HAPPY FRIDAY THE 13TH!!

heya babes..how's life??..ok so i was waiting to accumulate some interesting events in my life here before i wrote, so here goes..
so last saturday i went on a trip to a farm in meath(its like a county just next to county dublin, abt 1.5hrs drive) It was organised by the international students' society here n basically was abt being irish for a day, so we did loadsa really traditional Irish activities. First up, we baked Irish soda bread..which kinda looks like banana bread, but tastes like brown bread, jus thicker n grainier. so newaez the ppl teaching us were the grandmama of the farm family n another younger girl who was like one of our main hosts of the day..one of the ingredients in soda bread is an egg, n instead of handing it to us, like normal ppl, the girl decided it might be fun to toss us our eggs..so u can guess wat happened..EVERYBODY else mangaed to catch their eggs fine, n despite my begging her not to, the girl threw it at me and it hit the back of my head, before landing on the floor..it mustve cracked a little bit on my head cos i got a bit of egg white on my head..nothing(thankfully) landed on my shirt which was brand new..still it was very embarassing, but also very funny..i just burst out laughing as i typed it out, which was not cool cos im in a com. lab surrounded by strangers.
after we put our bread to bake, they took us to learn this irish folk dance, in which basically u line up in rows of four facing each other n do this little hop thing(it kinda looks like a riverdance move when the farm ppl did it, but we of course looked like asswipes)..it was really fun cos u move forward towards ur partner, then back, then sideways n then u SWING!that's when u grab ur partner's waist with one hand n their hand with the other n bounce ard in a circle..then later both rows intercross under the other rows arms until ure facing a whole new row of partners to do the whole thing again..its really tiring cos u are basically hopping thru the whole dance, which goes on quite long, cos u move all the way across the room bit by bit..but the swinging was frankly quite scary, esp when i did it wit this one guy who spun me so violently i thought i was gonna fly out of the window..i nearly fell down when he spun me(incidentally some other ppl actually did fall down!)
once we were all danced out, we went to see the animals..the farmer showed us his massive pigs, n challenged the international student society chairman(very funny, kinda cute italiano..he says singapore as SINGAPORE-RAY..all together now,with the italian hand action..SINGAPORE-RAY!!) to RIDE the pig!of course the pig wasnt too happy abt it, but he managed to actually straddle it for a few seconds before the pig decided to barge right thru the whole grp of us, i only jus got out of the way..also he asked if there were ne french ppl, n then challenged the french guy to go into the chicken coop n catch a rooster, which the french guy managed as well..then we walked into the fields where we tried to round up sheep, youre supposed to form a solid line to contain ém(the only problem is the sheep didnt seem to wanna be contained, they kept walking thru us n we kept letting them walk thru us for fear of being rammed)also we went to see the cows, though i spent most of the time looking at the ground cos the cows leave puddles of soupy-lookin shit(i jus put u off soup, din I?)..then we learned how to play hurling(irish sport with hockey-type stick n very hard ball)it was so hard i couldnt even get the ball off the ground, plus we were divided into grps of 6 to share 1 ball, n my grp had this very annoying german girl, hu kept calling for the ball in a very pissed-off way..
we went back to the farmhouse to have lunch n eat our soda bread with soup(very yummy!) n when my friend was like taking pictures of all the food on the table, that same german girl was like "y r u taking pictures of zat?"..n my fren said ÿ not?".n she was like"but y?i would never look at zem again", in this snooty voice..like wat the hell, right?its my friend's business wat she wants to take pictures of, innit?
then we learned to dance a diff dance, for which we needed to stand in a circle and partner huever was next to us..i jus happened to be next to the italiano when we formed our circlen he was jus gonna grab my hand when ANOTHER german girl butted in n grabbed his hand..she's one of those loud AA types n i think she likes the italiano, but i think he's a lil afraid of her..haha..im not bitter cos the italiano is too old,27 tho he doesnt look it,but he seems really funny so its a pity i din get to talk to him properly..after that, i milked a cow a lil bit, n they had a sharing session where everyone puts up a little piece to do with their native culture..there were only 3 s'poreans so we joined with the huge grp of malaysians n sang rasa sayang(there were only 2 italians, so they re-enacted zidane's head-butt @ the world cup finals, italiano said it was "an important moment in italian history"HAHA)btw,there had been 2 teenage kids, a boy n a girl hu had played accordions while we were dancing,the guy sang this song in irish that was sooo beautiful, like even tho u can't understand, it sounded a bit like the hebrew songs in prince of egypt n stuff..like very hauntingly beautiful..yea then we went home
wednesday past was our med day, which is basically when the whole medical cohort has like this flag day in town, n to help us raise more money, a bunch of the guys, dress up as women n dance with these pathetic little pom-poms, they rehearse for it n everything!..of course they get free beer all day(this IS ireland, ya noe?)..its very funny, so we followed them ard town asking for donations in their wake..over here ppl collect donations by jus yelling out the name of their cause in the hopes that ppl will donate, not like back home where u have to practically force ppl to donate.perhaps that's y when i started goin up to individual ppl n asking them a lotta them jus pretended i din exist(so hurtful, cos i was all bright n cheery, n then i get dao-ed)so in the end i jus walked around yelling ïrish cancer society!"after the flag day was over we went back to the medicine campus in town to have like an impromptu party, which i had to leave early, cos i had a clinical science seminar..that's basically when we meet up with an irish gp hu assigns us some of his patients, so that we can go to their house n interview them abt their illness(its all part of this early patient contact course that we take as part of the curriculum)..so i hafta go to my patient's house this wednesday, im a lil nervous cos im really shy..i guess i need to think of some questions beforehand..im goin wiv another irish girl, so it wont be too bad, i hope.k thats all i hafta say for now, i think..
love, love, love,
P.S. I meant to finish this letter on friday the 13th itself but din have time..guess that was my bad luck on that day..wat was yours?MUAHAHAHAHA

Posted by anu at Friday, October 13, 2006