Thursday, September 23, 2010

Head in a whirl

So, I'm almost finished the second week and apologies to anyone who was hoping for an earlier update. It's been hard to sort things out in my head enough to write anything coherent.

The weekend was spent being 'mum' and, as it was my youngest who was here, it involved a lot of watching soccer. Took another trip to the library and was amazed at the young lad's ability to negotiate L-space, helping me find my way around as I still can't find the exit at first go!

With all courses chosen and myriad societies and clubs joined, have had to do some serious looking at timetabling and working out what to attend and what to drop. Have joined the college newspaper (along with the other Mayo News emigrant to NUIG) and watched Rocky Horror Picture Show with FanSci. Took to the Corrib in a kayak and will definitely keep it up, despite being rather of an ugly duckling on the water.

Academic life is all that I hoped for, and more. It is wonderful to sit down with a book and not feel guilty that the housework isn't getting done. All the reading is such fun for me and, as English, Philosophy and Celtic Civ tie in nicely together, I'm reading things that I'm very interested in.

Spanish, on the other hand, is hugely challenging and I'm not comfortable in the Intermediate class. Should have gone to Spain for a while in the summer to brush up. I had registered for Beginners but got bumped up to Intermediate. Asked to go back but the course head wants me to keep it up at least until Monday when the class has a level test to see exactly where we should be. Felt really upset after first lesson which, despite the fact that I understood most of it, when it came to formulating sentences en Espanol I just drew a blank. The words are there - in French and Irish when Spanish fails me but need a good whack on the head to shake the 'language files' into their rightful places.

Am off now to do two hours study before lectures... Spanish of course!

Adios :-)

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