Studying - and that on a Sunday!

I'd love to tell you more about the last few days, but as I have two exams next week, I don't quite find the time. All I can offer you is a new quiz, a new quote and another picture of the Blarney Castle. Stay with me! I'm going to Belfast right after my exams and hopefully I'll have a lot to tell you afterwards. Go raibh maith agat. Slán!

Kissing for the Gift of Eloquence

Yes, I was in Blarney and no, I did NOT kiss the bloody stone. For the first time I could feel something like peer pressure. I didn't go to Blarney alone, of course, but with my fellow Erasmus students. One after the other lay down and crept over the edge of the castle wall. Always firmly held by two stout Irish men (see picture) who mechanically said "now kiss the stone" and then pressed the camera button. What people do in the hope of being more eloquent! If this stone ever had any talent to pass on: I'm sure it's been sucked out by now. You wonder how I know? There was nothing but silence when we drove home.

Funny unhappiness

My posts have become rare, yes. While searching for this week's quote, I found another reason why. Samuel Beckett wrote:

“Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world.”

This is so true! Did you know that there were people among you who wished bad things would never stop happening to me? All bad things except death, of course. They did stop, however, and I'm really sorry to disappoint you. Am I?! Anyway, the days when I could have started crying in the middle of O'Connell street have definitely passed. What I do now is: I try very hard to blend in. I watch Home and Away at least once a week, for example, and pretend to be addicted to it. Or when I walk home on the narrow footpath along the canal, I am not surprised if someone passes me dragging a shopping trolley over the stones. And I will not write about it in my blog as if it were anything unusual. Mmhhh... I mean - I know by now how versatile shopping trolleys can be. Our neighbours have one in their living room to store their magazines, after all.

There's a new quiz! You already know the new quote by now.

Trying to be more efficient

I know that some of you must think that I have become extremely lazy as far as my website is concerned. But no! I am not. Sometimes, it just takes ages to write or produce something. Take this film, for example - ages, I tell you!
Maybe I have to adapt to this Irish abbreviation system to be more efficient. Sometimes I can't believe how deeply rooted this is in Irish society. When I went to Londis last week to get me a delicious bagel, I was again reminded, how complicated my thinking was and that I in fact could save an enormous amount of time. After carefully studying the menu, I decided on a bacon-lettuce-tomato bagel. "What?!" the assistant stared at me. "A bacon-lettuce-tomato bagel...?" I repeated, stressing every word just in case she was Polish. "Hu?" There it was, the stare again, the "you-are-an-outsider-stare". I started sweating, my face red with shame and anger. For God's sake, this one! I pointed to the menu. She crawled around all the tomatoes and eggs, joined me and read the menu, frowning. "Aaaaaaaaah, you want a BLT!"

She was Polish. And she obviously learnt the abbreviations before she learnt English.