Tanner/Mills the Wanderer

As of tonight, it is officially Reading Week for me here!!!  Which means I do not have class for the next week! :)  I am very ready for a break - although very aware I should still be studying.  It has been a long week of working very hard and now I am simply exhausted.  It was a nerd heaven week in that I was right in the middle of all the tough critical and analytic work and discussion I love - but, it was also incredibly tiring.  Finishing the 600 page Melmoth the Wanderer was only the beginning!!  I have decided to write my first paper on Melmoth - arguing that he is a sympathetic character (like Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost) and that he tells us his own story (of being led to make his 'Faustian bargain') through the tales of those people he has tempted.  I am very excited about the idea and my professor has said she would be very interested to see what I come up with on this topic and that she thinks it could be very strong.
I am still trying to find my niche in an area of all this wonderful Irish material which has not been as overdone as Joyce so that I can perhaps make a bit more of a critical mark with my research.  So far Melmoth and my Irish drama class (especially the plays of Sean O'Casey) are really inspiring me.  Don't worry - I still love Joyce - but he may not be the best choice for a Ph.D. thesis.  Although I am still very much interested in masculinity in Joyce and the link between writing and sexuality.
After all this intellectual business, the great news is tomorrow afternoon my aunt and godmother Gail will be here to share Ireland with me for the week!  I could not be more excited to see her and show her around Dublin and campus.  I know we will have some crazy adventures.  Pictures and stories to come!

Daylight Savings Time and a Marathon

Sunday at noon when I woke up and turned on my computer I was confused to find it said it was 11am local time in Dublin.  I thought perhaps it had been Daylight Savings time in the States and so my computer had changed.  My Irish cell phone didn't change time which confirmed my suspicion.  Oh was I wrong... After my American friend Ashley calling to ask what time it was, I realized I should ask someone who is actually Irish what was going on.  And I did...my friend Jessica laughed as she explained the concept of Daylight Savings to me thinking I had never heard of it before!  I assured her I knew what Daylight Savings time was but that it happened at a different time in the States and the computer and cell phone had confused me.  So it was discovered that without my knowledge, Europe "fell" back with Daylight Savings time at 2am Sunday morning.  Wow did I felt stupid! :)
On another note: today, as I continue to read my 600 page novel for tomorrow's class (I'm on page 438), I heard applause outside my window.  I looked out and there was a man in runner's gear running by with a motorcycle with a camera attached following him.  Since then I have continued to hear sporadic applause and see many people run by under my window.  It is quite exciting to say that I watched the Dublin Marathon happen from the comfort of my desk.
By the way, the 600 page novel is Melmoth the Wanderer, and I am thoroughly fed up with reading it for the fourth day straight!  It is an Irish Gothic romance which started off very interesting with its hints of the supernatural and the devil...but now it has begun waxing and waning on the love of an innocent beauty and a disciple of Satan.  It does have some very intriguing critiques of religion and especially the hypocrisy of monastic life and belief for the sake of safety within a community.  (Part of the narrative takes place in Spain during the Inquisition.)  So my final impression of the novel is yet to be determined...but don't pick it up for light reading! :)

The Flood

Monday in Dublin was an interesting day to say the least.  It rained consistently all day.  When I went out around 11am it was not raining too bad.  So when I went out at 6:30pm I was not expecting too much...first mistake.  (Well actually the first mistake was leaving my apartment!)  I had on my new high boots and brought my little umbrella.  About half way to the front gate of campus I was already wet, and by the time my friend Ashley and I got 3 minutes outside campus we were completely soaked from head to toe. (Although thanks to my new high boots - my feet were the only thing on me that wasn't wet.)  We tried to hail a cab but there seemed to be none.  At this point my umbrella broke, and we were splashed by a bus driving by.  Eventually we got a cab - but it was really too late because we were drowning!  At about midnight when I called a taxi to take me back to campus, we were told no cars could get up to where we were in the Quays because of flooding.  So I put on my boots and started heading home - and hailed a cab!  There were all kinds of disasters all over the city - a shopping centre flooded and buses full of passengers flooded.  Cars were floating down the road and one Garda was actually killed trying to get people to safety.  It was all pretty crazy and in such a short span of time.  It said on the news that we got a month's worth of rain in those 24 hours.  The whole city shut down in reaction.  I am worried about what will happen when it snows...

Irish classes

In an effort to completely overextend myself while here in Ireland, I started Irish classes.  I have had two lessons so far - the course meets on Fridays at noon.  My Irish teacher is incredibly cute AND he is a barrister with a Ph.D. in Medieval History!!  So naturally I have been trying to get my single friends (especially my Irish neighbor Deirdre) to come to class and meet him!  But back to the course itself... I feel very overwhelmed by my lack of language acquisition skills when I am in class.  Especially when a question is asked orally - it takes me a few seconds to figure out what on earth was just said to me!  

We learned how to say a traditional Irish greeting which is Dia duit. which means God be with you.  Then the response to that is Dia's Muire dhuit. which means God and Mary be with you.  If there are more than 2 people in the conversation each consecutive person adds a new figure - the next in line to add is Saint Patrick.

In addition to the greeting, we learned: Cad is ainm duit? which means What is your name?  And the response is: Jessica is ainm dom.

The most interesting piece we learned on the first day was: aon craic?  which is how the Irish (especially those in Dublin) ask if there is any news.

It is difficult to give too much more here because I have yet to figure out how to type the accents used on so many of the words in Irish.  

What amazes me the most about the language so far is how random the pronunciations seem to be in connection to the way the word is spelled.  An example:  the word dtabharfaidth (which is a conjugation of the verb to give in the future tense) is pronounced something like 'doorhe' in my own weird phonetics.

Slan anois! (Go safely now literally but used as Goodbye)

Weekend Adventure

Last weekend was filled with culture and fun!  On Saturday afternoon I saw Juno and the Paycock at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.  This theatre is important in the history of Irish theatre because it is the sight of the Irish National Theatre created by W.B. Yeats and others.  The play was written by Irish playwright Sean O'Casey, and we will be studying it in my courses later this year.  It was an absolutely outstanding performance.

Here is a pic of me in front of the theatre with my hair being blown by the wind.

Here is the group from my program I went to the theatre with: Hitomi, Brian, me, Andrew.

I look forward to going to more productions at the Abbey Theatre - I loved it!!

Saturday night I went out with a girl from my program and some of her friends for my first real night out in Dublin!  It was grand!  We started at a pub and then went to a brewery where they had great music and dancing.  We danced until about 3am!  And walking home on campus at that hour was very eerie because there is absolutely no one around.  When I woke up Sunday morning, I said in true Danny Glover style (thanks hubby!) that I am too old for this ....  It was a blast though!

On Sunday afternoon, despite my headache from all the dancing, I took the DART train down to Sandycove which is a town right on the coast.  I met a friend from the Creative Writing program and his partner who live out there.  We went to the James Joyce Museum which is in an old Martello Tower originally built to defend against Napoleon.  Joyce lived in that tower for about a week before his friend (who owned the tower) kicked him out.  It is also the setting for the opening of Ulysses.  We happened to show up on a day with free admission and tour by the curator of the museum who was quite a character.

Here is the outside of the museum.

The tour was really interesting and took us up a crazy small spiral staircase to the top of the tower where the guns and lookouts were.

This small section off the top of the tower is called the Murder Room.  Soldiers could look out over the front door of the tower and shoot anyone who tried to break into the tower.

This pic shows the curator in what is called the Round Room where some of the opening action of Ulysses takes place and where Joyce slept as a visitor to the tower.

This pic shows James Joyce's original death mask from Zurich.

Overall the weekend was fun and exhausting!!

Courses

I have two courses which run all year long: Perspectives in Irish Writing and Sing Major Authors.  The remaining three are just for one term: Research Methods, The Poet and Poetry, and Ireland on Stage.  Next term I will have two new elective choices and be done with Research Methods.
On Tuesday morning at 10am I have Perspectives in Irish Writing.  Our professor rotates with the material.  For the first couple of weeks we have had Professor Ian Campbell Ross and have discussed the term "perspectives" and how it will fit into our course of study in this program.  We are all from diverse backgrounds and bring different perspectives to the table in the discussion of history and literature.  We started our study in the second week of class in 1695 with Vertue Rewarded or The Irish Princess and then in 1716 with Irish Tales by Sarah Butler.  The first is generally considered the first Irish novel and the second is the one of the first texts published with anything to do with Ireland in the title.  Both novels were written in a time that was still very much a manuscript culture - in which texts were not often published.  We continuously discuss the idea of national identity and how it is formed.  This class runs for 2 hours each Tuesday and over the course of the year will cover everything from poetry to political pamphlets.  We will look at what the term 'Irish writing' really means and how it is defined.
On Tuesday at 3pm, The Poet and Poetry course meets.  I am auditing this course which means I will not be graded.  But I want to attend the lectures because I find the subject matter interesting, and I am here so why not!  This class has focused thus far on W.B. Yeats - his essays and poems.  The first week, the professor treated us to a story-like narration of Yeats life.  In the second week we looked at a couple of his essays on magic and symbolism.  The professor is Terrence Brown, and he is a renowned Yeats scholar who wrote a biography of Yeats.  He has the most melodic voice and it often feels as though it is lulling me into relaxation.  We will also study the poets Louis MacNeice and Seamus Heaney in the course.
On Wednesday at 4pm for only 4 weeks we have Research Methods.  Each week we have an hour long lecture on a different topic.  Last week was the first class and we heard from Professor Nicky Grene (the head of my program) about academic writing.  This week we will hear from one of the many librarians about academic research.  It is very basic course which only has three assignments.
On Thursday at 10am I attend the Single Major Author course.  This first half of the term we are studying Johnathan Swift with Professor Ian Campbell Ross.  He is a Swift scholar as well as a scholar of early Irish writing.  We read Swift's first published work which is a very amateur poem dedicated to King William III in his victory in Ireland over James II.  The class agreed with Professor Ross in their condemnation of the poem's quality - some took it a bit far.  I did agree that it represented the work of an unpolished poet.  I just read the Drapier's Letters for this week's class - Swift's important political pamphlets on the subject of coinage and Irish self governance.  I am giving a short presentation on the fourth letter at the beginning of class on Thursday, and I am a bit nervous to impress this professor.  After Study Week in November, we will move on to study Yeats; and next term we will study James Joyce and Samuel Beckett.
Finally on Thursday afternoon at 3pm, Ireland on Stage is taught by Professor Grene.  He is a wonderful lecturer and quite fun in discussion.  So far we have read three of Yeats early plays:  The Countess Cathleen, Cathleen ni Houlihan, and On Baile's Strand.  I gave a short introductory presentation for Cathleen ni Houlihan and received praise from both professors and fellow students.  It is a play in which Ireland is personified in the old woman figure of Cathleen ni Houlihan who is regenerated to a young girl only after the young men of Ireland agree to sacrifice their lives to fight for her.  The play is only 9 pages long which was difficult for me to understand, but apparently plays were performed as starters before the main act or a couple of plays in one act were performed on a night of theatre at the time.
That is a list of the courses I am taking this term!

Immigration Nightmare

A week ago today I went to the immigration office to get my GNIB card which allows me to come and go from the country easily until next August when my program is complete.  I arrived there with a group of other postgraduate students at just after 8am.  There was already a long line!  When I got to the head of the line outside, I met the meanest, nastiest Irish person I have yet to encounter. Not only was he extremely rude but he spoke to me as if I were an idiot.  Apparently my health card is not enough proof that I have insurance...he needed to see it exactly in writing that I had specific coverage in Ireland.  I argued with him for a few minutes because the head of our Graduate Student Union had said to stay firm with them and not back down.  Well, I didn't win...and rather than pulling out the real claws, I decided it would be better to NOT get thrown out of the line and the country.  So I stepped out of line to seek the advice of the GSU president.  She told me to get a timecard from him and tell him I would go print out the specifics of the plan.  I did...and by some miracle he gave me one.  I then ran back to campus and printed out the details of my health plan but nothing on there said specifically that I was covered in Ireland.  I am freaking out!!  So I call my mom - despite the fact it is about 1am in California and of course scare her to death.  I spend the next couple of hours waiting for my timecard to be called and continuing to worry that I do not have sufficient information to prove I have health insurance coverage.  Well thankfully I stayed because 2.5 hours later when I got to the window, that guy didn't even check my insurance paperwork!!!!!!!!!  And he immediately issued me a card.  As usual, all that stress and worry for nothing.  I then waited another hour to get the actual card.  And then finally after a total of 4.5 hours of stress, I am legal in the country!