The day after we got to Cork was the official UCC Early Start Orientation. I had seen the agenda, which seemed to indicate that we'd be done by 4. It didn't sound too bad. All of the IFSA-Butler girls planned to walk together, stopping first at the nearby smoothie place to grab breakfast, before continuing on to campus. Mary, one of the girls, invited her 3 flatmates to walk with us, so Java and Juice was nearly overflowing between the 11 of us, plus the other customers, who were uniformly told to pay later, since the two women working just didn't have time to deal with their payments. Clearly, they enjoyed a pretty regular clientele. By the time all of us had gotten our smoothies, coffees, scones, and whatever else people got, we were beginning to worry about having enough time to get on campus. Luckily, Mary and Bridget led us fairly efficiently to campus where we quickly found the auditorium in which we were supposed to be.
What followed was a series of introductions from each of the Early Start programs. Since we were all registered for different programs, we paid pretty close attention. I know many of us were totally frustrated - only getting to take one option seemed utterly unfair, when the Music program or the Archaeology program sounded SO cool! The Literatures in Ireland instructor seemed very nice, so at least I didn't regret signing up for the program I had chosen. I was disappointed, however, that we weren't reading the "big" Irish authors. In the overview of the course, Mary Breen hadn't mentioned George Bernard Shaw, James Joyce, Yeats, Samuel Beckett... in fact, she hadn't mentioned anyone or any book I'd heard of. What was the point of studying in Ireland if I wasn't going to get to study the important people?! (It took me a little while, but eventually I realized that the point of going to Ireland was studying the parts of Ireland I couldn't study back home. I know for a fact that IU offers a class on Joyce. This duh moment made me feel much better and since the class has been going on for 2.5 weeks, I can tell you that I am now thrilled we're not reading the obvious choices, because I'm being exposed to new, unknown - to me, at least - stuff that I would never get to study at home. Yay for study abroad!!)
Aside from the Early Start overviews, we learned about other pertinent classes that we would be able to take during the regular semester. The French department offered two classes - one on French films for non-French speakers and one French speaking class for absolute beginners only - which, we were told, was the easiest class in the world to pass, so we should all take it if we've never taken French before. Never before had I heard a French class described as "the easiest" anything, but since I wasn't eligible, I tried not to be too jealous of the lucky people who would get to learn French in such a stress-free way, so unlike my own painstaking and painful experience! The Irish department told us about Irish Civilization classes that might interest us. There was one in particular on Irish Mythology that sounded amazing, which I'm going to try to take. Mary Breen, my Early Start instructor, had mentioned that we would be doing a short unit on Irish mythology (more on that later!!) as part of the class, so I would get a preview before having to schedule for the semester. We were told about an Intro to Irish class that also sounded wonderful, but I worried (and still am worried) that if I couldn't get to the point where I was reliably staying awake in class, it would be a complete repeat of my Hebrew class last fall - a near-waste of time for me, the class and the instructor. (Please, keep your fingers crossed - I have a week and a half to get my strategy for staying awake totally worked out before the semester starts and I really want to take Irish!) Someone from the library came and spoke to us, as did someone from the Geography department, but neither were particularly interesting for me, so I was relieved when we were released for our lunch break. A big group of us went to lunch together, but we were a little late getting back, so we didn't all get seats together when we got back for the afternoon portion.
In the afternoon, we heard about the clubs and societies offered at UCC (I want to do Fencing Club, Canoe Club, Choral Society and Medieval/Rennaissance Society - but I'm remaining open-minded!), student health and counselling (in particular the measures UCC was taking to deal with the threat of swine flu), registration with the Gardai (the Irish police force/immigration), working in Ireland, and some other less interesting issues. Following that catch-all section, one of the VPs of the Students Union spoke to us about the Student Union, we heard from club and society organizers, the Chaplaincy, and the IT people. We were supposed to get a talk from a Garda officer, but he didn't show up. Apparently, he has NEVER actually spoken, but he's supposed to every year. Oh well.
Then we learned that instead of having the rest of the day free, the Student Union had planned all kinds of activities for late into the evening. First, a tour of the campus. Now, it's important for me to say that I adore IU. I think it's an utterly gorgeous campus, I love the people there, and I have loved most of my classes. Knowing this (and knowing that many of you have either visited or seen pictures of IU), when I say that UCC is even more charming, know that I am not in any way maligning my university, which I do love. It's just that UCC is unnaturally beautiful and manages to combine the park-y feeling of IU with the utterly ordered garden-y + castle-y feeling of Oxford or Trinity. The buildings range from the original Quadrangle building (The Quadrangle has only 3 sides because they ran out of money before they could build the 4th. Also, only graduates of the university are allowed to walk through the Quadrangle, because if you haven't graduated yet, you'll curse/jinx yourself and either fail all your classes or not graduate. The same is true of the school crest which is located at the entrance of the Quadrangle building - which has a real name, I just don't remember it.) which dates from 1840s to buildings only a few years old. For a virtual tour of campus see here: http://www.ucc.ie/en/AboutUCCandCork/VirtualCampusTour/. The President's Garden is beautiful, bridges on campus cross over the Lee (which is just more impressive than the Jordan, sorry) and, like at IU, there are trees everywhere. Needless to say, the tour was greatly appreciated, although we really stuck to the center of campus, which I had already seen.
After the tour, we schmoozed and had cookies, tea and coffee in the Student Union building, which is really nice and supposedly always has tea in it, but I haven't been back to check and see. At that point, the party was beginning to split up. Some of the girls in our little group decided to go home and relax while the rest of us continued on to the next event - a free showing (with free Coke and popcorn) of I Love You, Beth Cooper, which I had actually read the summer before but had heard made a rather bad movie. I went in with low expectations, as did everyone else, and we were all pleasantly surprised to find it rather amusing. I thought it made a better film than book. From there, we went to a bar for karaoke, pool and bowling. Bowling filled up super-quick and I can't play pool to save my life, but I was with a group of girls who sing, so we all made our way to the karaoke pods and proceeded to sing all kinds of music of the singalong variety ("Summer Lovin'" from Grease, "Build Me Up Buttercup," and the Spice Girls all made our playlist as did "Livin' On A Prayer," the Backstreet Boys, and a bunch of other songs. It was very much a nostalgic thing for us - lots of 90s music, which I realize barely counts as nostalgia, but it's the music of our childhoods and we had fun.). We left after awhile, totally wiped out, although the evening continued with a trip to a nightclub, and actually managed to make it home without getting lost. Major accomplishment.
That weekend was fairly low-key. Saturday was a massive grocery shopping day involving a trip to the English Market (like the Farmer's Market back home or the Covered Market in Oxford) and two trips to Tesco's (the Irish equivalent of Pavilion's, Ralph's, or Kroger's) because we simply couldn't fit everything in our backpacks or carry it all. (Incidentally, Ireland charges for plastic bags in order to discourage their usage, so almost everyone carries around tote bags, heavy-duty plastic bags, or the little roller carts for their groceries. Very eco-friendly.)
Finally having food of our own to prepare, we began a tradition that has continued: communal dinners. Everyone who decides to go brings their dinner (or tea, or snack, or just themselves if they've already eaten or whatever) to Sophie's flat (which is still empty of roommates today) and we all have dinner together and then sit around and chat. These dinners frequently last from 6 'til 9 or 10, at which point someone says they have homework or whatever and the party breaks up. It's really nice - and I lucked out because Sophie lives down the hall from me, making it a much shorter trip for me and my dishes than the girls on the 5th floor.
Sunday was an absolutely lazy day. I sat around and read pretty much the whole day - I think it rained, but I'm not sure. Sounds like a safe bet though, because it rains almost every day at least part of the time. That night, we again gathered for dinner and ended up watching a made-for-tv movie on Coco Chanel, during which I fell asleep. When I woke up, my throat was totally sore, but I figured I had just fallen asleep with my mouth open or something. The fact that I had only been asleep for a little while (maybe 15 minutes?), made it somewhat strange, but I was exhausted and didn't really question my explanation. We left Sophie's and I went to sleep, knowing that we were leaving Copley Court early the next morning for our first day of school!
I woke up with my throat still very sore, which I again dismissed and met a bunch of people for the walk to campus. Because classes were meeting at different times, we were leaving particularly early so that Bridget, whose class met the earliest, would get there on time. Once on campus, I had half an hour to kill so I went to the International Students Office with a couple of other people to try to get my student number, which I hadn't printed out. Problem solved, I went to class, which consisted of the ever-boring, ever-present Syllabus Day. Mary Breen went over every page of our 11-page course outline and I honestly don't remember now if I stayed awake or not. I have a feeling I nodded off at some point. The big news of Syllabus Day was the fact that we'd get a half-hour break each day in the middle of class (which was supposed to go from 9:30-12:30 but in fact ended at noon almost every day), which I knew would help me stay awake. We talked about the field trips we would be taking, including the one that would be happening immediately after class that day: a historical tour of Cork (which was billed as a literary tour of Cork, but wasn't) and lunch at a local restaurant. Yay for free lunch - we were all getting sick of how expensive food in Ireland was. The tour was really interesting. Among the highlights:
- St. Finbarr's - The site of the original monastery in Cork, frequently pillaged by Vikings, who would travel down the river. The monastery and Finbarr redates Christianity - and I still don't really understand why St. Finbarr became a saint, because he wasn't a Christian monk, but apparently that's pretty common. Now, it's a dramatic Gothic cathedral.
- The ruins of the old English fort, now a Gardai station. After the English left, the Irish moved into the old English buildings. Our tour guide blamed this appropriation for Ireland's lagging behind in development for so long.
- The Beamish brewery, where we learned that Beamish and Murphy's were to merge. A stone placed at the entrance of the brewery used to hold the heads of criminals after they'd been cut off.
- Evidence that Cork was once a series of islands located between the North and South channels of the River Lee - our tour guide called Cork the Venice of Ireland, but many of the channels were covered over, leaving the windy streets of Cork as the only indication of Cork's former self.
I went to bed early and woke up feeling utterly horrible and unable to go to school. I stayed home and slept. The next day, I felt worse - and that was without the ibuprofen messing me up! In all, I missed class Tuesday-Friday. The student health center didn't do walk-ins and had no available appointments until the following Monday, when I called them on Tuesday and I had NO intention of still being sick on Monday. At that point, I was a little concerned - was it possible that I had managed to get swine flu? It sounded absurd. I didn't know anyone who was sick and I didn't seem to fit the symptoms - although I had plenty of symptoms of my own! I felt so weak I could barely leave my room, my throat was insanely sore, my head hurt and I was vacillating between freezing and overheated. All I did was read, drink 7-Up and tea, and sleep - lots and lots of sleep, since I was both tired from being sick and because I wasn't taking my anti-sleep meds. I think my new friends thought I was dying - and I, beyond melodramatic in my misery, was sure of it. (They were absolutely wonderful - brought me 7-Up, Tylenol, a card, and told me if I needed anything I should just ask - and at that point, I had known them barely a week, since I had spent half the time stuck in my room!)
I called Suzy, IFSA-Butler's contact in Cork, who told us that if we had medical questions we should feel free to call since her husband was a doctor and could probably tell us what to do. Unfortunately, her husband said that I should stay put and wait it out, since it didn't sound like swine flu, but I clearly wasn't well enough to go to class. By Thursday, when I was still sick as ever, both Suzy and her husband told me to go to the after-hours clinic. At that point, I was beginning to seriously consider the fact that I might have swine flu (and all the kosher puns that could be gleaned from the possibility), although when the taxi picked me up to take me, I assured the driver that I didn't have swine flu, since I was a little afraid he wouldn't take me if he thought I had it.
The SouthDoc clinic was a 10-minute ride away and I got there 20 minutes early for my appointment. I sat in the chair nervously twiddling my thumbs (Yes, I actually do literally twiddle my thumbs sometimes.) with nothing to do but try not to scare the other people in the waiting room. I had forgotten to bring a book, that's how sick I was.
Finally it was my turn. The doctor I saw was very nice - and imagine my relief upon learning that I didn't have any kind of flu, let alone swine flu! I had acute (or severe, I forget which word he used - I was pretty out of it) tonsilitis, easily treated with antibiotics. I'm still utterly befuddled by the fact that I had to go to Ireland to GET tonisilitis, but it could have been much worse. By Friday morning, having only taken one dose, I already felt better. By Saturday, I was going stir-crazy, having barely spent any time outside my room since coming home Monday and now feeling well enough to be out and about.
Finally, it was Sunday. I'd been on the antibiotics for long enough that I was "no longer contagious" and I was free to be around people. My friends had planned on going to Blarney and I decided to go with them, telling myself that if I got tired, I would sit while they wandered around. We met up that morning and took the bus to Blarney. The truth is that I hadn't really wanted to go to Blarney, but by then I would have gone to the South Pole if it meant I didn't have to stay in my room by myself. Blarney Castle is right in town, and utterly beautiful. I cannot begin to explain how green everything was and the castle was much more intact than I had expected. We walked all through it and then it was time to kiss the Blarney Stone. I knew it was traditional, but I really didn't have any interest in doing it - but suddenly I was there, and totally inspired.
If you haven't been to Blarney Castle, let me explain how one goes about kissing the Blarney Stone. There are two men who stand there, one of whom takes your picture (which is available for purchase along with a certificate for 10 euros at the gift shop) and one who holds your legs as you lie down on your back and dangle off the wall to kiss this stone. I could barely reach it - and if there hadn't been someone holding on to me, there's no way I could have done it because you're truly hanging off the very top of the castle and I had to lean back and over so far that I think I would have fallen. It's intense stuff - and before you get to go, you're waiting in line and looking at the people ahead of you, realizing that you're going to be kissing the same thing they all just kissed and am I really sure I want to do that? (Ironically, it didn't even occur to me that any of them could have been sick - although now that I'm no longer caught up in the moment I definitely wonder how many people develop colds or whatever after visiting Blarney.) Afterwards, we wandered around the various walks and visited the witch's rock, the fairy circle, Blarney House and walked around the lake. The area near the witch's rock was like a magical glen - I would LOVE to stage a performance of Midsummer Night's Dream there because it's just the perfect spot. Lots of little nooks and bridges and almost twilight-like because the trees overhead blocked out the sun so well. I was fading fast, but since I had no plans to return to Blarney, I didn't want to miss anything - plus it was raining on and off, so there really wasn't anywhere for me to sit. We headed back around 2-3 and decided to have a late lunch, since we hadn't really had breakfast and were starving. The rest of the afternoon was spent catching up on schoolwork, since I had missed practically the entire first week of class.
Monday morning, I was ready to go to class. I had missed two field trips while sick (one to a play about J.M. Synge and one to Barryscourt Castle (of Barry's Tea, THE brand of tea in Ireland) and Fota House) and 3 days of lecture. Naturally, for all my excitement, I fell asleep in class, so I had to talk to Mary Breen about not just missing class (which she understood completely and was entirely sympathetic and easygoing) but about my sleep disorder, a talk I had really hoped I wouldn't have to have anymore. Again, she was very understanding, which I appreciated so much, since I had already been worried about missing so much class.
Tuesday-Thursday were rather uneventful. I stayed awake two of the days and fell asleep the other one. One of the days we watched a movie adaptation of one of the books we were studying, The Last September. The movie's really interesting, particularly in light of the book, so if you're interested, I recommend checking it out. Maggie Smith is a total snob in it, but the movie does some really interesting things with reflected images and point of view and the use of music is really thoughtful as well. There are lots of changes from the book, which took us all aback because the changes were pretty significant, but the movie will still give you a pretty good impression of Anglo-Irish society during the "troubles" at the beginning of the 20th century.
Friday we had a field trip to the ruins of Bowen's Court, the family home of Elizabeth Bowen, the author of The Last September. There's really nothing to see there, which was really startling, even though we had been warned. In fact, even though we were at Bowen's home, what we saw there was much more reminiscent of the messages of the other book we had read so far Tarry Flynn, by Patrick Kavanagh (which talks about how Tarry finds beauty in the mundane rather than the extraordinary). It was just fields - muddy, with the hay mown, leaving just 5-inch long pieces sticking up to push into our shoes, socks and pants. There was little evidence that there had once been a grand country manor on the property. We didn't really have anything to do there, just the view to take in, pictures to take and the graveyard where Bowen and her understanding husband were buried next to each other to see.
After lunch, which we had over an hour after we were supposed to, we took the bus back to Cork and hung out for a while. Several classes were on trips that either got back that day or left that day and would continue over the weekend, so there were only three of us who went to the pub that night. (I had a pint of cider - still can't drink beer, but I've got 3.5 months to either learn or not.) We were there for a couple hours and then decided to head back home. Along the way, we all got hungry, since I hadn't eaten much for dinner and Sophie and Kathryn had had early dinners, so we stopped on the way home at our favorite restaurant (the cheapest and most convenient place in town, bar none) Valentino's to pick up a late meal. We brought our burgers back to Sophie's flat and ate and spent another couple hours just yakking before finally going back to our rooms. It was so normal - no different than making a late-night run to Steak 'n' Shake at school or whatever - so it was that night that I really felt like I lived here, although I don't think I realized it at the time.
Almost caught up now! Hope you made it all the way through - I'll try not to fall so far behind in the future.
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