School Work

classroom

whistling

Family and Friends,

This week I’m going to bring you up to date on what all I’ve learned thus far. Believe me, it’s been more than just weekend pubs and traveling. Every Monday we have our language course. We’re learning small conversational bits in Gaelic, or the locals just call it Irish. This course has more recently developed into more of a cultural class though. Several guests have come in and taught us how to cook traditional Irish meals, or how to play Irish music on the whistle. Trust me, its all a lot easier said than done. I’m starting to enjoy this class more each week, because the different sessions help break up the four hour period and I feel like I’m soaking in so much more of the culture this way. On Tuesdays we have our Irish Literature class. This course involves lots and lots of reading. Some material has been tough to get through, but I do enjoy when we read plays out loud in class. The group that I came with has a way of making most things lighthearted and fun. They’re good craic (craic means fun in Irish). On Wednesdays we have our Irish History course. This one is by far my favorite. Our professor brings quite a few debates into the classroom, and it can get pretty heated, but it also gets everyone involved. He also does a good job at relating Irish history to American history; it makes it a bit easier to understand in certain cases, considering that’s what we learned most about in school. We have some presentations coming up, and we even had a class inside a pub in Galway last week. It’s little adjustments like these that keep the class stimulating. Finally, we have our culture class Wednesday nights. This course simply consists of our blogs and we usually discuss our field trips and watch a movie related to them. So far, it’s been a good balance between learning about all things Irish in the classroom, then being able to go out and experience it all on the weekends and apply what we learned.

Sending my love!

Regan

field trip to Kilmainham Gaol

field trip to Clonmacnoise Monastery