiting around to be able to register for fall classes. I've put down about 50 pages of my book and I'm into my second "load" of laundry. But yeah I've enrolled as much as I can from here. First off, I had this hold on my account from back in November about exit counseling for my loans. Since I wasn't enrolled in classes they thought that I quit school or something. I called back then and they said they put me on "enrolled" status so it should have been fine. But no, so I had to call again. The woman in the office was really nice though. At first she couldn't really hear me but she was patient rather than frustrated. I told her the story and then she thought it was really cool that I was calling from Ireland. She took the hold off no problem and I'm down for 4 classes right now. Four others require permission numbers so I have to email some teachers. I really really really don't want to email Dr. N though. I just want to put off talking to him for a long as I possibly can. Another class is jazz but we don't sign up for that until after auditions in the fall anyway. And after those 9 classes I still have 3 credits I can do whatever I want with. I could take conducting but it's at 8 am and it's usually offered in the summer so I'm going to put it off for a bit. I don't know. Maybe I'll take choir finally. I have to someday. Ten or eleven classes is a little insane though. I've only had 8 before. The only cool thing is that even with all 9 I know I'm going to take, my first class will start at 10am. I don't want to mess that up.

I'm really glad that I've never been one of the cool kids. Aoife and her friends are they. I used to avoid them, but for some reason the last few days I've enjoyed interrupting their kitchen sessions. You know I'm really just a grumpy old lady at heart.

Padre I got your postcard today! Thank you! Niamh had to ask me "are you Bean?" It was funny. Made my day.