Thick as Pea Soup

Good evening all.

It's been literally foggy all day here. Literally all day. Thick, dense fog. You can't see 20 yards in front of yourself. It's as thick as pea soup. Or peanut butter, depending on whether or not you side with Herbie or Yukon Cornelius in Rudolph.

So the last two days have been kinda hectic/boring/entertaining?

Thursday and Friday we had orientation. Thursday's orientation went from 9 AM to about 6 or 7 PM. And everyone at Penn State complains when we have orientation from 8 until 2. Suck it up.

Thursday we learned about our classes and got a tour of the campus. We also learned about GPA and how hard the classes here are. The woman who went over orientation with us basically said, "You people are all very smart, that's why you are abroad. If you'd go here, you'd all be in the top of the class." Apparently, an 80% here is very good and basically stands for an A. If you have a 3.4 GPA, it's basically first honors, and it's like making Dean's list. The woman told us that we shouldn't be too surprised if half our classes are empty the first 2 weeks here. Apparently, the Irish kids don't go to class until the 3rd week. Some don't even start going until week 7 or 8. She calls it the "trap", and basically said that students here are lazy and don't do much. This ultimately rubs off on the US kids and they start becoming slackers too. I know I have a job already but I'm not about to kill my GPA and start skipping classes etc.

Classes here are set up very weird. For starters, the first two weeks of school, as a study abroad student, we can attend as many classes as we want. So if I want to sit through 15 courses, I can. So for the first two weeks it's like renting a car. You get to test drive your courses and make sure you like them. Then after two weeks you have to finalize your schedule. It's pretty strange. The courses themselves are all lecture. Each class is 50 minutes, twice a week. Classes here don't go past 6 PM. Ever. I had quite a few 6 to 8:40 classes at PSU throughout my time there. It'll be nice to know I don't have to worry about class after 6 ever again. Along with the two lectures, you have a tutorial for each class. This lasts like an hour. Each class has a ton of tutorials throughout the week, and then you pick which one you want to attend. So basically, 5 courses, 2 lectures each, and a tutorial. So around 15 classes a week.

The coursework is much different also. Practically no homework. THANK GOD!! Also, papers are far and few between. If there are papers, it's like 3,000 words. I think I've wrote longer blog posts than that. You have around 3 or 4 quizzes a semester, but they are all outlined on the syllabus. They never give pop quizzes. The majority of the grade weighs on a single final exam at the end of the year. However, if you go to every class, you are pretty much guaranteed and A. Also, you can prepare for final exams much easier here. At the library, they save all the past final exams of every teacher, and for a couple of cents you can buy a copy of it to study. Some teachers don't even change their exams from year to year! Penn State would kill people. Haha, they also allow two weeks for final exams rather than one. However, they only let you know your schedule the week before final exams. It's not like at Penn State where you know months in advance. It's great though, because although the final exam period is two weeks, you only have exams scheduled on the second week. The first week is a "prep" week. So basically if you went to all your classes, that's a free week to relax and travel. What an idea!

Also, college here is only 3 years. Three years and you get a degree, two years and you get a diploma. If you go three years, you automatically are allowed another year which is called a Masters year. So the third year is the senior year here. I wish it was like this in the US. We have to go 4 years minimum and then tack on like 2 to 3 more for grad school. No thanks.

The campus here is huge. The buildings are very confusing. And it takes about 20 minutes to walk onto campus. I feel like a commuter student. The days of me having an hour and a half break in between class and going back to my room are gone. Now I guess I'll just go to the library and work on the little work I have? Woo.

I'm joining some clubs here though. I'm joining the international society, which was rated the best university club in all of Ireland last year. They take the students on trips all over Europe for around 10-20 Euros. Very great deals. I also plan on joining either the softball club or the ultimate frisbee club. The softball club meets at an odd time, like 2-4 on Tuesdays, so that may not happen. Ultimate Frisbee meets at 6:30 on Tuesday, Wednesday. Much smarter, schedule your club after classes. Not during. Ultimate Frisbee sounds fun though. It's actually a team. We travel to Dublin, Gallway, etc. And we host a huge tournament in the Spring here in Limerick. I'm excited for that. Oh and here, certain clubs make you pay to join. I had to pay 3 Euros just to be allowed to go to the softball team meetings. How dumb is that? Do some fundraising cheapskates.

Now I have to figure out what courses I plan on going to on Monday. We picked 10 before we came and now I have to pick my top 5. No way I'm going to 10 courses this week. Whichever classes I pick, that's it. I'm sticking with those. I'm definitely taking Irish folklore, Irish music and Issues in contemporary Irish Society. Then I'll probably take either local government, government and politics of Ireland or Issues of European Integration. I feel like the international global politics course I had is exactly like the Euro Integration class. Soooo, I may just take that for the easy A.

Tonight I'll probably just lay low and hang out with Pierre and Jeremie. Maybe grab a bite and talk for a couple hours. They are great guys.

Today I went to the store with Jeremie, and apartment hunted online. I've been looking up stuff on San Antonio all day. I'm so excited. I never thought I'd live in Texas. Not in a million years. At least now I can actually say "Don't mess with Texas" and have it personally mean something. And I can sing "Deep in the Heart of Texas" as a proud Texan.




Wow, I'm legitimately going to be a "Texan". I should buy cowboy boots! I'm going to.

Also, living in San Antonio gives me the opportunity to have my parents visit. This excites me for one reason. Ya see, my Dad and I can't get enough of the movie, "Pee Wee's Big Adventure." In the movie, Pee Wee searches all over the US for his lost bike. Early in the movie, a psychic tells Pee Wee where his bike is "At the Alamo...In the basement!" So Pee Wee goes to the Alamo to find it. While there he enters a rodeo, gets knocked out, and delivers this classic line that my Dad and I quote constantly around the house:

(Fast Forward to 6:17)



Hahaha the greatest movie line ever. Now that I'll be living within minutes of the Alamo, my Dad and I have to go there and quote the movie. It also gives us an opportunity to take a tour and ask some pretty interesting questions:



Gotta love Texas.

Tomorrow night, Jets vs. Colts. I'm pumped. It's gonna be on at 8:30 PM here. I'm excited, I really hope the Jets win. So then I can say, "The Dolphins beat the Jets TWICE this year." I'm hoping for a Vikings and Jets Superbowl, just because when they hell do those teams ever make the Superbowl? Never. I'm rooting for the Vikings from here out though because my Uncle Bruce is a die hard fan. Plus Brett Favre has had such an awesome year I can't even hate the guy for his constant media dramatics anymore.

That's it for now!

Au Voir!

Edit:

Tonight I went over to Katie's for dinner. We ate spaghetti. It was really good. Then some of her roommates came back, and we somehow ended up talking about Disney movies, match.com, and conspiracy theories. After that we went over to Pierre's house and just hung out for the evening. I met this really cool new guy named Neal, from Toronto. He's actually in his third year of law school there. We talked for a couple of minutes about the law process and how it differs here in America. It's all very similar. Only in Canada, they specifically tell you not to specialize in any on type of law or else it's harder to find a job. Neal and I also talked about Toronto sports. I asked him if the Raptors were big and he told me they sell out almost every game. People in Toronto enjoy basketball. I then asked him about baseball and he said they get good crowds on ticket special nights. So if they advertise a game that has $10 tickets and beer specials, they'll get 40,000+ fans. If not, it's around 15,000. He also told me he was a huge Dolphins fan! At this point we did the manly double high five. He said he hates how Toronto is trying to take the Bills from Buffalo. He said the fan base isn't there and they'll probably flop if they move the Bills there. If the US. and Canada play each other at all in hockey in the Winter Olympics we agreed to watch it together. He thinks the Swed's are going to take the gold though.

Tonight the group surprised me with cupcakes that Jess bought yesterday. I was with her at the time of purchase but didn't realize they were for me getting my new job! They looked for cake mix but it's nonexistent over here. Kara, Jeremie and Jess left the room for a couple minutes and Katie was like Matt close your eyes. I had no idea why, and all the sudden I hear Jeremie singing, "Happy New Shob to yooouuuu! Happy new shob to yoooouuuu!" Haha, happy new job to me! Jess, Kara and Jeremie walked the cupcakes over to me and presented them to me! It was really sweet of the girls to do that for me. Haha, they asked Jeremie if he knew any songs to sing and he told them the only two songs in English he knew were, "Happy Birthday" and "Jingle Bells." Great improvisation on his part.

We also spent the night watching Pierre dance to pretty much every song that came over his laptop, and got Jeremie to teach us some swear words in French. It was a great time. Pierre was showing me the ropes of being a good DJ, as he has a huge DJ mixing program on his computer. He taught me the difference between club mixes to warm the crowd up, and euro dance, which is what everyone dances to. Then everyone decided to go into town and drink a bit more, but Kara, Jeremie and I decided not to. Jeremie and I walked Kara the half an hour across campus and then walked back. I taught Jeremie the first part of "Deep in the Heart of Texas" or as he says, "Deep in ze art, of Texass." It was fun. I also taught him how to say, "I have to take a leak", "Thankfully", and "Unfortunately." He's a funny guy. Now I'm eating a ham sandwich and watching TV online.

Goodnight!