First Day of Classes

Today was my first day of classes at DBS. I thought I was going to be late because I missed the DART by a few minutes, but luckily the commuter train came through and got me into Dublin within 20 minutes. So I was about 10 minutes early for my first class, Irish literature. We just looked over all of the different Irish authors we’ll be learning about and read a few excerpts from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest, Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and a new book about how ridiculously expensive South Dublin can be and how silly the people from there are because they’re extremely wealthy. The professor seems very nice, easy going and really knows his stuff. At noon we had a 2-hour break (just for today, every other will be an hour) for lunch. I went shopping in Dunnes (I got a cute shirt for €8!!!), got a quick bagel, ate my lunch, and read in St. Stephen’s Greene. It really is a gorgeous place to have lunch on a nice day so I think I’ll have to go more frequently. My second and last class of the day was Irish history. I thought this might be quite dull, especially since I haven’t had any sort of history class in a while, but the professor was quite an interesting lecturer. I found what he was saying very interesting, especially since I have already been reading about some of it in Ireland by Frank Delaney. I’m excited to know more about Ireland in general. It’s not one of those countries that we learn bits about in high school, but a nation who’s past is almost completely foreign to me. We only acknowledge the part of their history that coincides with ours. It’ll be refreshing to learn about a part of history that wasn’t taught every single year. All in all, I think it’ll be a good and fascinating semester academically.
That’s it for today. Sorry about the late posts, but my posts will be a bit erratic until I establish a bit of a routine here. Now I’m off to hang out with some friends from a homestay in Sandymount.