I'm lovin Angels Instead...

Yeah, you know that song? "I'm lovin Angels instead." There is a group of guys singing that song right now, at some apartment right across from my window. Like, belting it out. Blasting it. Why? I don't know. It's Tuesday night. Who throws a major house party on a Tuesday night? And the song selection is terrible. This terrible song, I think they threw some Lady Gaga in there, I heard some Euro dance jams and I think they played "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter or whatever his name is. It's just a terrible situation right now, and I just wish they would shut up.

Ok, I'm tired, and annoyed, so we'll see how much I will actually write.

Ok today, had class at 10. I started my Traditional Irish Music tutorial. I'm playing the bahrain. It's the Irish drum. Looks like a huge tamborine, without the bells around it. It's a pretty cool instrument, but very hard to play. It's much different from the snare drum or base drum. The instructor said even with years of playing percussion it's hard to play. I'm a righty, so I'm going to explain how to play this thing from my perspective. You take the drum and place it on your left leg. You have to jam it up against your side, so part of the drum is hitting you in the rib cage and the other 3/4 of it are exposed. With your left hand, you press across your body on the back of the drum. You have to make sure it's tight on your body and leg or else you'll just push the drum out from under yourself. So, then you take your wooden stick that acts as your mallet, and you place it in your right hand. You hold it like a pen. Then to hit the drum, you simply just rotate your hand down and up. There is no arm movement whatsoever. When I started getting into the rhythm we were playin I kept wanting to move my arm to emphasize. But you can't, it's just a flick of the wrist. He said it takes people weeks to come to terms with learning it, so I'm not worried about it.

After that, I had Irish studies. Once again, same as always. Powerpoint, notes. Today she gave us our annotated bibliography outline. It's due March 5th. She found sources for us already, which is basically the hardest part of an annotated bibliography. She has chosen 8 articles, and we only have to read and write about 3. We have to write a summary of the article, main arguments of the article, strengths and weaknesses and our view. Two hundred words max for nearly each section. Some, 100 words max. I still can't believe how easy that is. That's 40% of our grade right there.

Then after Irish studies I went to the paddock with Jeremie, Kara and Jess. I got a hot chicken roll of course. Freakin love those things. And I had a Fanta. Fanta is huge in Europe. I was pissed today though, because my meal was exactly 5 Euros, and I had a 10 Euro, so I didn't get any change back. Tomorrow, more coins hopefully. It was a coin less day.

After my meal, Jess and I walked down to Irish Folklore together. It was a tutorial, so it wasn't the actual class. Today we were supposed to be making Irish crosses out of reeds to hang in our homes or place on our doors. So we walked all the way down to the business school and found the room on the ground floor. We met some friends who were also in the tutorial and started talking for awhile. Well awhile turned into a very long while, and by the time we knew it, our teacher hadn't shown up 35 minutes into class. She just completely forgot about us. So everyone left. I'm pissed, because other kids had the crosses in music class! She didn't forget those classes. I want to make a cross. They actually looked pretty legit. I won't stand for this malcontent shown by the faculty here. It's pretty ridiculous.

So after my afternoon "chat", we went to music. Turns out, the lady who has been talking to us for the past two classes is not our professor, and apparently we have a whole slew of different professors throughout the semester, depending on the topic of the day. Today we learned about Irish "set" dancing. It was painfully boring. The guy was just so bland, and it was uninteresting. At least we got to watch YouTube videos for the last 20 minutes so it salvaged a tiny fraction of the the class. I have it again tomorrow, I can't wait to see who our mystery professor of the day is.

After class I just walked back to my room. It rained today for the first time in awhile. It wasn't hard, but it was freezing. I can also tell it's the start of Spring here, because the sun seems to be out a little more than I'm used to. It didn't start setting until 5 today. Usually it sets at like 4. So I'm excited for the change in weather and daylight.

I cannot stop eating a mixture of custard cremes and Nutella on white bread. They're both just so addicting. I can't take it! I have to eat my bread fast though, because the label says best if used by February 4th. Thanks for the freshness Aldi!

Tonight Jeremie and I went for dinner at Jess's house. There we met Jess, Kara, Clara and Sophie. We also met Alexander from Germany, Bernice who is also from France and Redina from Bulgaria. Clara and her roommates made us all crepes! It was fantastic. We had Stella, French alcoholic cider, hot crepes, ham, cheese, Nutella and bananas. It was a good meal. And the night in general was hilarious. The entire night we just taught the French students how to say different US lingo. Jeremie is really starting to get it. Tonight he grabbed a banana off the table and passed it to one of the girls and said, "Would you like to grab my banana? That'z what she said." Haha immediately after he said would you like to grab my banana, he uses a great American joke! I was highly impressed. He didn't even skip a beat. It caught Jess and I off guard because he finally got it right! We were so proud. Tonight we also taught them vulgar US words. Much to vulgar to put up here for the public to see. We taught them how to say "biddies" when referring to a group of chicks. We taught them that you can call a girl "shorty" or "boo" and it means you like them or you are with them. And tonight I learned a whole hell of a lot of French. Most of it is very vulgar and perverse so I again won't be sharing it. But just know that I can say a couple of sentences in it now. I didn't just learn vulgarities though, I learned how to start a conversation at least. It's basically the same thing we did in 8th grade French. I learned how to say "Hello, my name is Matt. What is your name? How are you? I'm good." I should be a pro in no time. Aside from that, I learned some other valuable French sayings. Like this: "Saseskeldie." That's not how you spell it, but that's how you pronounce it. Sas-es-Kel-dee. This means, "That's what she said" in French. "Tu est Belle." You are beautiful. "Say Lavie." That's the life. "Salope." Bitch. It's great. I just put salope on the end of everything tonight. "Je t aime, Salope." I love you, bitch. Haha, it's great! I also learned how to say "Fine" as in "A fine girl." It's Bonnasse. Or if you would like to approach a girl and tell her about how attractive she is, you can say this: "Oh merde Salope, tu est bonne." This means: Oh damn bitch, you are so hot." Just some very useful sayings from my French buddies. You can also say: "Tu as an Beau cu." This means: You have a nice butt. Try it out. Even if it's kinda forward or rude, it's French. It sounds good. Oh and sexy in French, is just sexy. So throw that in there somewhere.

Easily the highlight of my French lesson though was learning this: "Va shorty, c est ton anniversaire. Tu vas en soiree comme c est ton anniversaire." Translation: Go shorty it's your birthday, you're gonna party like it's your birthday. I feel like I've really accomplished something in life now. I can rap a line of 50 cent in French. Amazing.

We finished the evening with me showing the French congregation, and the Redina, how to handshake like an American guy. I taught them two ways. The first being your standard clasp of the hands in front of you, then pull each other in towards one another and give each other a good pat or two on the back. The typical bro handshake. I also taught them the very simple clasp and lock. I told them this handshake is often used when you see the person all the time. The pull in and half hug one is sorta for long absences. Redina is really good at the clasp and lock one. Maybe even a pro.

After crepes I just came back here so I didn't spend money at the bar. I'm trying to save some money for my future travel en devours.

I think I'm going to have another Nutella sandwich? And milk...since that expires this week too. And I bought it yesterday. Once again, thanks Aldi!

Goodnight and God bless everyone!