The week after my Inis Mr trip, I caught a flu. One thing I did not
like too much about being in Ireland in March was the cold weather. I
had really expected it to be a bit warmer, but I was constantly in need
of wearing tights under my jeans.
On some nights, however, I
did not do that (well, girls never listen to their mums or grannies),
so I had to bear the consequences. On Thursday night I went out to a
pub with some other students and after one drink of Bailey's, the room
was almost spinning around. I also have to say that I am not too used
to alcohol... but the next day, I was definitely not in my best form.
Ironically,
in conversation class, we were talking about workers who were skiving,
dodging work, by "ostentatiously dropping scarfs around their necks and
coughing"... I was doing both, but I was not pretending! My classmates
looked at me like I was - isn't the world mean?
After classes,
we were served a little Paddy's Day meal. The school was to be closed
on "The Big Day." We were served some pate, and some soft drinks, but
no green beer - it didn't get that corny.
After spending
Saturday and Sunday at home feeling sorry for myself, I mercifully felt
much better on Monday morning, March 17. St. Patrick must have put in a
good word for me on that day. I had arranged to meet some Japanese
people somewhere in Galway City, but we hadn't yet arranged where and
when. I decided to look for them around the cathedral because that's
what we had discussed. However, when I had just gotten up and showered,
my little host sister greeted me with an announcement: "Andrea, someone
is at the phone for you!" It was my Japanese school mate, and we
settled everything to meet.
When I got to the cathedral after a
nice, refreshing walk (of course there was no bus that early - it was a
holiday and we met at 10:30 a.m.) I met all kinds of people, but not
the guy who had phoned me. On my way to the cathedral, I saw a lot of
people in the streets selling little toy snakes, whose most obvious
characteristic was that they did not look like snakes at all. They were
longish, fluffy things in screaming pinks and yellows. I saw people
passing by, some with the Irish flag painted onto their faces.
Everything
still looked quite peaceful, but action would soon set in... the parade
that I so eagerly wanted to see was about to start. I expected a great
event of several hours. Were my expectations correct? Read about this
in the next issue...
Saving the Tigers from extinction It was a hurriedly organized citizen’s meeting at Guwahati Press Club, where serious concerns were expressed at the increasing trend of poaching and killing of wildlife in various parts of Assam.
The EIP factor - what you should learn from it When we grow older, or get older for the sake of the argument, we tend to start seeing the world only from one side. We tend to believe, no, not believe but know, how things are done. If you are smart, you understand that it shouldn't be that way, you understand this is wrong.
Whether we want to admit it or not, even now, in year 2012, there are still big gender biases in some fields of life. While it's generally understandable that men should do more heavy lifting than women and knitting fits a bit better for the women (even though I am aware even here there are many people who want to disagree), art is one of those things where our gender really should not play any significant role at all. And within the past decade things have started to change even on this front and even on the more conservative arenas such as Bukowskis - the top Nordic auction house.
