Examinations.

A word that never fails to strike fear into the heart. But, alas, it is that time of year. I'll spare you from my rant on the failures of the Irish education system, and move straight to recounting my terribly stressful week.

It all began in the wee hours of Friday morning when the fire alarm rudely awakened me and literally scared the bejeebies out of me. In my haste to exit my apartment, I pulled my fleece on backwards and grabbed my sole connection to the outside world: my computer. I was told that if the alarms were going off in the whole building--which they were, at a deafening volume--that it meant there was a fire detected. However, I seemed to be the only one concerned with exiting the building. In fact, everyone was just going about their normal business at two o'clock in the morning. My flatmate didn't even make it out of his room. I waited outside nevertheless until security showed up, obviously in no hurry to assure me that everything was alright. In fact, the man gave no acknowledgment to my presence (even though I must have been quite the sight), and promptly went into the building and took the elevator up to the third floor. Clearly no one was in any danger, but I'm still quite befuddled as to when you should take the alarm seriously, and when you should not. I'm definitely still missing some important information, which greatly concerns me.

In any case, it was a sleepless start to a weekend of studying. My dear friend Rory surprised me with a visit though, and a delightful trip to the Aran Islands cheered me up a bit. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were spent much in the same manner: wake up at 6am, eat a hearty breakfast of eggs, sausage, fruit and yogurt, walk to school and catch the bus to the examination hall (i.e. clubhouse at the ballybrit racecourse) sit and wait for an hour (while you promptly forget everything you just studied), and then proceed to the examination room where you are locked in for two hours with two hundred and fifty other stressed out students. At 11:30, I would catch the bus back to campus, eat lunch in town, and walk back to my apartment to start studying for the following day's exam. All of my exams are structured the exact same way. You are allotted two hours to answer two questions that are agonizingly vague. Example: 'Scottishness,' like all forms of identity, is invented. Discuss. To top it all off, the pages in the answer booklets are longer than normal-sized paper (have I ever told you that paper is a different size here?), and it feels like you are making much less progress when you have only written two pages, rather than the four it would have been in a bluebook. I must say, however, the grandstand at the racecourse offered spectacular views of the green rolling hills, not to mention the cows grazing in the infield. This did not particularly help my concentration though.

Lets just say its an experience that I don't particularly wish to repeat. On top of the examinations I had two extended essays due this past week. The good news: I'm now done with five of my six classes, and have 10 days before my last exam. Emme comes to Galway in two weeks, I'm heading to Dublin on Tuesday, and my roommate is back in town so it isn't quite so lonely in the apartment. All in all, things are looking up. I'm rather excited to focus on being a tourist for my remaining four weeks in Ireland. I'm comfortable travelling around the country, and I finally feel like I have my bearings (it only took four months). Emme and I have planned a trip to London, which will most likely be my only trip off the Island, but one that I am looking forward to greatly. In the meantime, I'm going to try and do a garden tour of Ireland, make some day trips around Galway to neighboring towns, and enjoy the music before heading home at the end of the month.

So, hopefully my next entry will be a bit more lighthearted :) I hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful spring weather I've been hearing so much about. Take care,

Caitlin