procrastination by photo

So I spent WAY too much time trying to get these pictures on here the "easy" way... and they are not in the same list order as everyone else's, but I think I will survive.

As seen on MayB, Jen & Ky (well, sort of):

Here’s how it works:
1. Go to www.photobucket.com
2. Type in your answer to the question in the “search” box
3. Insert the picture into your Blog

What is your favourite candy?

What do you look like?

What are you doing tomorrow?

What is your favourite tv show?

Describe yourself:
What is your name?

What is your current mood?

What is your favourite movie?

What kind of pet do you have?

Where do you live?

Where do you work? [technically, this is my dorm, but I put in University of Limerick...)

What is your relationship status?

'nuff said.

Mormons, Mormons, YAY!

This was the cheer going through my mind the entire time I talked with 2 cute mormon boys on their mission here in Limerick today... :) It's a miracle I didn't actually tell them about the cheer, oh my.

So I am walking to the grocery store from the bus stop. It was a sunshiny day (FINALLY!) and I took advantage by walking a bit farther than I normally would have. This route meant that I would walk for about 5mins along a walking/bike path and let me tell you: when the sun shines in Ireland, people come out of the woodwork! I can't remember seeing this many people outside since the summer when Ky and I toured. I'm listening to my ipod and enjoying my walk when I notice up ahead two young men wearing black suits... and then I looked for the name tags.

I haven't ever actually talked to mormons who were on mission before.

At least a hundred people walking around, but at the moment when we actually cross paths... not a soul! So they stopped and offered me a tract. Now - do we know me? haha.

I took the tract, but told them that it was pointless to talk to me about mormonism, that I was a devout Christian and I would just be a waste of their time.

So then they asked me about my church. haha! I told them that we didn't have a name - that we were just Christians. One guy was from Idaho, so I told him about our assembly in Peyette, which brought up the "church universal" scenario. They asked if I had a local assembly, and I said, "no", but that two assemblies in Canada post their services online and I am able to participate online, which impressed them... :)

At some point, I am sure I mentioned the fact that I know mormons who go on missions & that I saw them (missionaries. not the ones I know.) all the time in Canada. They agreed that they are easy to spot & I said, yeah... all I have to do is look for the name tag... *sigh* big. mouth.

At another point in the convo, I mentioned that I am doing my own evangelism here and they were very intrigued! I said, well, I live in a 96% catholic nation and I am protestant; of course people are going to hear where I am coming from. It's a miracle I didn't stand there and evangelise them - 'cause that would have made for some great stories!

And that was my 10 minute talk with mormon missionaries on the side of the road in Limerick, Ireland. :)

SPD 2008 :)

Nicole, Serena & I (L-R) at the SPD parade!

[most of this is a repeat for Ang. except the story about the train station... sorry AG]

almost...ALMOST... kissed a cute irishman. Actually, not anywhere close. One guy was cute, but he was on his way to work at O'Neill's... and the rest of the guys I saw were not irish. I did, however get hit in the head by a giant inflatable hammer that made a sound like a baby toy when it hit me -- the guy was like, 22 tops, and he pretended like he didn't do it... we were walking into & out of the hotel via revolving doors, so he pulled it off quite nicely... I called out "happy st patrick's day to you, too!" but no kissing. And he was DEFINITELY american.

* * * * * *

Dublin was WONDERFUL! Nicole and I took the 735am train up from Limerick Monday morning and met Serena there (she went to visit a friend on Sunday). Our big adventure was when we learned about the efficiency of the Irish, which was aptly identified as an oxymoron by Nicole, the hard way. Once our train arrived at Heuston station in Dublin, we still had to take the LUAS to Connelly station and then the DART to Pearse station in order to walk the least amount with our luggage. One thing we learned was that it is exactly TWO stops from Connelly to Pearse, but we did not learn that until after we waited at Connelly on platform 5 for 15 mins only to have the Pearse train disappear at the last minute and miraculously reappear on platform 6. We had to walk the equivalent of 2-3blocks, go down a flight of stairs, cross under the tracks, & go back up the stairs -- as we are crossing under the tracks, we can hear the Pearse station train drive away... so we get up the stairs and ask 2 more train employees when the next Pearse train leaves and they say 14 mins. Next train arrives. No one is on it. 14 mins go by. The doors are unlocked, so 7 of us jump on the train and the guy waves the engineer on. The train crawls slowly for about 5 mins... a girl thinks we're going backwards, away from Pearse station. Train stops. Engineer comes out and tells us that we are on a train that is sitting in the trainyard and going nowhere! *sigh* We wait for the green light to return to the station, get off train #1, walk under the tracks (again), arrive at platform 6 to see the same people who were waiting for the train when we left. Another 20 mins go by, get on train #2 like normal people, stand for 4 mins and get off in 2 stops. In the hour that it took to do all that, we could have walked to Pearse station 3 times! haha!

We met Serena & checked our baggage at the hotel and walked to the parade. It was crazy-crowded! 650,000ppl! see here for more about the parade:

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/0317/breaking14.html?via=me

We kept moving places so see different angles and I have some really fun photos of people climbing trees, lamp posts, phone booths, other people, etc to see the parade... I loved it! It was sooooooooo much fun to be around so many people who were as excited about dressing silly and green :) I also have pics of cute boys and cops... can't help myself...



Then we went to O'Neill's Pub&Carvery (where Angela and I went in October & Jill & I went in January... becoming a regular hang out of mine!) for lunch and it was unbelievably crowded. We ended up sharing a table with strangers and when they left a guy came and sat down beside us all by himself. So when Serena & Nicole went to the bathroom, we chatted for a bit. Turns out he was there by himself because he works there. He's lived in Savannah, GA and NYC, and we talked about how the majority of irish people who actually celebrate SPD are either under the age of 10 or the parents of those under the age of 10... haha!

Then we went to check in at the hotel and just talked/relaxed/enjoyed the room for a few hrs and went back out to the city in the evening for supper. We walked to St Stephen's Green and down Grafton St and around Temple Bar a bit and finally settled on a Tapas Bar called Salamancas. It was really nice! A little on the expensive side, but we cut out a night at the hotel so that we wouldn't feel badly about spending $ on food.

We went back to the hotel and talked more (it's 3 girls, what else would you expect, eh?) and I took a BATH in a BATHTUB!!!!!!! and when I got out, the girls had found an episode of Corner Gas and left it on for me to watch - how cool are they???? They'd never seen/heard of it before, but it played here at midnight, so that is good for me to know! :) I laughed so hard - they did not get most of the jokes. Or at least did not find them as funny as they would have if they'd lived in SK. But they enjoyed making fun of the characters :) It was the episode when the "small town doctor" comes to check out Dog River to see if she should move there and decides Dog River is too big for her... I loved it :)

Bed at 1am, up at 845 to go sit in the jacuzzi for 20 mins while the other two were dressing and then we went to starbucks and mcd's before taking the train back to Limerick... how american did we feel: starbucks and mcd's??? But we so did not care! It was cheap. ish.

just in case

Just in case anyone thought I was exaggerating about the psychotic gale-force winds I mentioned earlier this year, tonight's wind is averaging around 74km/hr (45mph). A friend of mine was walking home from work (we live in the same village), in the rain, and when she reached the end of the bridge, the wind pushed her over the edge and she slid down the bank - but just a little, and she didn't fall on her butt - but STILL, wind that can knock a full-grown person over... I was not exaggerating. She had to stand still and brace herself against the wind for a minute & wait for it to change directions before she could continue walking.

Why is this not mentioned in books? Okay - so sometimes it is. When the people are on a coastline and its a "brisk wind". Well, let me tell you... I have heard the Irish use the phrase "brisk" with this kind of wind here... and it's not what you're 'tinking'. It is seriously like SK in the winter mixed with NC hurricanes. :)

I guess that's why they never write about it... it is pretty indescribable... just trust me, I guess! Love you all ~

and THIS is why I love Irish Men:

I found this on a website on accident and actually sighed aloud:

Irish He Is

A strange blend of shyness, pride and conceit,
And stubborn refusal to bow in defeat.
He's spoiling and ready to argue and flight,
Yet the smile of a child fills his soul with delight.
His eyes are the quickest to well up with tears,
Yet his strength is the strongest to banish your fears.

His hate is as fierce as his devotion is grand,
And there is no middle ground on which he will stand.

He's wild and he's gentle, he's good and he's bad.
He's proud and he's humble, he's happy and sad.
He's in love with the ocean, the earth and the skies,

He's enamoured with beauty wherever it lies.
He's victor and victim, a star and a clod,
But mostly he's Irish.. in love with his God

Only because Jen tagged me ;)

Four Things Meme

4 Jobs I have had:

camp counselor
instructional assistant (I am in the pic!)
admin for (court-sentenced) domestic violence offenders counseling
research assistant/transcriptionist/etc/all-in-one

4 Movies I can watch over and over:

The Holiday
Serenity
Aladdin
Bridget Jones (technically, this scene is from the Edge of Reason, but I love this scene so much! - I enjoy the first film in its entirety more...)

4 Places I have lived:

Charlotte
Saskatoon
Calgary
Limerick

4 TV Shows I love:

CSI (Vegas, of course)
Criminal Minds
Bones
House
I had to limit this according to shows still playing...*sigh*

4 Places I have vacationed:

Orlando (not Bloom, sadly)
Bahamas Cruise
Kelowna
Eire (pre-move touring)

4 of my favorite dishes:

my grandmother's Beef Stew
tomato basil soup from Java's (UL coffeehouse)
pierogies (wow, there are a billion ways to spell this!) and winkler sausage
dolmades & pastichio

4 Sites I visit daily:

UL Website
Gmail
Limerick Weather (technically, it's on my homepage, but still...)
Any new Blog Posts

4 Places I would rather be right now:

Park Valley
Hugging my Family (NC)
In a Hot Spring at Banff
actually, I LOVE the place where I am - I just miss the people who aren't here with me...

Four Bloggers I am tagging:

Plead the 5th. ;)

Rabelais & Classroom Evangelism

Hi Everyone :)

So yesterday was my first presentation of the term. It was a 15min individual presentation on Rabelais' Abbey of Theleme for a Utopian Studies course. Those were the only parameters I was given. No box. No question to answer or topic to address. I was literally given the green light to take this in any direction I wanted to as long as I had done adequate research to back up my work.

SO...

I decided to go with the minority (Who's surprised???) and I chose a fairly controversial angle. Keep in mind that I am speaking in a classroom setting in a nation that is 96% catholic and that out of the 10 other people in the classroom, 3 come from buddhist backgrounds, one I don't know about, and the rest were raised Catholic - and most of them have actively chosen a life of agnosticism or atheism...

so what do I decide?

I argue that instead of being the sarcastic, bawdy, carnivalesque, critical utopia that the majority of academia believes, Rabelais' Abbey of Theleme (you don't really need to know the story to understand the joy of my self imposed bravery/stupidity, fyi) could actually be seen as a blueprint for a true following of the Christian faith - that he attacked the rituals of the Catholic Church while maintaining the essence of what Paul was trying to teach in the New Testament...

And that would have been okay. I did have my academic journal articles to support this argument... but then the prof(s) and student(s) started asking questions. The big ones were "how do you think Rabelais' Abbey can be applied to 21st century life?" and "What do you think about the fact that the Abbey literally had no walls?" and "Isn't a 'civilised world' one that requires rules in order to have order?"

SO

I went into this big evangelical PROTESTANT talk about how I believe in a Christianity where people can follow the freedoms allowed in the Abbey and still reflect Christ without being restricted by religious rituals... and how my life (and the lives of many people in my Christian circle (hope you don't mind!) is filled with this philosophy of being "in the world and not of it" and how as much as we would like to sequester ourselves into our retreats and never go home -- the world needs us, and needs to see the freedom that Christ offers, and that by living our lives with the freedoms Rabelais offers, the world will be able to see what Christianity really is and that his walls can be taken figuratively. AND that we, as Christians, should, in fact, be drawn toward actually BECOMING a figurative version of Theleme (which means "God's Will" from the original Greek, by the way) - that if our lives are Spirit-led and Spirit-filled and the fruits of the Spirit can be seen in our lives, then our will cannot stray far from the Will of God and what we want to do will in fact be what God would have us do.

YES. I SAID THIS IN A GRADUATE-LEVEL COURSE. *SIGH*

And in response to the 3rd big question, I mentioned that I don't believe that civilisation is restricted to a world of rules and laws -- but that (and I quote): "if Dr Kelly is looking at God, and Muireann is looking at God, and I am looking at God, and God doesn't change, He won't lead us in different directions, and the order will come naturally." I also mentioned that my understanding of a civilised world was a world in which respect and consideration were priority - instead of legalism.

Can we say "soapbox"??? The thing is... they DID ask me the questions.

I just don't know if I will get docked marks for not quoting theorists... I am familiar with ton(ne)s more than I was 6 mos ago, but I don't know them well enough to spout them off the top of my head...

but I apparently know my bible and church history! That's good, right?

hahahaha

welcome to MY world. If I don't make it to PhD programs because I know more Bible than I know theory... I am okay with that :)