Class week one DUNZO!

First week of class come and gone and yes indeed I survived. It has been absolutely amazing weather here in Ireland. Nice and chilly, with the leaves falling... just like a real autumn. Definitely my kind of weather.

Ah but classes.... classes are SO GREAT! I mean there was so much information already but I can already feel like I'm going to learn so much about what I've been wanting to know for so long that it won't really feel like school. Well, I guess it helps that my classmates are pretty freaking cool too. Interestingly eight of us are from the US but out of those five are fresh out of undergrad. There's my flatmate and I and the last American is a woman who is taking a year off from medical school to do this program. She goes back in December to do part deux of her boards. She's my hero. Haha.

We have five Irish, two transplant Irish (one originally from Australia but has been living here for the past 12 years, Donna, you'll hear WAY more about her. She's one of my favorites and the other from Canada but here for the past 8 years), a guy from the Gaza Strip and 2 women from Africa. Isn't that such an amazing mix of people?! Oh and then we have 3 from the PhD program who take some of our classes. I've already learned so much about other cultures already. LOVE IT.

I do six hours of class for three days. Mondays it's health economics and financing and health policy and systems. The professors for those classes are SO intelligent but so funny and present the material so well. Tuesdays it's a seminar and then principles of social research. Wednesdays it's packed with determinants of health and then statistics in the afternoon. Thursdays and Fridays are study days... or blogging days. ahahah

So that's it! That's my life for the next 11 weeks. And then... who knows?! I'm still picking my research topic but I'm thinking that I may go back to Oaxaca if I do prenatal health or Africa if I do pediatric nutrition. Duno yet.... Anywho, I promise a more picture loaded post will come soon :) for now all you have are my small words :)

A week gone!

And what a crazy week it has been! From day one it has pretty much been non-stop GO GO GO! It kind of is all a blur now but in true "me" fashion I will go backwards.

Yesterday my flatmate, Meghan, and I moved into our place!!! Yes three exclamation points were needed. I think even more are needed but I will save them for later. It's beautiful. It faces the Liffey River and is really near one of the more hoppin spots in Ireland. (Yes I used hoppin). Unfortunately with that comes the crazy people (mostly tourists) who don't know when to stop drinking so they YELL and CACKLE at oh, most hours of the night. Don't worry. I have ear plugs.

The weekend was fabulous. It was the All-Ireland final Sunday so basically all of Ireland shut down (except pubs of course) to watch IRISH football which is completely nutso to me. It's a mix between soccer and rugby. Meghan and I got up and got a cab to go back to Temple Bar (which is an area full of bars and pubs not just one bar) but then we asked the cabbie where we should go to catch the match and he said, "Oh not there, you want to go to a real Irish pub..." So then he drove us outside Dublin about 15 minutes and we ended up at this SUPREMELY AWESOME place called Strawberry Hall. When we walked in, there were absolutely no women and everyone looked at us like we were nuts. A little bit later, some guys finally started asking us questions and basically everyone wanted to know how we got there. Every time we told the story, they'd laugh. We stayed at that place for about 8 hours. It was absolutely grand.

Before then Meghan, Donna (another classmate) and I have just been milling around looking at places and things. Well me looking at things them commenting on how touristy I am. Haha. I don't care. Until school starts and probably even after school starts I'm still a tourist. I have my camera poised and ready. I haven't taken too many photos but once I finally get them up I promise to post them.

Orientation starts tomorrow and goes til Friday. OH the 23rd is Arthur's day and at 17:59 there's going to be a worldwide toast with Guiness so make sure to do that (if you can handle Guiness of course, I still am trying to). We get connected to the interwebs on Saturday so hopefully I'll be able to update a bit more often after that. Til then, ask me questions in the comment section if there's anything you want to know!

I have arrived!

Oh my goodness gracious I have finally arrived... all of me. All of my luggage, my health... EVERYTHING. Why is this a big deal? Well let me tell you.

First my SFO-JFK flight was delayed landing because of "slight showers" which in turn made me SUPER late to catch my flight. But of course guess who didn't have their boarding pass? Oh but there was no one at the ticketing desk.. why? BECAUSE IT WAS 30 MINUTES BEFORE TAKE OFF TIME. And of course the security people have no mercy so they're just like, "Ugh there's one every day..." BUT thankGOD that Aer Lingus decided to be super nice and call me (right when I actually turned on my phone no less) and say, "Ms. Chong, where are you?" Haha. So here I am running back to the security with my ginormous carry-on and my shvety self.... Sigh. I MADE THE PLANE though. So no big there.

Oh but the drama doesn't stop. Because the stupid American Airlines people couldn't get my bags on the plane so I was without MY LIFE (in 3 suitcases) until just about an hour ago. So I finally got to be not smelly and look halfway decent (I say halfway because I don't really plan on unpacking much until I find a place to stay) just an hour ago!

Oh right and the health. I got pretty sick-y a couple days before I left and still felt that way yesterday but then I basically slept for like 20 hours hahaha so now I feel great! And hungry...

I'll update on ACTUAL events of today after I feed myself :)