Halfway to Christmas...

I have discovered that time flies as fast in Ireland as it does in Canada.  I am already past the halfway point in my term, and I am starting to feel some of the "midterm lows."  The only thing I feel motivated to do is procrastinate ... alright it's not that bad, I just am starting to feel the looming presence of deadlines.

One of my problems is that I keep finding too many things to do outside of my schoolwork.  Last weekend my flatmates and I had a belated Thanksgiving feast.  Being the only North American in the apartment I felt it was my duty to help these unsuspecting Europeans enjoy the wonders of ridiculous amounts of feasting!

I had avoided hosting Thanksgiving because it seemed like too much work (I'd rather show up and eat what my parents had cooked!).  But I knew I had to accept the challenge when I found out my roommates Chris and George had never had pumpkin pie before.  The common opinion on pumpkin pie here is "who turns a vegetable into dessert?"  And of course I couldn't just half-ass the job either (pardon my diction); I had an entire continent to represent!

In my mind I imagined a small group dinner between the four of us.  I offered to cook a chicken and the pie and asked if the other three would bring a dish.  I didn't realize how enthusiastic my roomies would be though.  What I thought would be a four-five dish meal ended up including: chicken, beef, italian meats, two salads, potatoes, rice, carrots, parsnips, beans and carrots, stuffing, cranberry sauce, olives, bread, pumpkin pie and cake.  I was so full that I had to sit down for an hour afterwards.

It was a wildly successful group meal, and I'm sure we will have more in the future.  Here are some pictures:

 Cheers to our successful meal, with Chris, George, Roisin.

 Teamwork on the chicken!

My pride and joy! It was delicious.  I would make it professionally if it didn't take me so long... I'd have to charge about $50 per pie.

In other news I participated in the Academos Chamber project at the music school this week.  It is an intensive chamber program with the classical string students, involving two days of 6 hour rehearsals.  It was very long, but enjoyable. The principal second violinist from the Irish Chamber Orchestra was coaching our ensemble on Dvorak's Serenade and a couple short Sibelius pieces.  I had managed to get involved when I approached the cello professor about classical opportunities at the school.  It was really great to play with skilled musicians and to whip myself back into classical playing shape.  The group will meet again for a week in February and will perform a concert with the help of additional ICO players.

These are only a few of the activities I am involved in outside of school, but there are still more.  They keep me quite busy so no wonder I'm feeling tired!  No time to blog about them now, so stay tuned in the future.

Shannon