... as quickly as I siad I would, but I really didn't have the time, because, you see, I've getting quite a bit of work, and I've got that paper I need to write, and a degree to study, and then...
... I spend my evenings rushing through gloomy, misty alleys in Cork, dodging dark puddles and cars that are trying to stop us from getting to Dyke Parade, with my heart beating hard against my chest as the bells on a nearby church mercilesly strike eight...
So nope, no time for blogging!
Sunday, 6 October 2013
Thursday, 26 September 2013
Can you believe today is Arthur's Day?
That means I got to Ireland tomorrow.
A year ago tomorrow, i mean.
On the 28th of September, anyway.
It doesn't even seem like too much time. My life here has changed that much over the past 12 months, and it feels so settled now, that it is hard to believe it has only been a year since I landed in Cork airport for the first time.
And tomorro has taken so long to come...
I cannot even relate to what was my life last August, to what I used my time for and to what I thought when I closed my eyes before I decided to follow M.'s steps and come, as aupair, to an area at the eastern edge of West Cork (AKA "Farran". It may ring a bell to you. There are some Woods there.).
Of course it never occured to me to go anywhere else but to Inis Fail*. Only the other day my mother was retelling the story of how at 9, in summer, I started learning Gaeilge because I had decided that I would live in Ireland when I grew up.
And here I am.
I tend to think that deserves one big loud FUCK YEAH!
It just takes too much effort to be loud sometimes.
[Will be continued...]
A year ago tomorrow, i mean.
On the 28th of September, anyway.
It doesn't even seem like too much time. My life here has changed that much over the past 12 months, and it feels so settled now, that it is hard to believe it has only been a year since I landed in Cork airport for the first time.
And tomorro has taken so long to come...
I cannot even relate to what was my life last August, to what I used my time for and to what I thought when I closed my eyes before I decided to follow M.'s steps and come, as aupair, to an area at the eastern edge of West Cork (AKA "Farran". It may ring a bell to you. There are some Woods there.).
Of course it never occured to me to go anywhere else but to Inis Fail*. Only the other day my mother was retelling the story of how at 9, in summer, I started learning Gaeilge because I had decided that I would live in Ireland when I grew up.
And here I am.
I tend to think that deserves one big loud FUCK YEAH!
It just takes too much effort to be loud sometimes.
[Will be continued...]
Sunday, 15 September 2013
Culinary Experiment: Gravy
So here we are, the three of us, waiting for Omnipotent C to come for dinner. Of course he's late! But the chiken is going to get dry...
[So he came, eventually!]
It's after dinner now...
There was this mystery in our lives before, named Gravy :P Neither M. or I had ever seen real gravy, so we wondered what it actually was, we asked google, and we ended up watching a youtube video about how to throw away half the contents of your kitchen and get some gravy to freeze in return. I was obviously outraged! But it did make me find out what gravy means to be: enthickened roast sauce.
So that was the project for tonight's dinner and the reason why we had C. over- S. does eat well, but a whole big chicken for three can be quite too much!
It's all about being pacient, really: I put the carrots and garlick cloves and onions general veggies in the oven first, with some herbs adn pepper and salt and oil and a cup of water, on a low heat (160º in my oven probably equal 120 actual degrees...) and after an hour I put the chicken and the potatoes, with the corresponden salt and oil, having put the liquid apart first (you keep getting more, it's fascinating- cooking is fascinating, in general!), and let it roast ( heat up, too).
So now the real gravy making part comes! and it's very easy and very tricky too, because... you will see xD
You can eoither make it with olive oil or by gettin some more sauce from the chicken in the oven, that will very quicky start letting grease out of itself and into the sauce. Anyway- you put the grease of your choice in a frying pan and you add a small tablespoon of flour. You fry it, letting it toast a bit- A BIT, I BEG YOU, DON'T BURN IT! I know what I'm talking about! And then you add the rest of the sauce. It will get thick when it boils, what it does quicky. So in that sense you can say that gravy is wha tI had always known as the elavorated version of Spanish Sauce: there, mystery solved!
So yeah, that kept me in the kitchen all the afternoon (well that, and sopu, to be fair).
And it is a new week again tomorrow- isn't life just exhausting?
I'm also quite afraid of next week because new student and so on, starting tomorrow at 9.30. I didn't have the time to prepare the lesson, with all the cooking. We will see... I would like to get someone wish me good luck anyway.
The weekend was great craic, of course, with Dean and Supernatural and another ICC walk adn everything a weekend needs to include (lie- no chess game yet, I home to fix that soon!)
[So he came, eventually!]
It's after dinner now...
There was this mystery in our lives before, named Gravy :P Neither M. or I had ever seen real gravy, so we wondered what it actually was, we asked google, and we ended up watching a youtube video about how to throw away half the contents of your kitchen and get some gravy to freeze in return. I was obviously outraged! But it did make me find out what gravy means to be: enthickened roast sauce.
So that was the project for tonight's dinner and the reason why we had C. over- S. does eat well, but a whole big chicken for three can be quite too much!
It's all about being pacient, really: I put the carrots and garlick cloves and onions general veggies in the oven first, with some herbs adn pepper and salt and oil and a cup of water, on a low heat (160º in my oven probably equal 120 actual degrees...) and after an hour I put the chicken and the potatoes, with the corresponden salt and oil, having put the liquid apart first (you keep getting more, it's fascinating- cooking is fascinating, in general!), and let it roast ( heat up, too).
So now the real gravy making part comes! and it's very easy and very tricky too, because... you will see xD
You can eoither make it with olive oil or by gettin some more sauce from the chicken in the oven, that will very quicky start letting grease out of itself and into the sauce. Anyway- you put the grease of your choice in a frying pan and you add a small tablespoon of flour. You fry it, letting it toast a bit- A BIT, I BEG YOU, DON'T BURN IT! I know what I'm talking about! And then you add the rest of the sauce. It will get thick when it boils, what it does quicky. So in that sense you can say that gravy is wha tI had always known as the elavorated version of Spanish Sauce: there, mystery solved!
So yeah, that kept me in the kitchen all the afternoon (well that, and sopu, to be fair).
And it is a new week again tomorrow- isn't life just exhausting?
I'm also quite afraid of next week because new student and so on, starting tomorrow at 9.30. I didn't have the time to prepare the lesson, with all the cooking. We will see... I would like to get someone wish me good luck anyway.
The weekend was great craic, of course, with Dean and Supernatural and another ICC walk adn everything a weekend needs to include (lie- no chess game yet, I home to fix that soon!)
Tuesday, 10 September 2013
back to life
I was going through high levels of anxiety and feeling quite depressed since before I had to go to my parent's for the exams, but being there was (as always is) better than can expected, and now things are slowly falling back in place here too so my spirits are gradually higher.
The course hasn't started yet but I already have some of the books for my new subjects!! And that is only exiting if you're crazy out about discourse analysis, but hey, don't pretend to be surprised by my nerdyness. I never hid it.
M.'s boyfriend just moved in and I've said this in every possible social media platform but I can't grow tired of repeating it: he plays chess!! He does!! We were playing fridge scrabble yesterday (what, I'm not the only nerd in the house) when he suddenly asked whether I played chess "because it is the kind of thing he can see me doing", and I said yes, and he said we should have a game sometime. Yay!! I'm only afraid we don't have a board. Such sad souls we are...
And the writing club is being slowly worked on, and E. is going to find a way to be in two different places at the same time so he can still be in Cork while he studies in Dublin. I'm obviously very looking forward the development of such a technique.
Also, September is a month for beginnings, so there's lot of new people in town, and several of them are absolutely lovely individuals! To further increase my enthusiasm, some of those lovely newcomers want to be my students- oh joy!
Spanish tapeo meetings are back, along with ICC meetings, there is a Bank of Time to organise... we're all so busy it actually seems Summer was long and quiet,, it makes it almost feel like we did have holidays...
The course hasn't started yet but I already have some of the books for my new subjects!! And that is only exiting if you're crazy out about discourse analysis, but hey, don't pretend to be surprised by my nerdyness. I never hid it.
M.'s boyfriend just moved in and I've said this in every possible social media platform but I can't grow tired of repeating it: he plays chess!! He does!! We were playing fridge scrabble yesterday (what, I'm not the only nerd in the house) when he suddenly asked whether I played chess "because it is the kind of thing he can see me doing", and I said yes, and he said we should have a game sometime. Yay!! I'm only afraid we don't have a board. Such sad souls we are...
And the writing club is being slowly worked on, and E. is going to find a way to be in two different places at the same time so he can still be in Cork while he studies in Dublin. I'm obviously very looking forward the development of such a technique.
Also, September is a month for beginnings, so there's lot of new people in town, and several of them are absolutely lovely individuals! To further increase my enthusiasm, some of those lovely newcomers want to be my students- oh joy!
Spanish tapeo meetings are back, along with ICC meetings, there is a Bank of Time to organise... we're all so busy it actually seems Summer was long and quiet,, it makes it almost feel like we did have holidays...
Tuesday, 27 August 2013
more on visiting home
Tomorrow is the day and I could not be more stressed! There's tons of things I've got to do today... plus I need to check whether I've got the money for next month's rent or not (it's a lovely sensation, this dubiety), and M.'s friend F. arrives today, and I need S. to print out my tickets, and my room needs a thoroughful tidying and cleaning and I need to bake something for D&D's fourth birthday (Yay!) which is tonight, because thanks Murphy.
Seriously.
It's so tiring.
But the worst part is that I won't be flying home tomorrow, nope: I'll be flying to Barcelona, then I'll be killing time to get a train that will get me to P. after a four hours journey, and there I will find my mom waiting and another half an hour later, I will, fuck yeah, be finally home.
Visiting home is always some sort of epic adventure, with all the tedious giants to kill before you get to enjoy your glory.
Seriously.
It's so tiring.
But the worst part is that I won't be flying home tomorrow, nope: I'll be flying to Barcelona, then I'll be killing time to get a train that will get me to P. after a four hours journey, and there I will find my mom waiting and another half an hour later, I will, fuck yeah, be finally home.
Visiting home is always some sort of epic adventure, with all the tedious giants to kill before you get to enjoy your glory.
Saturday, 24 August 2013
blah blah blah blah blah
I'm going to Spain again for a few days next week, and I'm not any prepared for it.
Visiting home is always anxiety inducing, but when I come back, the soothing effect of the Lee is there for me.
I can't be sure the Lee will be any soothing this time, though, and I'm worried.
I was supposed to meet E. sometime this weekend but I didn't get any word from him and it's so unsettleing! Our time is short! I'm slowly realizing how unprepared I am for him to go, because everything up there is about that too.
So hopefully I'll hang out with him tomorrow, and if not I'll go occupate Dean's sofa, and we'll watch Howl's Moving Castle there. Maybe both? That'd be definitely awesome!
Anyway, on the bright side:
Yesterday I had so much fun doing crafts with Dean, we're like little kids! Seriously: we bought this crafting kit for the child she's minding, but in the exact moment when we got home, we opened it and starting creating foam monsters and... well, I don't think the poor biy will be able to make anything with it, but he'll be allowed to play with our creations!
Today was completely eventless, and also, I've run pout of cigarretes. Eh, what if that is were all the anxiety comes from? :P
Cheers, whoever's reading!
Visiting home is always anxiety inducing, but when I come back, the soothing effect of the Lee is there for me.
I can't be sure the Lee will be any soothing this time, though, and I'm worried.
I was supposed to meet E. sometime this weekend but I didn't get any word from him and it's so unsettleing! Our time is short! I'm slowly realizing how unprepared I am for him to go, because everything up there is about that too.
So hopefully I'll hang out with him tomorrow, and if not I'll go occupate Dean's sofa, and we'll watch Howl's Moving Castle there. Maybe both? That'd be definitely awesome!
Anyway, on the bright side:
Yesterday I had so much fun doing crafts with Dean, we're like little kids! Seriously: we bought this crafting kit for the child she's minding, but in the exact moment when we got home, we opened it and starting creating foam monsters and... well, I don't think the poor biy will be able to make anything with it, but he'll be allowed to play with our creations!
Today was completely eventless, and also, I've run pout of cigarretes. Eh, what if that is were all the anxiety comes from? :P
Cheers, whoever's reading!
Friday, 9 August 2013
How I met Dean
[semi-fictional piece in which "Dean" stands formy very dear friend L. and a reference to "Supernatural"]
I'd had a very stressful day yesterday, so I called E. and convinced him to come all the way to the city to sooth me as we had dinner in SubWay. He couldn't posibly escape because he recently told me to just whistle whenever I needed to chat with someone, he's so nice.
So, as we were ordering our chicken rolls there, two super geeky girls came in. They got my attention because they were... super geeky, and Spanish.
We quickly went out once we got the food, and what did we find there? God, there was this beautiful kitten with think black stripes on a b rownish grey background meowing at our sandwhitches! We stopped to stroke her (even if it wasn't any easy) and fed her some of our chicken, and that's when the two Spanish people came out. The delight was obvious in their faces when they saw the cat, specially in one of them, and she as with us in a moment, feeding and stroking the little fella ( :P ), and we quickly starting talking to each other. Her name's Dean, and she's trying to stop the Armagedon that she started herself...
We all had dinner together and after crazily laughing about silly stuff for a good while we walked E. to the bus stop, and dropped the other girl home. Dean asked me whether I could help her go pick up her boyfriend at work so there we went...
The way to his workplace involved walking past the subway again, and there was still the kitten, who, probably remembering that we'd fed her before, followed us all the way to Dean's boyfriend's workplace. I spent all the way there lamenting how we are not allowed to keep any pets in our apartmen, but Dean said she could help her, and that made me feel extremely happy! She's such a nice girl, I'm so happy I met her! So we decided that the cat was going to be called Gwen, because I really really always wanted to have a cat named Gwen and even if she won't exactly be my cat Dean let me pick her name!!
So got there, and as we waited for B. to come (B.'s Dean's boyfriend), this person went into the building. And this person was... hm... he was a 50/50mix of Batman's Mr. Penguin and Silent Bob, so well, both of us were paying him lots of attention, so he dialed the code to open the door and opened the door and closed the door and I was focusing all my attention in that person who was a Silent Penguin and once he walked away I realised that I had memorised the code to open the door. So we tried, and it worked and we quietly stayed out but we felt we had something huge, and that, in case any of you don't know it, is a great feeling!
So the last bit of the story is that, once B. came down, he saw the cat, and agreed to keep her (-ish, but whatever), but he said every animal in his house needs to be given and Egyptian name and Dean and I didn't want wen to stop being Gwen but we decided she could have two names. That was when she became Gwen Anubis.
[That up there is a very distorted version of yesterday, but I did have a lot of fun with L. and we did end up with a kitten named Gwen Anubis so... the essence of it is true. We just realised that the actual way how L. and I met isn't any cool so we decided to fit it into yesterday's story. Now, pretend you don't know this is not how it happened!
Also, thanks, E., for starring in my story :P I couldn't love you more :(]
I'd had a very stressful day yesterday, so I called E. and convinced him to come all the way to the city to sooth me as we had dinner in SubWay. He couldn't posibly escape because he recently told me to just whistle whenever I needed to chat with someone, he's so nice.
So, as we were ordering our chicken rolls there, two super geeky girls came in. They got my attention because they were... super geeky, and Spanish.
We quickly went out once we got the food, and what did we find there? God, there was this beautiful kitten with think black stripes on a b rownish grey background meowing at our sandwhitches! We stopped to stroke her (even if it wasn't any easy) and fed her some of our chicken, and that's when the two Spanish people came out. The delight was obvious in their faces when they saw the cat, specially in one of them, and she as with us in a moment, feeding and stroking the little fella ( :P ), and we quickly starting talking to each other. Her name's Dean, and she's trying to stop the Armagedon that she started herself...
We all had dinner together and after crazily laughing about silly stuff for a good while we walked E. to the bus stop, and dropped the other girl home. Dean asked me whether I could help her go pick up her boyfriend at work so there we went...
The way to his workplace involved walking past the subway again, and there was still the kitten, who, probably remembering that we'd fed her before, followed us all the way to Dean's boyfriend's workplace. I spent all the way there lamenting how we are not allowed to keep any pets in our apartmen, but Dean said she could help her, and that made me feel extremely happy! She's such a nice girl, I'm so happy I met her! So we decided that the cat was going to be called Gwen, because I really really always wanted to have a cat named Gwen and even if she won't exactly be my cat Dean let me pick her name!!
So got there, and as we waited for B. to come (B.'s Dean's boyfriend), this person went into the building. And this person was... hm... he was a 50/50mix of Batman's Mr. Penguin and Silent Bob, so well, both of us were paying him lots of attention, so he dialed the code to open the door and opened the door and closed the door and I was focusing all my attention in that person who was a Silent Penguin and once he walked away I realised that I had memorised the code to open the door. So we tried, and it worked and we quietly stayed out but we felt we had something huge, and that, in case any of you don't know it, is a great feeling!
So the last bit of the story is that, once B. came down, he saw the cat, and agreed to keep her (-ish, but whatever), but he said every animal in his house needs to be given and Egyptian name and Dean and I didn't want wen to stop being Gwen but we decided she could have two names. That was when she became Gwen Anubis.
[That up there is a very distorted version of yesterday, but I did have a lot of fun with L. and we did end up with a kitten named Gwen Anubis so... the essence of it is true. We just realised that the actual way how L. and I met isn't any cool so we decided to fit it into yesterday's story. Now, pretend you don't know this is not how it happened!
Also, thanks, E., for starring in my story :P I couldn't love you more :(]
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