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A little of the daily grind
Entry 12 of 18 | show all | print this entry |
Well, since all of my other posts have been full of exciting trips with pictures and videos of beautiful Ireland, I thought I'd give you a bit of a view into the not-so-interesting day-to-day. We'll start with classes at UL.
As you may recall, I'm taking five modules (that's Irish for classes :-) and they are:
Irish Language (they don't call it Gaelic here, by the way, and this site has an explanation [scroll down about a page]),
Irish Folklore,
Traditional Irish Music with a tutorial (a semi-separate class which meets once a week for an hour) on the tin whistle,
Software Testing, and
Software Engineering
Overall, the workload in these classes has been fairly light. That is, the required homework, studying for tests, and enforced reading has been minimal. However, they provide plenty of "suggested" reading references, and the self-motivated student could remain quite busy reading and doing exercises on his or her own. I am not quite at that level, but, since I'm interested in most of my classes, it's pretty easy to motivate myself to do extra reading, studying, or practicing. And I've really enjoyed that feeling. This study abroad has really given me the opportunity to study things I am interested in, to the extent that I want to study them, without the heavy-handed pressure of negatively impacting my grade point average. It has been a great change of pace from the last three and a half years of often-tedious study.
So what do I have to show for these last three months? Well, I've learned about 200 Irish words, and I can speak and write simple, common phrases and their responses. I have an increasing understanding of the pronunciation of Irish words (quite a hurdle to the beginner, I can tell you), but I still need an Irish-speaker to tell me the pronunciation of the word the first time I see it.
I've learned a great deal about the "merry wake" tradition in my folklore class. Fairies and fairy lore are the most recent topics, but we've also been exposed to some of the history of folklore in Ireland and Europe. A great deal of effort was expended by the Irish government, through its (often self-motivated) civil servants, to record the stories and folklore of the country, and we've read and heard some of those stories. In fact, the best part of the two-hour class is listening to the lecturer (they're not called professors here unless they've got very high credentials) telling stories and recounting fairytales. I've got a min. 1500 word essay on the merry wake to write for that class and it's due in two weeks, so I might post it here for ye to read.
In traditional Irish music, I've been entertained and bored out of my mind. We have about five rotating lecturers, but almost all of them use powerpoint (understandably, but it still makes the class boring). Anyway, I've learned a bit about trad music and dance from the lectures, but this essay that's due tomorrow has really taught me a great deal more. I chose, from a list, to write about three of the main regional styles of music in Ireland, including references to musicians and instruments. It was a good motivator to actually learn about some of the trad music in Ireland, and I might post it for ye to read as well.
My tin whistle tutorial, on the other hand, has been really great. I've got a nice Dutch guy (although you wouldn't know it - he spent six years in Scotland and more in Ireland) as a teacher. The class is fairly small, but most of the others don't practice much, so we're moving a bit slower than I'd prefer. I've learned four tunes by heart (Irish tunes are generally very short, so that's not too difficult) and the instructor made a CD of eighteen tunes for us to learn on our own, so I can add those to my repertoire. The tin whistle, although generally dismissed as for beginners, is a pretty fun instrument. At least, I've enjoyed learning and playing it. We've got a concert at the end of the semester, so that should be interesting, anyway.
My software testing class has been really helpful for my computer programming skills, especially since my home institution, Montana State University, doesn't focus on software testing as an individual topic (or, really, at all). And the same goes for my software engineering module, although to a lesser extent (it's a bit too learn-on-your-own for my taste).
Well, there you go. A bit disconnected, I know, but that's how my thinking is right about now. Oh, by the way, I went to Northern Ireland and all around the northwest of the Republic this past weekend, but you'll have to read the next post to find out more about that.
Le meas,
Pádraig
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