Interlude Two: Updates, Itineraries and Housekeeping

Breaking continuity, I write to you not a tail of the past, but one of the present. That is, lets chat about things relevant to the now.

First up, if you take a look to the right, you’ll see two new sections; “Photo Collections” and “Videos”. The Photo Collections will lead you to my Flick’r Page, which I’m going to just fill with all the photos I’ve taken to date, not just the few that have appeared here. Once you’re on that page, clicking ‘tags’ will give you some extra sorting power, as will clicking ‘sets’ at the right.

The Videos are all brought to us via YouTube, and so far are just things I shot with the video function of my little still digital camera, edited together using my little iBeast here. At the moment, only one video is up; it’s actually more a test then anything else, featuring Cormac, a little dunk Irishman, footage I took at 4 on a thursday at James’ place. It’s good for a laugh. Expect videos featuring Krakow and Paddy’s Day soon; you know, when I get to slapping them together. Also, I’m bringing my actually video camera on my spring break adventures, so hopefully I’ll have something of alittle higher quality once I’m back. Which leads us to...

My travel plans. Tuesday morning, I leave on a fieldtrip to Wales and Cornwall to see Castles; kind of like a part two to the previous Castles fieldtrip, this time with less people and three days long. I’ll be back late thursday, giving me just afew days to gather myself before Pat and I set out on our Grand Spring Break Adventure. We leave on sunday for Amsterdam (Yes, I’m going to Amsterdam; think what you will) for afew days, then onwards to visit a friend on mine in Berlin for a week or so. From there, we’re heading to Switzerland, in search of mountains, and perhaps skiing and/or bungie jumping. From there, we go where adventure takes us, either to the French Riviera or down through Venice, towards Rome ‘till our time runs out. Maybe all of the above.

Either way, we’ll be back around May first, which will give me eight days to ready myself for my first final, which go off one after the other for 4 days. For the rest of May, I plan on taking it easy, touring around Ireland, heading over to London to visit friend and duel citizen B-Nutt, and maybe making it up to Scotland. May 29th, my lease runs out, and I head home. And by ‘Home’, I mean LA; the tentative plan is to stay for a week, then fly up to the family for some much needed R & R (sometimes you need a break from your vacation), then back down after 3 or 4 weeks to settle down in LA for the long haul, for this is truly the last vacation I plan on having in quite awhile.

Rereading this old Blog afew days ago, I realized that I hadn’t mentioned my classes sense that first excited blurb. Now that my classes are over, I thought I might return to the subject, a nice bookend.

Welsh History was indeed as interesting and fun as I’d thought it would be. With only four people in the class, my goodness it had better be. Prof. Graham Isaac, gotta love him, didn’t even bat an eye when I was the only one to show up. We focused on the Welsh (Cymru) literary tradition, tracking the evolution of culture through poetry. Normally, yawn, but considering that I was learning about my birthright (Muerig Family, ten generations back; we have a castle on Angellsey), I was pretty captivated.

My English Seminar turned out to be a Poetry writing class. With the exception of my first poem being termed ‘unsalvageable’, it was a good class, all in all. I actually just assembled my final portfolio tonight, to hand in tomorrow. What else can I say; I’m not a poet. I don’t understand poetry; at best, I throw words at a page and hope to avoid the fallout.

The Medieval Castle, you’ve heard enough about, in that I’ve told you all about Keiren O’Conor. Well, maybe not ‘all’; I have a final paper due in that class, a ten pager due on May first. Well, I wanted to travel until May first, so I sent him an e-mail; ‘cry cry could do it cry cry not my best work cry cry three day extension’. I get an e-mail back; “You didn’t come to Ireland to write papers, you came to see Europe. Here's my home address, just send it to me, say by the 15th”. Best. Teacher. Ever.

A History of Two Irelands, I checked out of about a month ago. I still went, Lord knows why, but I certainly didn’t take any notes; I’d use the time to compose blog posts, or write some screenplay ideas, or just doodle; mostly doodle. It takes a certain kind of special professor to bleach 70 years of strife of all things mildly interesting, but Stutterin’ John Cunningham, you win the big one. And despite all this, I still got an A on my midterm essay.

The Rise and Fall of Rome; what a great class. I’m a legit fan of Roman history, due to both the fascinating subject matter and the charisma of the teacher, Adjunct Prof. Matt Peacock; its to bad he wasn’t rehired for next year. After three years, they decided to not even consider him for a full time position, so he’s back to England (He’s British; I think it was racism). Bleary eyed, unshaved, on the last day he cussed out all his bosses, gave us the questions for the final, and ducked out for the pub. A more fitting and apt response I’d be hard pressed to find. What a good man, who got treated absolutely wretchedly by the system.

Celtic Myth and Folk Lore “...is just a grand time” I had said. Oh goodness, how mistaken I could be. This, along with 2 Irelands, were the great gaps in my week. At least Prof. Lillis O’Loarie’s fault lie in his soothing monotone brogue, rather then his incessant stutter. Side note, the TA for my discussion section, Aofia; totally crushing on, and a super hero nerd to boot.

That's my world at the moment. We now return you to your regularly scheduled flashback. Oh, and here's a picture of Liisa and I: