Grace Has Arrived!

Grace left a rainy Chicago last night at about 10 pm after hours of delay and is now here with my in Ireland!

Because I had an exam today at noon I could not pick my little sister up from the airport for I had to enlist my great friends Laura and Stevie to do it. They even had a nice little "Grace" sign so that she knew who they were. Everything went according to plan and they three of them found each other and had lunch without me in the city centre. My Irish family and biological family has merged into one.

As I mentioned, I had a Cross-Cultural Management exam today that prevented me from meeting Gracie at the airport. I got to the exam facility and found me seat (the other day I sat in seat 2256!), pumped up on a chocolate muffin, tea, and a Coke. Although the tea and Coke got me hyped up I also had the problem of really having to go to the bathroom around halfway through the test. The other kids in the test also thought I was nuts when I kept making jazz hands to pump myself up (I attribute my ACT score to my excessive use of jazz hands during the breaks).

All the tests here have been essays and I felt confident on my essays today. You cannot leave the room for the last ten minutes of the exam and I had finished my essays and gone through them with 12 minutes left. I was then left with the choice of going through my answers more and adding little facts here and there and having to wait 10 minutes to get out of the room or just getting out of there and reuniting with my sister. Naturally, I chose Grace.

I got into the city and met up with the girls at Penney's, where they were doing some shopping. I then took Grace and we went on the short scenic tour of Dublin and then took the double decker bus back to UCD campus. Now she is napping and we are getting ready to go out to karaoke.

It's going to be a fun two weeks!

The Final Countdown

I'm sorry that I haven't been updating you all on my European adventures but finals at UCD started yesterday and I have been trying to study. And, yes, I do mean "trying." After a semester of very little work it has been hard to get in the right mindset to study hard (I accidentally watched Waiting for Guffman last night), but I guess I can't complain.

Finals here are a lot different than at home. First off, the exams are not administered on the UCD campus, but rather at a convention complex about a 30-minute walk away. UCD has the building that looks like a concert venue and smells like a barn. It has 2000 tables and chairs set up and each student gets assigned a seat. They also have a bag check that you must check your bag into for one euro. They don't want to take any chances that you are cheating.

I walked to the exam place but there are also free shuttles that leave campus every 20 minutes. The problem- with a building that holds 2000 students, a bus that carries 40 leaving every 20 minutes is not going to do much. From what I hear, students literally get into fist-fights over who gets on the bus because no one wants to miss their finals.

I had my first final today and it was an essay test, like every other exam I have this semester. Financial Institutions Management was the exam d' jour and I think I did a decent job; at least I hope I did well because it was worth 100% of my grade, which is very nerve-racking.

And the Final Countdown to the US: 3 weeks from today! Who's excited?

Student Pub

I just got back from the student pub at UCD. Yes, there is a pub on campus that is run by the school located next to the business building. I went there with Brittany, Stevie, and Stevie’s roommate Annemarie, who is from Ireland. There are a lot of Americans and other non-Irish in my dorm and I was excited to chat it up with Annemarie.

It was just a chill night listening to the Beatles cover band, who called themselves "The Classic Beatles." And when I say cover band they pretended it was 1967 and referred to themselves as John, Paul, George, and Ringo. They also wore wigs and various costumes, including the Sgt. Peppers jackets. I considered asking if Yoko was backstage but I thought it might be a touchy subject. It was a nice atmosphere and Brittany and I talked about our upcoming trip to London, Dsigs, and scoped out good-looking guys, which was fruitless.

I can call landlines with my skype although the connection is often very bad during high traffic times. I just called home to talk with my family and my dad told me to call back around 8 CST. We’ll see if I’m up at 2 am…

A Beginning...

Hello All!

For those of you who don't know, I'm going to be studying abroad at Quinn Business School in Dublin, Ireland. It is going to be quite an experience and I hope to share it all with you through this blog. I'm leaving January 12 and coming back to the States May 27 so I should have plenty of juicy material for my blog!

I will be attending University College Dublin's Quinn Business school taking five courses: From Colony to Republic: The Making of Modern Ireland, International Marketing, Cross-Cultural Management, Financial Institution Management, and the EU and the Business Environment. It should be fairly interesting taking International Marketing because in Ireland, I'm going to be an international student!

Three other girls (Stevie, Stacy, and Brittany) from U of I will be attending UCD with me. Before we started this whole adventure I didn't know Stacy or Stevie, but I knew Brittany from my business frat Delta Sigma Pi. It will be very comforting to have a brother in the same country as me.

I'm also going to have my first taste of apartment living while I'm at UCD. Although I will be living in University housing, I will have my own bedroom and bathroom with a sitting room and kitchen that I will share with my five roommates. The three other U of I girls going to UCD with me will be in the same building but not the same room so I'll have plenty of opportunities to meet new people. This next semester is going to be quite the learning experience for me because not only will I be thousands of mile away from home, but I'm going to have to cook my own meals!

I think that answers all the frequently asked questions, except of course "how many cocktail dresses do you bring to Ireland?" I honestly have anxiety nightmares about packing for a 4 month stay in Europe, so if anyone has any insight please let me know!

I promise the blog will get more entertaining once I'm partying with the leprechauns and they make me their queen.

-Claire