Just "Grand"

I have successfully completed two full days of class here in Dublin. I have two core courses which will run for seven weeks. The first is Irish History. Our teacher is a young, Irish woman with fiery red hair and a personality to match. She was incredibly interactive and seized my attention for the two hour class. She has us laughing when she claimed that, "The Irish would have taken over the world if they did not drink as much." Learning about the history while experiencing the culture has grabbed my attention much more than I had expected.

The second class was Contemporary Irish Society, taught by an older professor. He is incredibly knowledgeable and excited about this topic he will present to us. As a part of class quizzes, we have to keep an eye on local news and the Irish newspapers which is a good push for me to stay updated on current events. We discussed briefly the ways in which the Irish take English words and use them in their own way, for example "grand." Americans use the word to mean something magnificent. The Irish on the other hand, use it for everything. It seems that everything has been "grand" since I arrived. It's true, even if something is absolutely horrible, an Irishman may reply that things are just "grand." I just found that to be a funny quirk.

My third class is an elective and is called The Arts in Ireland. For the first half of the semester we will be focusing on Irish Music. Today we learned how to play both the Bodhran, an Irish drum, and a Tin Whistle. Our professor advised us not to build a life on these musical talents that we had acquired, for the return pay is rare and cheap. He continued to stress that the Irish play their music out of love for the activity, not for money or fame. It is a bit cliche, but hearing it from him brought new meaning for we could see how important this style of music was to him. I believe that if more people had this attitude, act on what you love, we would all be more satisfied with life. Easier said than done but I'm willing to embrace the mindset and try it out this semester. So overall, a very positive two days have passed and more will come soon.