19,000 Words Later

Well my first semester of grad school in Dublin is almost officially over and I realize that I have not been very good at keeping up with this blog! So this will serve as my semester in review post (I will try to keep it short)!

After spending all month and countless hours on the couch in front of the computer researching and writing four final papers, I am ready for a break! It seems odd that I should want to type anything after 19,000 words. But I actually enjoyed writing my papers. For my U.S. Foreign Policy since WWII class, I wrote about how the Bush administration wrongfully used humanitarian justifications for the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. For American and Globalization, I wrote about the ways in which globalization is represented in stock photography. I had to write a bibliographical essay in preparation for my masters thesis which will consider the influence of cultural or social knowledge on photojournalism. And, saving the best for last, for my Media and U.S. Foreign Policy paper I wrote about how zombie films represent the dehumanization of the enemy in foreign policy! I really enjoyed writing that one! I just have to turn in the papers tomorrow morning and I am officially done for the semester!

I made some great friends this semester. We had a movie night every Thursday which was always fun and had some great class excursions to the local pubs as well. We celebrated Halloween and a very interesting Thanksgiving together. We also began a wonderful tradition of meeting once a week for delicious home-cooked dinners (which was great for me since I can't cook)! We are planning a class trip to Northern Ireland in January where we will be staying in lighthouses on the coast; it will be beautiful!

Matt and I had a lot of great times in Dublin and really enjoyed our weekend trip to Galway in October where we bought our wedding rings! He left Ireland on October 29 and I will finally get to see him again when I return home in a few days!

Dublin recently survived an intense snow and ice storm; the city was completely unprepared. This storm was nothing compared to what Pittsburgh would normally get, but Ireland is not used to that kind of winter weather. People didn't know what to do! The snow and ice has all melted by this point but I will be returning to the Pittsburgh winter in a few days so there is no escape for me.

Along with all of my paper writing, I am in the midst of planning a wedding. No matter how small or simple one wants a wedding to be, it will never turn out that way! Although I think most of the planning is complete at this point. The wedding is January 6 and Matt and I are very much looking forward to it!

All in all, my first semester of grad school was a success! Well, at least it seems to be; we do not receive our grades until the beginning of next semester so maybe I should not speculate yet! Nonetheless, it was good craic :)