I will be missing you, Ireland-Love, love, love.

Ballyvaughan, I love youuuu!!!!

So, I am now relocated to Orchard House-craziness-never thought I would sleep in this house, I've slept over at all the others, but this one tends to be out of control/dirty/etc. :S But it will only be about 8 of us, maybe? Me, Suzanne, Katie, Maura, Lindsay, Brad, John, and Alex I think for a little while-Most of us are here til Monday, I believe. Monday, I'll take a bus with Katie to Galway, then to Dublin, where I'll stay the night and meet my aunt on Tuesday morning, theeeen, we'll fly out to France at 6 pm, i think...after that, it's back to Ballyvaughan for little bit and then home! Whoa! So much relocating! Well, I gotta go into town to mail some art home and check out the farmer's market and then maybe go for tea at Joe's house-tata!

Blasted Volcano

So, here's the thing...there's this volcano, named Eyjafjallajokull (Do not ask me how to pronounce it, it's insanity) CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO but it has errupted, twice, and that has caused a ton of volcanic ash to fill the air and float all over the place, screwing up all the airspace, keeping all the airports in Europe closed... we are stuck here, in Ireland, on an island! It's like LOST! lol Yeah, so my aunt was supposed to get here Wednesday afternoon and then we were eventually going to travel to France and have fun traveling together, buuuuuut we don't know how to predict when this ash problem will go away...so I might be here for a while in tiny little Ballyvaughan, which has it's pros and cons. We will be taken care of just fine, from what we've been told, if we're stranded-we can stay in one of the student houses (in which I would rather not stay because it's the crazy party house) but otherwise, Megan might let me stay in a thatched cottage in Ballyvaughan that her family had rented-they probably won't get here, so we could take advantage of that instead! Otherwise...I think the idea of building a primitive hut on the side of the mountain would be a lovely way to live here on the countryside for a while, might as well try better connecting with nature while I'm stranded here for possibly forever. :) And there's always the Newtown Castle...could be a bit cold and hard on the back, but it's there and always open! Some people are really freakin out because of plans not working out the way they were planning, but for me, other than worrying I'll miss seeing my sister's baby belly grow, I figure I might as well just try and chill out (like the volcano should do) and enjoy being here a bit longer :) Yesterday, I finished up my Irish Studies paper, which was the last thing I had to accomplish here, workwise! After that, I went and laid on the grass and just soaked up the outdoors, it was lovely to just smell the grass and be bundled up like a white burrito in a blanket and wait for Janine and Ryan to finish cooking a delicious chicken/sausage curry dinner! After that, I just hung out at their house while the others worked on their papers, then Seth and I decided to write a collaborative poem over facebook chat, which resulted in this lovely 2 page poem/story that will probably make no sense unless you there to laugh hysterically about the plotline...but it was really really fun, we couldn't ever read it straight through without having a laugh attack cuz it was so ridiculous! We had started a group on facebook called "Poetry Fridays" or something like that and we only did that once and it was so much fun! Seth and I decided to be the super arrogant team, so we've been doing our best to live that up and add more arrogant team appraising things to the group information and have been telling everyone how amazing our poetry talents are as a team, so here it is, sorry if you find it offensive, we kinda got on this crazy plot thing that led to necessary controversial events:

Brilliance with a side of steak...and maybe some jam.

There once was a steak named Josh

This steak thought it was very posh

His mother was proud, and she lived on a cloud

One day, her pride at a loss, she showered him with steak sauce

He danced and he flipped, his mom was the boss

Needing some seasoning, he grabbed some moss, named it Ross, and gave it a toss

Even though they were pals, he needed some gals, so seasoning was needed indeed

So he moseyed over to a flower, tall as a tower, and rather than cower he showered her with the rare words, medium glances, and well done dances

The flower was impressed, she even needed a rest, his charm was too much, it was best

But the mother would have nothing of it and told her to shove it, no flower would have the power no matter how he loved it

The flower was offended and her heart went unmended, so she wilted away and the love finally ended

In sorrow Josh moaned, and he wept and then slept until he was phoned

It was his mother to say she was sorry, but he hung up and called the show Maury, for he was sad and enraged, and was sick of being caged, his friends had really started to worry

So they invited them in, telling her she had won a prize of substantial size, the greatest bin that ever was made - lies!!

Her face showed up on the screen and the scene was obscene, Josh yelled and his mother just cried, the flower appeared and Josh grew a beard, his manliness finally revealed


In his moment of triumph he was in for a surprise, when Maury revealed his father, a man of great honor, who liked to wear three ties

Josh's bearded jaw dropped, and his meaty heart stopped, his father looked just like Kurt Russell, not knowing how to react to the outrageous fact, he got outta there in a hustle

Steak sauce flew and his temper blew as his space was incredibly violated, the flower showed up said "Yo. Sup?", then said she and Kurt were related

Josh was sedated, his mother elated, his father ingratiated with the woman he had dated and the son he had never hated

Steak boss blushed, as her greasy hair she brushed, for she wanted her best to impress...the man she had lost that returned at a cost, but she cleaned up real nice in a dress

As they planned their big night, Josh fumed with great spite. rather than live with an attraction so strange, he began to exclaim "I want a sex change in order to make things right"

The Sexy Boss expired and Papa Kurt tired, "no more of this troubled son business!" He stormed off backstage and the flower engaged in a rather uncomfortable convo…

"Uncle Russell, I'm gay, or a lesbian, sorry... I wish I could be not so strange." But her uncle embraced her and said he didn't judge her, then his tummy really started to growl...

He stood closer to the steaks, gazing with a twinkle in his eye, his mind was on meat pie covered in sauce the size of the Great Lakes

So he looked to the heavens and apologized for his wrongs before he scooped up his son, using some tongs. Josh looked at Kurt Russell, afraid for his fate, they had just reunited, just a little too late

Feeling their relationship was tainted, the mother had fainted and was awoken by the host. Not realizing he foresaw a great roast with a side of toast and maybe some jam, she fell in love with the man and off the stage they ran

The lovelife had ended for the lesbian flower as she slumped into the sunset, in the midst of spring showers, depressing songs of loneliness played in her head as she began to think she’d be better off dead



I know, very "unique" poem with a depressing end, but it was really hilarious to write and for us to laugh about now :)

Anyways, I'm over at Marie's house, casually hanging out with Megan and Jess-we're going to head over to Logue's and Megan and I are going to eat dinner while Jess and Kaitlyn just enjoy the pub I guess

Gindi is growlingggggggg!!!!!!!!!! Fooooooooooood!

Love you guys, hopefully, I can get home to you sometime!

...so I wiped out climbing over an electric fence wire today...I was holding a pb&j sandwich and my laptop, and I was concerned randomly that the wire that had never shocked us before would be on, so I hoisted my leg over it and decided to kinda do this nice graceful leap maneuver aaaaand next thing I knew, I was flying and then landing embarrassingly on the ground and was finding globs of peanut butter and jelly in random places, I just sat there and laughed at myself and then popped my head up over the stone wall to see if Max could possibly have witnessed the amazing event from the sunroom, but I don't think there was a way he would have seen...it was a good wipe out and now a great memory-took long enough for my clumsiness to come out!

Sorry...it's been way too long, I know

Hey, everyone :) So, I am STILL ALIVE here in Ireland! Yay! It is still as gorgeous as ever, if not more than it was! The springtime is starting to happen and we're loving it :) I have done so much since I last posted, I don't even know what I last blogged about...oh well! My best memory, or the one that comes to mind, is Charleville Forest Castle. It was incredible. The castle is supposedly one of the most haunted locations in the world! I did not see any ghosts and witness anything that strange, but some people claim they kinda did sorta. It was so beautiful! I love old buildings so much, all of the little aged details just get me so excited and I can't stop taking pictures...so much so that I took about 1,030 photos in 2 days lol. I went with the photography class, the trip was meant for photo students, but there were about 7 or 8 extra allowed, so I got to go for only 40 euro! SO worth it. We arrived there (Tullamore, I think the town was called?) in the afternoon and then stayed overnight! I barely slept, most people were up and about the castle a lot of the dark hours, but it was FREEZING there! No matter where we were, in the castle or outside, it was so cold! I suppose it kinda added to the experience though-made it more intense! The forest that surrounds the castle is the oldest in Europe and is also supposedly haunted. We wandered around in the forest at night and kinda got lost for a while, which was funny, but we heard what we decided was a centaur right as we were going into the forest. We heard what we thought was another student coming through the trees toward us as we approached the forest path, but then nobody showed up and we heard trotting across the road in front of us(but couldn't see anything) and then it went back into the forest. (They apparently have deer...but I still think it was a centaur.) We stayed in a big open room with 2 fireplaces, which were the coziest thing in the castle and we laid on the floor in sleeping bags :) We stayed until the next day around 3:30 (after we walked to the town in the late morning for lunch, walked back and hung out on this huuuuge tree reading stories outloud, it was fun :) )Apparently, a little girl, named Harriet, fell from the top floor of the huge spiral staircase when she was 7 or 8 years old and she died, so now she haunts the castle. Janine waited in the dark, by herself for an hour or more, calling Harriet, she really wanted to meet her-she loves kids. Janine ended up being the only person to scare me while I was there-I walked upstairs with a group of people and then I walked ahead into one of the nursery rooms with my flashlight and turned and screamed "HOOOOOly crap..." when my light fell on Janine sitting in the corner, smiling back at me in the dark! It was pretty funny. So yeah, the castle was amazing, the stars were beautiful, the fireplaces were cozy, the moss and old stone was gorgeous...I want to go back!!!!!! Perhaps, one day. :) I'm watching Runaway Bride right now, I love this movie! Anyways, other than the amazing castle...I have been doing art, listening to traditional music in the pubs, Monks has music every Friday night, so we're doing that tonight...ummmm we went on a 7 mile walk for Irish Studies which was so gorgeous!!!! Today, for Irish Studies, we took a bus around to some beautiful places, like Yeats' tower and bridge and Lady Gregory's house spot, the house was demolished a while ago, but the grounds were so beautiful! We went into this forest that was the prettiest forest I think I've ever seen...rows and rows of tall tall trees, we took a really cute picture of a group of us and oh man...I'm gonna miss people here! Lately, so many of us have been thinking about how hard it's going to be to leave this place and everyone here...so sad :( Seeing my family and friends at home again will be wonderful, but it will be hard to not be here anymore. I GOT TO PET BABY SHEEP AND SORT OF HUG A MOMMA SHEEP AT THE FANORE ST. PATRICK'S DAY PARADE!!!!!!! AHHHHH!!!!! For actualy St. Patrick's day, I stayed in Ballyvaughan and relaxed with other students who stayed here and then there was a Potluck at Marie's house and then we all hung out at Logue's pub. As for my art: I have been drawing portraits of the students here, I'm loving it :) Absolutely loving it :) I think I stayed away from drawing a lot until recently because I love drawing people so much, but Brad and Suzanne have been drawing and painting people here, so I just wasn't, but mine are little tiny pencil drawn portraits, not charcoal or paint. I want to have them in little wooden frames perhaps, clustered together on the wall to show the mixing of so many different personalities here-I love it! I have 10 done, so I have 17 left to go, which is quite a few, but I think I can do it! I have found that it is so much harder to draw the people I've gotten to know better, I know when their face isn't quite right, which is actually pretty cool, I guess :) They are all different sizes, all small, but not all the same, which I think I really like. Tonight, we're going to Monks for music and then, tomorrow, we go to Gort for gorceries, which I really don't feel like doing...after that, I need to get more portraits done! Ummmm.......what else....uhhhhh...Oh! Brittany and I did a really fun and successful project for Mixed Media, involving us sitting in the photo light studio with our cameras videotaping us making ridiculous faces and noises and then we sped it up by 3 times and played them on our computers, side by side, so it showed us interacting/feeding off of each other-everyone really seemed to like it! :) Let's see...Connolly house has had a couple "Fight Nights," well, one was during the day and I only saw the first one, but it was pretty entertaining. Silly boys and actually a couple girls ramming themselves into each other, just embarrassing. lol Goooosh, there's so much to tell, but I don't even know what else to write about, it's so much, hmmm... ohhh well. Hehehehe, our house, minus Brian (he was already sleeping) made a bunch of really funny music videos with Suzanne's computer (Photobooth video) on the mirror setting, oh my gosh....so fun. I LOVE THE MOVIE RUNAWAY BRIDE SO MUUUUUCH! I don't know what else to write about. I guess I'll just be done for now! At least I'm back on the blog! Love you all!

Long Time No Post

Hey everyone! So let me see...where did I last update? I dunno, I suppose around the time my dad was here, huh? Yeah. Well, My dad left Ireland on the 15th, but I had to say goodbye on the 13th. :( I miss him! We had such a great time here, hanging out around in Ireland's lovely countryside! I get the idea that he really had a nice time, too. :) The last Friday he was here, he was able to come along with our group for our Irish Studies fieldtrip to a bunch of ring forts/fairy rings. It was entertaining for him to observe our group in that type of setting-everyone was climbing all over everything, acting like monkeys! He said to my mom in an e-mail: It was like a herd of Lindseys! lol so funny, I suppose in many ways, that is true, we are all very ADD and silly in our own ways and curious and just creative, i suppose! I think my favorite memories with my dad when he was here was the day we went to Kinvara. It was so fun to be silly, taking ridiculous pictures and roaming around in such a cute little town and theeen we got to explore in that cool old church/cemetary and in that little hobbit hole mound we found on our way to Kinvara. That was just a splendid day. :) We also went to Galway on that last Saturday I saw him. Galway was gorgeous and sunny! I was, unbelievably, able to lead us to the An Tobar Nua cafe that I had gone to with some friends a while ago (the little Christian place that I randomly ended up at! We have some family connections to the people that are associated with it) Theeen we wandered and found this great pub/restaurant (can't remember the name off the top of my head, I'll find my receipt...hold on...The Dali Bar!) It was so cool in there and I bought us both bacon cheeseburgers with "chips" and onion rings-dad got a mini Guiness lol I made fun of him. The Irish told us that a man should get a pint and not finish it rather than get a half pint, buuuut I suppose that rule doesn't have to apply to everyone! Anyways, that was nice. Then, let me see...I suppose we shopped for a while, which I think was pretty successful! I had to go to Penney's to buy some clothes for getting kind of dressed up when i go out to certain places, I didn't really have anything. Then, we went back to the little Claddagh jewelry place, where the guy working looked like Ryan Fennessy! I bought a classic Claddagh ring (that points OUT! My heart has not been claimed here, no worries!!!) Our walks by the bay was lovely, I'm so glad we had nice weather. Ummmm what else...yeah, I had to say goodbye to him after coming home and getting partially ready for the evening. :( I miss you, Papa! After he left, a group of us students went to Kinvara for a Mardi Gras thing that was a fundraiser, but it was pretty funny. Beforehand, Michelle and I ate a little bit at a pub and had some nice conversation, then we went to go dance at the location of the festivities. There were a bunch of little kids dancing (it was a costume party that none of us really knew about and there was a little girl dressed as a squirrel!) Hmmm what else has happened...I dunno, we've started watching episodes of Dawson's Creek, which is so hilarious! Brings back memories of my youth... Katie and I just lose it throughout the day whenever a Dawson quote comes up in conversation. hehehe so silly. Love it! Hmmmm.............I've been pretty stressed. Yep. I think a lot of us have been, but my motivation has been lacking and that's been frustrating and having the confidence to get things done has been hard to come by, as well. Today, I'm just staying home to try and get through some things, hopefully having a little break from the stressful atmosphere of school will help me. :) I am going to keep my chin up and push onward, because I'm a big girl and I can get through this! Yeah! Please be praying for me, I need any encouragement I can get! I love being able to talk to people on skype, it helps so much to see your faces when I talk to you. I can't imagine what it would be like if I couldn't do that. I am so far away, and every once in a while, it feels like much more than other times. Anyways, what it comes down to: I will be OK! Love you guys!

Critique & Kinvara!

Good evening! (Well...to me) This morning, I had my sculpture critique...it wasn't an amaaazing critique, but it wasn't horrible either, I got a lot of interesting and helpful feedback from the professor and other students. It reminded me of how I almost always get the same type of response with my sculptures: Very arranged/prop or stage craft/set-like...soooo it kind of made me think that I have been avoiding or trying to get away from doing those things, when maybe I should be embracing that artistic impulse and trying to do decorative or stage craft-like work...is interior design/decorating for me? or maybe stage set design or prop making? I don't know, but I have always loves decorating rooms and I love creating an aesthetic environment, even if it doesn't count as "high art," as many say. It just got me thinking about new ideas for my future career, so even though i wasn't highly praised for my sculpture this morning, I really learned a lot in a way, my eyes were opened and I think I may have needed that to take place :) Our next project will involve an installation piece, which is what I've been wanting to try out! So, I think I can really try the whole decorating thing more seriously, and I might use my whole studio for the project :) So, that is my art update :)

After lunch, dad came and met me at the school, and we went to Kinvara for the afternoon! Check out the pictures! There are so fun, we had a wonderful time walkin around and taking pictures doing silly and fun things-Neil Young even came on in the cafe! :)

Sculpture!

So, today...I really did a lot of work in my studio (well, technically, right next to it) and finished my sculpture for my class critique, which is tomorrow! I titled it "The Rustic Domestic" and it's actually a feminist type of theme, which is new for me, I think, but it's kind of open for interpretation and sort of shows different views of women's roles, etc... I won't get into that. But, I really loved collecting everything I used for it and assembling. :) I went out a few times and collected a bunch of moss, which was so fun to decorate all the rusty metal with, the colors are beautiful together, in my opinion-naturally complimentary! I now have a big open empty space in my studio, so I will need to fill it! Yay! fun fun! I also kinda finished the main part of my milk story this morning so that i could show Tom what I had and he gave me some ideas for brainstorming for illustrations, I'm excited to get going on those! Dad met up with me at the school's cafe for lunch and then he helped me with my sculpture, I had some difficulty getting some nails out, etc. :) He then stayed in my studio on my computer for a while as I worked and mace horrible crashing noises and hammering and so on and so forth, it was pretty funny. Then he left and I finished working, walked home, then met him later at Logue's for dinner :) So cool to just meet up with my dad in Ballyvaughan! Then we came back to the house for a while and used the internet and had tea and macaroons :) I later got really silly and hyper with Suzanne and Brittany in the kitchen, as we listened to dated music, mostly from the 90s I think...I got pretty nuts for a while...yeeeeaahhhh... Anyways! That's about it for now, I think! I need to add pictures, I know...that may or may not happen soon, we shall see :)

Papa and Linney in Ireland!

Hello! Dad is here!!!! IN IRELAND!!! It was so exciting to see him driving down the road towards me as I was walking to the college to meet him Saturday morning!!! I hopped in the car and we drove (on the left side of the road!) to the college, where I showed him around. He got to meet Robert, Kinji, Mary, and MARCUS! He seemed to really love the school, thought everything was so "me!" Then, I took him in the castle! After that, i showed him around the wooded fairy tale area, where I told my story to my Mixed Media class, then we went hiking on the "mountain." The day was so gorgeous! it could not have been more beautiful. :) After hiking for a while, we climbed back down and drove to Logue's pub for lunch. We both got children's menu hamburgers with "chips." So good! I, of course, have had that here before, but the waitress said that she had the cook make them a big bigger than usual, since we were adults. :) Kinda cute. It was hilarious to have the 2 of us eating burgers and fries together, because we went through so many ketchup packets! I, of course, took a picture of the ketchup packet pile lol :) After lunch, we went to my house, where I gave him the grand tour! And after thaaat, we walked down to the water (the Galway Bay), it was very pretty, I hadn't really been down there before, I also showed him Monk's pub really quickly. Dad said at once point, after noticing how many pictures i was taking of him, "Now, I know what Prince Charles must feel like!" I love my dad. After returning to my house after the bay, (I'm missing or missing up the order of some of these things, probably...just fyi) he gave me little gifts that he brought along! Including a lovely Valentine's Day gift bag from Mamacita with Riesens and brownie mix!!! (THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!) and he also got me normal American deodorant and mascara lol and measuring cups and a muffin pan/cupcake pan and BAKING SODA! Now, I can make normal cookies!!!!! Hooray! We ended up driving to Gort for the ATM and groceries at SuperValu...let's just say that the drive was interesting and life-altering. The most memorable point was when the back left wheel hit the curb and made a horrendous noise, causing my dad to turn around and look behind to try and figure out what happened, meanwhile, a motorcyclist was coming right at us, head on-so I, in my "Holy crap, we're about kill somebody monotone voice" said "Dad. Motorcycle." and he swerved over to the left at the last second! It was terrifying. We ended up just laughing out of tension and near death experience aftershock. We also saw a spastic magpie (bird) take a 2 second speed bath in a puddle on our side of the road, nearly committing suicide in the doing, I don't know what the little featherbrain was thinking... We did eventually get to Gort after making many wrong turns, since the signs here are so stupid and unhelpful! We ended up seeing the Burren group right as they were boarding the bus to head back from doing their grocery shopping! Dad met Brian, the bus driver, and Brian informed me that i had called him from my pocket at 11:30pm the night before...stupid phone. We got groceries and headed home! Today (Sunday) I met up with dad for church at 11:30, and Suzanne, Brittany and Janine came along, too! (Janine spent the night last night-we had so much fun laughing for about 2 hours about the "Super Bowl Club" that we intensely planned for in a ridiculously hilarious way!) Church was innocent as it was the time before and I introduced dad to the priest-so funny! The priest told us that I would be sad and no longer smile if I met a man! He basically tries to play matchmaker, but then says that men ruin girls' happiness. Not too far from the truth at times, I suppose! hahaha After church, our house made brunch and dad came and ate with us! (All of us, minus Brian, plus Janine!) It was delicious! Dad wanted to check out a hostel in Carran, so I went along with him for the ride-it was so beautiful, we couldn't believe it! We ended up passing a place where we had visited a wedgetomb on our Irish Studies trip (dad and I took a quick look) and it turned out the hostel was not open for the season, not surprising. We listened to 60s music on the radio as we drove and then the song "I Got a Feelin" from the Black Eyed Peas came on, I love that song, so happy! Then, I was dropped off at home. I finally got a bunch of stuff off my computer, or at least some, so I opened up some space!!! Thanks for the flashdrive, Papa! A few of the house family are attending the superbowl party tonight, i think (costs 10 euro for food and beer-I won't be attending for several reasons.) I think I might try and work on my Cow story for independent drawing and maybe brainstorm about some other things, who knows... Sooooo...let's see, I didn't update about Friday night festivities...pretty sure, anyways. We went to Monks, looking for live music, which they didn't have, so we went over to Logue's and sat for a while, then the 21st birthday party music started. They had an accordion player who played over a music track! So funny! There was Irish set dancing going on with the locals and then some students tried joining at a couple times, it was pretty funny. Ummmm...what else...hmmmm....I just ate soup and nan bread=deliciousness. That's about it!!! Thanks again, Mom, so the gifts of chocolatey love!!!! I love you wish you were here, along with the rest of the family!!!

First Critique!

I had my first Burren College of Art critique this morning. It went quite well :) It was for my Mixed Media class, with Aine (Anya) Phillips for the "Journey" assignment. I ended up taking the whole class (7 other students and the professor) on a walk to the middle of the fairy-like woods that I found. Once we got to the spot i had selected yesterday, I gave everyone a piece of plastic bag to sit on since the beautiful mossy rocks were wet from the rain early this morning :) Once everyone sat down, and I found my nice spot in front of a tree, I read them all a fairy tale that i wrote, called The Scarlet Flax. It was pretty cool to read it in that wooded setting:) Aine really enjoyed it and said my writing was lovely and couldn't think of how the performance could have been any better! It was encouraging, I wasn't sure what they would think of it, but Aine and I talked about the meanings behind fairy tales and my story/morals, etc. It was nice :) Theeeen I went to lunch and walked home. I found, to my delightful surprise, that brittany was also home already, so we are watching Finding Neverland, while cuddling up on the couches in our sweats! So nice :) I'm getting so excited for my dad to be here!!!

I hate computers!

So, my computer is not pleased with life. My hard-drive is full, so I need an external hard-drive-grrrrrrr so conveniently timed, was it not? Get to Ireland and blehhhhhhhhhh, stupid computer issues=awesome. Whatever! Today was a sleepy day. I was up until 3 last night, researching artists for art history. We had to come with artists that connect with what we're doing with out own art and then we need some type of topic/focus for the class-we will have presentations at the end of the semester. I am thinking of doing mine on full room installation art-like really cool cluttered spaces/fully decorated rooms. I have been enjoying decorating my studio with found objects and just making a space that is aesthetically pleasing to me, so I figured I would try looking into that more, research a lot, and maybe figure out if it's something I would be interested in pursuing. Decorating could be pretty cool, I think, just as long as it isn't too prim and proper/particular/formal/structured...I need creative elbow room, you see! I just like to drape pieces of fabric and use cool old branches and put rusty pieces of metal on the wall...ya know? :) Well...we had our Wednesday Session this afternoon, and Kinji was the presenter. Brian put together a slideshow for him, since Kinji isn't too computer-savvy (good for him!) Turns out that Kinji has done some really big time landscaping projects for school campuses and such-he's made a lot of benches that incorporate large rocks. Very expensive work, though. He is seriously the most adorable man. Seriously. He's like the Asian grandfather I never had! Oh my goodness, so I just remembered this...this morning, when we got to school, we found that Marcus (cat) had left a nice gift for Robert by the door of the art supply shop=a huge rat! That silly kitty, he goes and gets a big kill, then he doesn't even eat it, he just leaves it for Robert lol. Mmmmm that rain was beautiful this morning. :) :) :) I just went and stood in it for quite a while, so my hair was sufficiently fluffy today, kinda like a sheep :) Did I mention the baby cow that is in the field by the barn studio? I don't remember, but he is such a little sweetie! I want to hug him, but he's a cow and he always just stands there and stares at me all sweet, as if he were thinking "I know I'm cute and sweet and small...but what do I do?" I like him. :) I also had art history today=so hard to stay awake! I was so sleepy and then I had to go sit in a dark lecture hall and listen to a consistently going voice with a powerpoint slideshow...bad news for falling asleep! I stayed awake for the most part, but it was pretty painful trying to stay awake. During our break, Suzanne and I bought Twix bars to regain some consciousness. I ended up walking home on the Burren Way trail after class, we got out a bit early, so I got back to house at 4:45. I immediately changed into my pjs and crawled into my bed, where I casually drifted off to sleep for about 15 minutes-I even woke up without an alarm, so that was nice :) i got to talk to Muffin for a tiny bit on Skype tonight! Muffin (Hannah) is one of my dear friends at Bethel. :) I love her and miss her. Then, a few girls came over to watch a movie with us (Janine, Katie, and Maura). We watched the movie Harold and Maude, which was really nice, I enjoyed it. It is one of Suzanne's favorite movies, and I see why! The music is all done by Cat Stevens, so the soundtrack was even delightful. Tomorrow is Mixed Media day, so I am going to take the class out to that nice wooded area I found a while back and read them a fairy tale from my Grimms Fairy Tale book that I brought from home hehe, I'm looking forward to it, I think it will be a nice little adventure, or "Journey" as the assignment calls it. There's a lot of cow poop out there as of the last couple of days, so I hope the class won't hate me for demanding a walk through the muck...hmmm...oh well! We're in Ireland, gotta come prepared for these things! Oh! It was so cute, when I was walking back home after class, I passed a few women and their dogs. One of the dogs, a golden lab or something similar, came and was being all friendly, so I was petting him and then he jumped up on me, with his nice muddy paws-the women apologized, but I really didn't care, I just laughed and kept walking. But, as I was wiping off a little bit of mud that was on my jacket, I noticed that there was a perfect muddy paw print left on my jeans! It was so cute! I laughed a bit and then took a picture of it, so once I get those pictures up, you can see for yourself :) Dogs are funny. My dad comes on Friday! I won't be seeing him until Saturday, though...I'm really excited for him to see this beautiful place! It is so calm and cleansing here, I hope he feels the same way that I do about it. :) I plan to take him hiking around the school and to my house and such, gotta get him nice and muddy from the very beginning so he won't hold back for the rest of the trip, right?! :D Well, I am pretty sleepy...I should get some sleep...probably...maybe...hmmm... Well, I love you guys! I miss you Mom, Dad, Smatt, and Abbs! I hope everything is going well in the lives of you lovely Americans, who are still located in America lol. I am doing very well, I'm just temporarily located elsewhere :) somewhere greener and more remote and kinda far away... but, don't worry about me, I'm doing well, staying safe, keeping fed, and being as creative as I can! Love you :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD! :)

Hello hello :) So, today, I don't feel like I did all that much while I was in my studio, other than be silly and chatty with friends, but I ended up walking home around 1ish. It was actually to go on a walk on my own. On the way, I saw a couple really pretty horses, the brown one was standing at the gate and looked so beautiful with the old building behind it, but by the time I got my camera out, he had decided to walk away from the photo perfection location=Bummer. But, I still got some fun pictures of the white horse-he was friendly, I pet his face :) It's kind of cool, on the way home, there is a field with a turlough(sp?) (tur-lock), which is basically a lake-type body of water that randomly appears sometimes! It is, inconveniently, in the field that Marie's house can use for a shortcut, so when the water decides to be there, they won't be able to walk through the field...at least I'm fairly sure that it's in that field. Kinda funky. Anyways, so once I got home, I found that Michelle had been there all day, working on one of her art projects and watching movies, so I got there just in time to watch the movie Donnie Darko with her. I had never seen it before and I did think it was a bit strange, which is what everyone has told me when that movie comes up in conversation. During it, however, I conked out on the floor, wrapped up in my comforter, it was a lovely nap :) Wood floor can really be quite cozy! Theeen I made some food and I started reading some fairy tales and researching for artists I like--> both for class work I have to do. Michelle put in the movie Fight Club and a few other housemates joined the family room to watch. I ended up going into the kitchen to research and such and then got to talk to my daddy on skype! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!!!!! I also got to talk to the Turnwall guys on skype, which was fun-I introduced them to www.manbabies.com, which is a ridiculous site where they edit photos so that the man's head and the baby's head are switched, it's so silly, but pretty hilarious. Well, I think that's all I can really say for now, I'm pretty sleepy! Wednesdays are pretty busy: Wednesday Session+Meeting with Deborah+Art History=Whoa, man! Ok, goodnight!

Junk is lovely :)

Today, I had so much fun decorating my studio space! I decided to do that for my sculpture project, although I might just end up using the wall mounted stuff and the ironing board and such gathered below it for the project and not the entire space...not sure yet though. I think I'll end up painting some random colors that I love and designs and things on walls and pieces of drywall/doors, etc...but again, we shall wait and see! I am really hungry all of a sudden, gahhh! Gindi is getting angry! I realized that I have my Mixed Media project due on Thursday and I really don't know yet what I'm doing for that...hmmmm... a lot of us are in that same boat, thankfully, so I'm not alone in being clueless and artless! Well, I guess the majority of what I did today was decorate and be happy and laughed at Suzanne when she had a big piece of metal on her head and looked so silly :) I need to go make food! Love ya!

Dublin & a Lazy Weekend

Hello! So, this weekend (as in Thursday and Friday) we went to Dublin for a school trip. We left at 7am, which was LOVELY. Guhhh... Then we had a nice 4 hour bus ride. Tim Jones, the dean of BCA, came along as our chaperon and had a lot planned for our time there. We went to so many different museums and galleries...my word. I think the first place we went was the Modern Art Museum. It was in an old building that, apparently, used to be a hospital. I just don't get a lot of modern art. Some of it-ok, fine-but a lot of it just leaves me stumped and sort of annoyed, really. But, I won't get into that whole one-sided debate on my blog! However, there was a cool photography exhibit there that was photos from NY. I know, I'm such an American, but leave me alone, there was some really great work in that exhibit! I think it was all black and white photography and I love the contrasts. :) We also went to a museum with a Francis Bacon exhibit, and I didn't actually go the exhibit of his paintings...you see, a few of us were starving to death and they didn't really give us time in our schedule, soooo we looked around for a while and saw some of the museum and Francis Bacon's crazy studio and then we went to eat. There were a couple quotes, by Francis Bacon, that I really liked:

"I think artists stay much closer to their childhood than other people. They
remain far more constant to those early sensations. Other people change
completely, but artists tend to stay the way they have been from the very
beginning."

"For some reason the moment I saw this place [referring to his studio that I saw]
I knew that I could work here. I am very influenced by places-by the atmosphere
of a room..."

I know that I am very affected by my visual environment. So, I decorated my studio immediately! I might try and do a project that involves covering an entire wall with objects and colors, etc. that express who I am/what I love/ kind of the essence of me. I think it could be a cool self portrait project for me to attempt. Anyways, I also met a leprechaun! I got a picture with him (had to pay him a euro though). Kinji is such an adorable and sweet man. He is the professor that came along with the MCAD students. On Thursday night, he wanted to find an Asian restaurant, so Max, Brian, Alex, Nick, Suzanne, and I went with him to a place called Wagamama. It was really good! We all ate with our chopsticks. :) I actually did alright with them, too! Kinji was so kind to buy us a couple appetizers and then he also bought us a couple desserts, including ginger something cheesecake and some type of spiced chocolate cake. nick told us a story at dinner about how he once had a pet cockroach, named Ralph...I think that was his name. It was so ridiculous, he said it was a gift for him while he was heartbroken from an ended relationship and then another girl came to love Ralph through loving Nick, according to his story=so sweet. lol Ohhh the conversations that we have here! Sooooo, we had dinner there and then we headed back to the hostel, called Barnacles, and I ended up just hanging out in the room and reading a bit until a few girls(Jenny, Allison, Kelly, and Maggie) came and we all just talked, which was nice. Eventually, Allison, Kelly, and Maggie left, so Jenny and I got ready for bed and then ended up talking for an hour or so before finally going to sleep, I love getting to know new people, it makes me happy inside. :) We went to some more museums and such the next day, which included a historical museum where they had bodies that had been discovered in a bog so the skin had turned to leather! It was insane how well preserved some of them were. The hands on one were so crazy, it looked like a sculpture of some type of weird clothing item, since it was leather. You could even see the facial hair on some of them still and they were SO old! Then, Suzanne, John, Janine, and I went to meet the Arcadia people. We had to fill out and turn in our course selection forms. They (Grainne and Hayden) took us out for a really nice lunch. We also got tea and dessert (I got amazing chocolate orange cheesecake!) Then, we parted ways (after spending most of the afternoon with them! They are such delightful people) and Suzanne and Janine and I wandered into a cheap fun jewelry shop and bought necklaces, then went to Dunnes, where we bought some clothes. I got a fun black shirt with a pretty beaded neckline and a turquoise t-shirt. We then headed back to the hostel to get out bags and take off for home! Brittany and Brian stayed the whole weekend in Dublin, so our house was a bit quieter this weekend with less family members. On Saturday, Suzanne and I walked to the school and sketched and hung out with Marcus, it was nice. The walks there and back were great for conversation. I love Suzanne.:) Last night, we watched the movie Snatch and spent time together watching a ridiculous lottery game show beforehand on our one tv channel. Today, I went to church at the Catholic church right behind our house! It was cute and Katie also went. We talked to the priest afterwards and he is ridiculous! He just has a strange sense of humor and Katie and I were laughing hysterically a good majority of the time almost for no reason. I kind of lazied around the house after that, made lunch, and then watched the movie "A Walk in the Clouds" with Michelle. It was a delightfully cheesy movie, starring Keanu Reeves=enough said. My favorite line of his was "When I was boy, every night, I used to climb up to roof of the orphanage and wish on every star I could see." CLASSIC! Gotta love Keanu lol. Theeeeeen, Brittany and Brian got home and most of us watched Zoolander :) Such a silly movie. Then, we laid on the wood floor in the family room, wrapped up in our comforters and just acted liek slugs for a while and I ended up giving Suzanne a backrub as she read for Photography and now, here I am, blogging for you! Then end!

LIVE @ 8

Hey! So, tonight, some of our group went to a performance art thing at this pub in Galway. I had never before seen live performance art, so I was a bit scared. But, although the first part was weird, the videos at the end were hilarious-they were just outrageous, silly videos that this guy made-he has great funny voices and costumes and just very strange ideas for videos. I am going to try and attach some videos on here, but I don't know if they'll work-hopefully, they do, otherwise, look up the name HUGH COONEY on YouTube and watch some of his stuff=so strange. The place we went to was called LIVE @ 8, and Ania, a professor at BCA, is an organizer for the events. But, anyways, I am very glad that there were not any nude performance artists prancing around a stage making strange noises on random objects and painting things with their bodies...those are the types of ideas I have of performance art lol. My laundry is currently washing, and the machine goes nuts! It sounds like it's going to take off and fly to space!!! Turbo cycle, I guess...goodness. I had tea...probably was not wise, we get picked up at 7 am tomorrow to go to Dublin-that could be interesting, but I suppose i can sleep on the bus if I need to! Oh! We had our Wednesday session meetings today, and Tom Malloy and Ania had their presentations=awesome! I loved Tom's stuff! He's the drawing and painting professor, so he had a lot of really great drawings, some cool, detailed pencil drawn portraits and a lot of other stuff. It was great. Ok, now to try and upload those videos!

Tuesday

Hello, again! So, it is Tuuuuesday and, well...not much to tell for today yet, I guess. I didn't really have much motivation to get work done today, so I did some sitting and then I went over to some other students studio spaces and hung out with them and sketched a bit/made some silly cartoon-like drawings for Janine's studio wall. it was pretty funny today, cuz it's Brian's birthday, and he is afraid of whales, so Robert(the do-it-all mini-bus-driver man=really fun sense of sassy humor) told everyone to make whale noises all the time around Brian and to put up pictures of whales and so on, so at one point, Robert even helped Mike(whose studio is next to Brian's) set up speakers for his laptop so that he could play whale noises from youtube very loudly in the studio! It was great. Suzanne passed around a card all day that she had decorated with a nice whale wearing a party hat. :) Then, Michelle and I walked back early, so that we could buy baking ingredients and make a cake! We made a really funny owl cake with 2 layers of cake(chocolate in the middle)-we got M&Ms and little chocolate buttons and pretzels and such, it's pretty funny. I still need to put up pictures from that, I will probably do that later tonight, after we go out to the pub for a b-day celebration(unfortunately, nothing like the dance party last weekend). Oh! I forgot, this morning, a few girls and I went into the computer lab and signed on to Brian's account(we all have the same password) and we changed the desktop backgrounds to pictures of whales so that whichever computer he uses, there it will be! mwuahahahahahaha... Well, we are gonna head over to the pub soon, should be fun, I think quite a few other students are joining us! Love you and miss you, everyone!

Ok, so tonight at the pub-while Brian and some others were celebrating Brian's birthday with strong liquids, Michelle and I were taking sugar shots-please enjoy the videos.

A Very Basic, Pleasant Day

Hello :) So, today was my independent drawing day, so I went to my studio after sitting in the cafe with people for a while, like I always do. I decided to start writing a story for a silly book I had an idea for, so I wrote a couple pages for that in my sketchbook and then made a funky birthday card for Brian's birthday, which is tomorrow. I don't think he reads this, but in case he does...I better not give away that we are hiring a magician, an entire circus performance group and Obama to come tomorrow in honor of his birth. Whoops. I think i just gave it all away. Anyways! Tom Malloy, the drawing/painting professor came to my studio for a weekly catch up visit and we chatted for a while about my story idea and progress and he gave me advice for illustration inspiration and text layout and random artsy/organizational stuff that you wouldn't really by that interested to hear about. I made some fun sketches of cows for my book I'm writing, and then, funny enough, came close to being trampled by a small herd of cows on a dirt road when I went out walking right afterwards! Silly cows... I collected some more cool old stuff in the morning, as well, from the "junk" piles out back and am excited to have more old, aesthetically pleasing decor for my studio floor...that kind of rhymed :) I walked back to the house with Michelle, by means of the Burren way hiking path that I have taken only once before today. It's a nice path, I enjoyed it. :) Then...I took a very short nap, squashed in a two person couch with my huge bed comforter, made dinner, and watched the rest of Matilda and then Stranger Than Fiction=2 very good movies.:) Nooooow I'm sitting here trying to figure out what to do...I guess maybe I could SNEEZE! excuse me. But, I think maybe I will finally edit the pictures from the potluck/birthday dance party to upload onto my facebook...guhhhhh I am getting so sick of uploading things, especially when my computer is on it's deathbed (my hard drive is full, apparently=awesome.) The end for now! I don't think I took any interesting pictures today...oh wait! Yes. I took a video of the cows following me and just of the cows and of Marcus sleeping in Stephanie's studio :) I may or may not put some of those on this post...we shall wait and see.

Birthday Dance Party Extravaganza!

TONIGHT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! POTLUCK AND A BIRTHDAY PARTY DANCE PARTY WITH A DJ AND LIGHTS AND TONS OF FUN AT THE PUB AFTERWARDS!!!!! THAT IS ALL! :D (i'll post pictures later...I have way too many. CORRECTION ON SUNDAY: my photos were deleted off of my camera :( I only have a select amount of the photos from last night)

Food.

Today, we got to sleep in! Whoohoo!!! We met at the Emo station for the bus and then Brian (the bus driver) took us to Gort for grocery shopping and such. First, our whole house family ate lunch together at Grady's restaurant=SO GOOD! I had my first taste of Irish style curry, it was delicious. But, I am still so happy that our family ate lunch together, even though we totally didn't need to, we didn't even realize it really until we were all sitting down and then we were happy. :) We all get along so well! After we ate, we went to Super Valu grocery store and bought food. When we got home, Brittany and I made rice krispie bars with these really funny, multi-colored marshmallows. So the crunchy bottom part is like an orangey color (pink and yellow marshmallows) and then we drizzled the teal color (blue and green ones) on the top! So silly, hopefully they'll taste alright. We have the potluck at 8, so we'll bring those and then Suzanne is making some type of curry thing and I dunno about the guys. It should be fun, eating and communing together in a student house! :) It is super foggy today! Oh! On the bus as we were driving to Gort, we saw a ton of adorable little baby sheep, they were so precious and tiny! They had that kinda wrinkled skin, like a bulldog puppy, and were prancing all over the place, being cute and small. Then, we saw a couple tiny dogs when we were walking back to our house! So many animals around here! :) Wow, I use a lot of exclamation points...whoops. Please enjoy the video. The end.

The Cliffs of Moher

Today, we took an Irish Studies fieldtrip to the Cliffs of Moher, it was so gorgeous there! Ahhhhh!!! It was one of those places that I thought I would get there and be like "Ok, well I guess that's pretty sweet and kinda pretty, but I'm over it," but it was so beautiful! Every angle changed it and made it beautiful in a whole new way and I couldn't stop taking pictures! It was pretty sad though, while we were there, we started to see a bunch of men in bright orange suits laying on the rock ledges and looking out over the water and then a helicopter came and a boat was searching the water by the cliffs. We don't know if someone fell and jumped or what happened, but I guess that kind of thing happens there quite a bit, unfortunately. :( But, aside from that depressing bit of information, we had the most beautifully clear and bright day we could have possibly received! The light for pictures was incredible.:) Whoa, I am freezing, sitting in my studio right now! I walked over here with a couple students to work, so I've been messin around with some junk that I've collected and really like...but I'm ready to go back, just waiting for Brian so that I don't walk back in the dark for 45 minutes by myself! I am also very hungry, I got home after our fieldtrip and wasn't starving, for once in my life, so i just ate bananas and peanut butter, then we walked over to the school and now I'm starving! I want my tortellini. I must have it when I return home! Well...hmmm...I guess we didn't do much else today, just walked around for a couple hours at the cliffs (don't worry family members, I did NOT walk close to the edge of any cliff) and then came home (after I got a really delicious mocha!). Now, I just need to try and talk Brian into leaving soon. The end!

Marcus

Hello! So today, I had my Mixed Media class in the morning, and it was kind of exciting! Our project relates to a "Journey" of some sort, we can do whatever we want with it. :) I went to that and then went exploring some more (so beautiful!) When I got back to my studio, Marcus the cat was sleeping on my chair!!! He ended up staying there for hours!!! I would leave to go do things and come back, and there he would be, being cute and cuddly, wanting attention, which I gave him! :) The rain was great today, too! Brian and I kicked around a soccer ball out in a huge open field behind the barn studio-I bumped the ball off of my head, it was pretty humiliating really. But now my boots are nice and broken in, I'd say! So dirty and getting like scratches here and there after climbing mountains and trekking around in the rain and such things. I did some drawing today (included in the photos I uploaded) and lazied around being mello while I thought about art and doing other things. Then, tonight, we went "set dancing" with almost the whole group! It was so funny. Brittany was my dancing partner, I was the man. I lead like a pro! Hahaha...not really though, we were all over the place, so much spinning, I got dizzy! i think our group has the opportunity to go back for classes every week or so with student funds, so I will probably do that, could be a good work-out! After that, we just all sat in the pub where the dancing had taken place and we talked and laughed and had weird art people conversations that made no sense and it was fun. Some of the group went to Greene's pub when we got back to Ballyvaughan, but I wasn't up for it, so I'm here, showered up and no longer sweaty and nasty and we might watch Sleeping Beauty to make us tired lol. That's about it! Happy Birthday, Nuts the Squirrel! You're 14 years old today! (I read the tag last night, randomly, and discovered that his Beanie Baby birthday was today lol)

Fetch!

Today wasn't too eventful. Every Wednesday, we have a full group meeting, "Wednesday Session" and we also meet with Deborah in the library. I also had my first art history class, it seems like it could be pretty interesting, it's contemporary art, so I feel like I will be able to relate a bit more to some of it. This morning, in my studio, I decided that I'm going to read a Psalm a day, every morning, first thing I do. :) I'm looking forward to it! After class, Suzanne, Michelle, Brittany, and I walked back to our house, rather than riding with Robert in the mini bus. It was a really cool walk through a woodsy area, fields, over walls-it's actually a hiking trail! Since, then, I've taken a shower (it's too difficult getting up in the morning to do it), made dinner (pasta bake thing), and now I'm watching 21 Jumpstreet with Brittany and Michelle. It is such a cheesy, but awesome, show! It has Johnny Depp from waaaay back in his younger years in the 80s! On the topic of watching things on a tv, last night, Suzanne, Brittany, Brian, Michelle, and I walked over to Orchard house to watch a funny leprechaun movie called Darby O'Gill and the Little People! It was pretty entertaining and it was fun to finally see Orchard house, it's the biggest one, 16 people live there. They have like 20 living room areas...ok, maybe not 20, but probably 3! Tonight, we still might head over to a pub and hang out for a bit with some friends from the other houses. I have only been to Logue's pub so far, so we might go to Greene's...not sure. I am getting kinda tired already though, but that could change at any time, I get a second wind most nights. Anyways, watch this video of a dog that was on campus and wanted to play!



It was funny, I felt bad when I had to leave the stick on the ground and go to class. :( Well, that's about it for today, I think. Tomorrow, we go to an Irish dancing lesson, I will tell you about that after the event!

Sculptural Day of Exploration

Today was my first day with an actual class meeting time. Professor Tom Flanagan met with all the sculpture students this morning from 10-12ish to discuss things about the various levels for the semester and he also showed us a bunch of his work=amazing! He does a lot of mixed media type of work, like video that is incorporated with larger installations and sound and other things, it was really really cool. Then, he showed us some other artists on a slide show, not tons of which I was a huge fan of, but there were a few that could possibly give me some inspiration. He gave us our first project assignment, which is to use found objects to create a piece. Towards the end of the class, I was feeling pretty discouraged about myself and my art-making abilities, but I went back to my studio and read the verses I taped up in the corner and that gave some temporary relief. After lunch, Suzanne, Brittany, and I went walking and found a really amazingly beautiful area that is right by the college campus. The girls had class, so I went back to my studio to retrieve some things, like my backpack to stow found objects in, and some proper mittens that have the exposed fingers feature :) Then, I went back to the wooded area and explored on my own! It's kinda interesting, because I've started realizing that I'm becoming a lot more introverted now that I spend so much time by myself, working in my studio. I love people and I visit people and talk and laugh and act silly, as usual, but I find myself spending so much more time being quiet and mello. Kinda like the old days, right mom and dad? But anyways, the wooded area was just so gorgeous and magical. The amount of green was incredible and the moss all over the rocks and the vines on the trees...oh man, oh man, oh man! I posted a couple videos with me being an excitable idiot, but it gives a visual idea for where i was spending my afternoon. Being there really built me back up spiritually and I was ready to keep moving forward with my day! I found some old bottles and a really really awesome stick! So, I brought it all back to my studio and started messing around with the stuff I got. I went and rummaged out behind the barn studios again and finally decided that it was time I brought in the rusted sheet of metal that I am in love with, and have been since I got here. I had Brian help me nail it to my studio wall and then I figured out a way that i want the stick to work over it and then i will put some things into the knotted area of the stick. But, who knows, that plan might change completely, we have like 3 weeks before our sculpture project is even due. I found another big piece of pretty nice fabric, so I want to make a pillow for my floor so that I can sit on the floor and work down there when I need my "floor time." Right now, my studio is pretty trashed looking...there is dirt all over the floor and stuff piled up on my table and old rusty found objects littering the floor with their lovliness :) I love old stuff, you guys! So much! AHHH! Well, I worked on that for a while and then stopped for a while to work on my pictures and such. I headed back to the house in the mini bus (driven by Robert, the do-it-all-BCA-man)around 5 and made some tortellini with cheese and sauce, I also had bread, carrots, tea, and later a couple mini chocolate muffins. Theeen, I finally got all my pictures uploaded on facebook and on here and now I'm finally doing my blog! Whew! So much time spent on these technological things! I want comments from people to hear how things are in the US besides what I hear from my parents and a couple friends. I WORE FLANNEL TODAY SINCE I FAILED BETHEL BY NOT PARTICIPATING IN FLANNEL FRIDAY LAST WEEK! I'm sorry, Adam...I still am anxious to know what the committee has to say about the situation, I know it's quite serious of an offense.

First Day of "Class" (and Galway weekend)

So, today was the first official day of classes...but MY Mondays consist of independent studio time, cuz it's my day for independent study drawing...but reeeally, I can do whatever I want on Mondays and probably most of the week with how open and independent our classes are. Late this afternoon, my drawing professor stopped by my studio and sat down to talk with me about a bunch of stuff like what I enjoy working on and what I might be doing over the semester and so on and so forth, it was good! I had been a bit nervous and intimidated by him after my first encounter in the full faculty and student meeting, but he seems like he'll be really good and open for whatever I want to do. He said that some students will make one drawing over the whole semester, while others will make hundreds! So, I can work on a bunch of random stuff, so I'm excited about that freedom. :) I just made home-made mac n' cheese, and it was pretty good! Yay, I'm not going to starve to death! :) Today, in the studio, I did a lot of doodling/brainstorming about ideas for projects, I have some ideas for drawing and sculpture, but I have no idea what I will end up doing for mixed media, I guess I just don't really understand the class yet, so I'll wait until we get together as a group and then everything will, hopefully, make sense. The sky was so beautiful today! Unfortunately, I got into my studio around 9:30 and was sitting and working in there basically all day up until around 4, when I decided I had gone artistically braindead. But, once I walked outside, I ran back and got my camera, cuz the sky was so beautiful and the air was so fresh! I wore my new wool sweater today, and ohhh my goodness, I love it so much! It's a nice tealish color, and I got it for a decent price, I think. I have become even more obsessed with chocolate since I've arrived in Ireland, it's bad news, but once I find chocolatey goodness, I'm set and happier than ever! I also have started drinking tea with milk and sugar, and I rather enjoy it. Suzanne started noticing that I always crave it around 9 or 9:30, although, tonight, it might be a bit earlier than usual. My throat hurts, I woke up with a sore throat, which is my least favorite ailment! A lot of students are sick here, so it was bound to find me. Bummer. The campus cat, Marcus, is so cute! He's a little black cat and he is awfully friendly. I picked him up today, after lunch, and carried him into my studio (he's allowed in there!) and I sat him on my stool and pet him. He loved it, he kept meowing in really cute silly ways because he was so content with all the attention! I think I will probably get into the habit of taking him hostage in the barn studio so that I can have a nice little kitty to entertain me and keep me happy. :) I'm trying to think what else is new...hmmmm...did I talk about Galway? No. My goodness. So, this weekend, we went to Galway as a whole group, but only some of us stayed the night. I stayed in a hostel called Snoozles with 5 other girls(Suzanne, Michelle, Janine, Katie, and Maura)! Such a cute and silly name for the hostel, but it was pretty nice! We went around with a tour group on the day when the whole class was there, and we saw a lot of the same sites that my Arcadia friends and I had seen when we were in Galway during our homestay days, but it was still pretty cool, the day was nice. :) The city of Galway is so great, the streets during the day are beautiful with all the brightly colored stores with the light from the over the bay illuminating everything. We went out Saturday night and went to a few different pubs to hang out, and Janine and I just kinda bounced around (neither of us drink) and we happened upon a pub where there was a 50th birthday party going on upstairs! So, we totally went up there and found the last couple of open chairs and just enjoyed the live music (fiddles, tin whistle, etc.) It was so much fun! We were probably in there for about an hour and a half! Janine's motive was to wait for the cake, but we never got to have any. We ended up going to Supermac's (Irish McDonalds plus like way more) and got ice cream! Then, on Sunday, Janine, Katie, and I went to 11:15 mass at a beautiful cathedral in Galway. It was pretty different and quite short, but so beautiful and cool to get a feel for how church might be here. This coming Sunday, or Saturday night, I hope to finally get to the church right behind our house! I think it's supposed to be pretty cute inside, and apparently, the priest has a nice voice! Cute! Ok...this sweater is starting to get a bit warm. Anywho! After church, the three of us wandered around and shopped for things that we needed. I was too brainless to go to the fabric store on Saturday, so when I went on Sunday, it was closed. Grrr...the stupidity that overwhelms me at times, myyyy goodness. I ended up buying some hideous neon ribbon (for a potential sculpture project) and some drawing supplies at another shop and then we all went grocery shopping at Dunnes. I bought about 43 euros worth of food, I think I did alright with getting things that I needed! I got such good bread! Two loaves of freshly baked white bread for around 3 euro, I think. Yum. Well, anyways, we headed back to Ballyvaughan at 5 and then we sat around on our computers as always, and then I decided to try and use my straightener (with the adapter and converter, like it said to!) and it made the lovely popping spark of orange that we all dread. Sooooo...I broke the house for a while. Our wireless was out and most of the outlets didn't work, but then Suzanne finally located the fuse box and we got everything up and working again. Yay! I didn't permanently break the house!!! Well...that's about it for now, I think. I'm sure I forgot a lot of funny things that I wanted to say...oh! We went to a little Christian cafe for lunch on Saturday, we didn't know it was until we got in and it was nice and cheap and they gave us enough food and then I got a deliciously perfect brownie (oh gosh, now I'm craving chocolate...good thing I loaded up at Dunnes!) and yeah...The End!

The Burren!!! The College of Art!!! Friends!!! Studio Spaces!!!

Hey guys! So, I have been horrible the last few days at updating this with everything I've been doing! So, I have pictures on facebook from Galway and such, but I have a lot more! Galway was so beautiful! It's on the Galway Bay, so we can see Galway across the bay when we are at Burren and vice versa :) kinda fun. So, I got to see it from both sides! It is so funny to have a little pack of art majors (Suzanne, John, Janine, and I) taking a walk. One or all of us stop every couple seconds to take a picture :) There were just way too many photo opportunities there and everywhere in Ireland! We did homestays there and-did I already write about Galway? Maybe I did...no, I didn't! ok, anyways, on with what I was saying! So...the homestay was good. There was a girl our age in the house and she was funny, so that was nice and the mom made us lunches and stuff :) We will definitely be going to Galway a lot, it's about 45 minutes from here on a bus, I dooo declaaare. But! We are now in the Burren and it is great!!! I live in house with 5 other students: Suzanne (my roommate, who is amazing! I love her very very much already!), Brittany & Michelle (these two room together), and Brian & Max (also roommates-they go to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, so kind of Minnesotans, even though they are not otherwise.) Our house has never been used for student housing before, it's a vacation rental home, so it's really nice! We have fun as a house! We've spent a lot of time sitting in our family room area by the fireplace and watching the show "Freaks and Geeks," which we already finished because they cancelled the progression of the show, which is lame. But house family time was great! Right now, we are making breakfast for dinner! Pancakes, hashbrowns, eggs, possibly some type of meat! Yay for food! I think I may starve to death while I'm here though...really. lol The first night at the Burren, all the students went to a pub to meet people and have dinner. Afterwards, I went out with a group of 6 others and we walked a long ways down a road in the dark and the thick fog (when we had no idea where anything was yet!) and we finally made our way to the near top of a huge hill, which we titled "The Mountain!" On the journey, we laughed about there being an evil man eating goat somewhere in the Burren, which we never encountered, and we climbed over/under a couple fences and ran into some cows. At one point, we came to field with a barbed wire fence and we crawled underneath it, not knowing what it was blocking. I spotted a cow in the distance but some of the guys decided not to believe me, sooo they continued and a couple others and I went back to the safe side of the fence. Of course, a couple moments later, they start flipping out, screaming and running back to the fence, flying underneath it! They claim they saw "The Demon White Cow." So, now there is not only a man eating goat on the mountain, but also an evil cow=GREAT! But, the journey was great and once, but once we got to the top, the stars were absolutely incredible! We could see all the star dust and shooting stars and every constellation imaginable! It was a great first night :) I am so lost with the days and how long we've been here, but the other day, we took a class fieldtrip to some different places that my facebook photos will illustrate; it was freezing! (one of the days, we were in Ennis, and we heard this awesome guy on the street singing a Neil Young song!) Today, we went to the school and spent our day in our own personal studio spaces!!! Then, we had meetings throughout the day for registering for our classes. I will be taking Independent Study Drawing, Mixed Media, Sculpture in Context II, Art History, and Irish Studies. Apparently, for Irish Studies, we go on a fieldtrip every week to a cool new place around the area!!! I'm excited. I decorated my studio space with a bunch of fabric scraps, so it looks all homey for me:) I will be spending a looooot of time in there, afterall! Oh! We built a fort in our house a couple nights ago, and it was awesome!!! We took down two curtains and tied them up around underneath the staircase using yarn, it was seriously a gorgeous creation, compliments of Brittany and Lindsey's fort building talents. So, Suzanne, Brittany, Brian, and I spent 2-3 hours in there on cushions we dragged in and listened to music and looked at pictures in the lamplight. Towards the end, we got really loud and silly-singing very loudly to funny songs they used to play at middleschool dances! It was much fun. However, Brid (the woman right next door who owns the house) freaked out when she discovered the fort and apparently the curtains were like 800 euro! Who the heck spends that much on fort building curtains?! My goodness...Anyways, we took it down, but I DID take pictures of it :) I am getting quite excited to eat breakfast for dinner!!! All the smells of overwhelming me right now as I sit here in the kitchen since we now have WiFi!!!!!!!!!! Ok, so I'm a little bit excited. We also have WiFi in our studios! So, I can talk to you guys no matter where I am...well, kinda. The time difference kinda makes things a bit more difficult, unfortunately, but I'll be in the studio late a night, so I can talk then :) Well! I think that is about it for now, if not, I will just make update edits on this post :) Love you and miss you!!!