The jetlag has subsided, and now I have succumbed to a bad cold. The weather here has been fairly chilly and windy, but despite the occasional short rainfall, it has been dry. One of my Chinese housemates is quite right in saying, "It's like the four seasons in one day." For my part, it seems much sunnier than Limerick was. I've seen the sun almost every day so far, if only for a few moments, and I know for a fact that during my first time in Ireland I would go days without seeing blue sky.
I believe I may have met all my housemates by now, but I do not know how to spell most of their names. It's a good mix of postgraduate students from Scotland, England, China, India, Nigeria, and the U.S. There are actually more than this, but part of the trouble may be that when I say "my housemates," I am only including those students living on the ground floor of a 3-story apartment building. There are 12 students on each of these floors, and since everyone on my floor is so busy with studying, it has been somewhat difficult to really get to know them. I'm also not sure if some of the people that I meet actually live on my own floor. Each student has his/her own bedroom, complete with sink and mirror, cabinet, wardrobe, desk, bed, and nightstand. There are two toilets and showers (all in separate rooms) for each floor, and then there is one kitchen per floor--with multiple freezers, refrigerators, ovens, sinks, and cupboards.
My main dilemma at the moment is getting kitchen utensils for the year. None are provided in the kitchens, so everyone is expected to acquire his/her own pots and pans, etc... I would have thought people would have grouped together and shared them, but that is not the case at all! I did try Argos, recommended by a few of my housemates, but it was the strangest shop I have ever been in. You leaf through a catalog, punch catalog numbers into a screen to check products' availability, and then stand in line with your list of catalog numbers in order to collect the products you want. Everything is very cheap but is also in bulk, and since I do not need 4 pans and 12 place settings, I will have to acquire my utensils via other means, such as IKEA.
On Friday there was a meeting for all Irish Studies MA and PhD students, which turned into a long advising session on how to approach research and how to narrow down one's dissertation topic; this was primarily fueled by PhD students sharing their own stories and then discussing amongst eachother whether there was anything they could say to the MA students that would be at all helpful. What was generally agreed upon was this: it's a matter of luck. Everything is luck. It's all about who you run into, when you run into them, which ideas pop into your head, where you are at which point in time, etc... I do believe that they were trying their best to put the indecisive among us at ease, so hopefully nobody took it as "There's nothing you can do about it but wait until inspiration strikes."
I've had my share of luck already. Not only do I have a lead on whom to interview (my first assignment!), but I also made good friends with another MA student. She's fun-loving but sensible company, which I discovered while we sat in a pub and watched flocks of scantily clad females scurry by us. Her family lives in a Donegal gaeltacht although she herself speaks little Irish. However, she wants to practice and improve hers, so we may be (fingers-crossed) the perfect language-partners.
Anyway, I am off to buy books at Queen's Bookstore and then track down journals in the immense (and wonderful) library!
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