Dublin Simon Fun Run 2010

Today I ran a race! It was a five mile race through the beautiful park in Dublin called Phoenix Park. Phoenix Park is 707 hectares (1752 acres) big, and is a historic landscape of international importance. It is also one of the largest designed landscapes in any European city. It was originally established as a Royal deer park in the 17th century. The race I ran today was called the Dublin Simon Fun Run. It was a fundraiser for the Dublin Simon Community. I am proud to say I ran the whole five miles and did not even stop once. I had my earphones on the whole race and simple went on my merry way. I was not racing for any certain time, I only wanted to see if I could actually run the whole race and still be alive afterwards. And I am!! They even gave me a medal at the finish line. I ran the race with two of my friends and we had an absolute blast. We already have other races we plan to attend in the coming weeks. Enjoy the pics!


Love Always,
Amanda




Amanda



Michael, Amanda, and Chris

http://www.phoenixpark.ie/
http://www.funrun.ie/

The Dublin Zoo

Monkeys

Tiger

Lemar

Ostrich

Giraffe



Fruit Bats



That's Me!

It's Been A While, The Zoo, and Fresh Produce Markets

Hi Everyone!

I know it has been a while since I last wrote to you. In all honesty, I have been truly busy.  I am either eating, sleeping, studying, or at the gym during my free time.  My life revolves around my text books, but I am loving my classes.  All my subjects are very interesting and I am learning so much about stocks, bonds, derivatives, and capital markets.  I am in with a great group and we are constantly having study sessions trying to keep up with all the material the professors are throwing at us each week.

Not to worry though, I am taking time off once a week just for myself.  As the Bible states, Sunday is a day of rest.  Therefore, I rest.  I have decided after much consideration, that Sundays are my day off when I do absolutely no studying (well, almost no studying).  I have found a pub in Dublin called The Woolshed.  This is one of the best pubs in the city mainly because every Sunday they play all the NFL games on big screen televisions.  This means I can watch the Saint's play every week!!!  Yea!  Plus they serve chili, and everyone knows you cannot watch football without eating chili.  :)  And the best part of all is that all the Americans know about this pub so every Sunday is a day of gathering for Americans to watch football.

Having been in Ireland over a month now, I have learned a few things about grocery shopping, mainly that if you buy produce from the shops you have to eat it that night or the next day, otherwise it goes bad.  I have done a bit of searching and have come across a few farmer's markets in the city.  Now on Sunday I buy all my fruits and vegetables from the market for the week.  And they are so fresh!!  The tomatoes are huge and the bananas last the whole week without going ripe on me.  I know it is all fresh too because when I bought green onions last week the roots still had mud on them.  The farmer's markets don't just sell fruits and vegetables either.  They have stalls with cheese, breads, pastries, crafts,and cider.  Oh the cider!!!  I had hot apple cider the other day with a shot of apple brandy and it was delicious. 

Last, but not least, I wanted to mention the Dublin Zoo. I also went to the zoo on the 18th of September, but I never put up my photos.  The zoo was great!  I saw all types of animals (Who would have guessed?) and enjoyed the chilly weather with the rain.  I am hoping in the weeks to come I can do a bit more sightseeing and I will keep everyone up to date on what is going on.

Love Always,
Amanda

Phases A Student Goes Through Each And Every Day Of Graduate School

Dear Family and Friends,

I have survived my first week of lectures....barely!!  I have already killed a few trees with all my note card making and I have lost tremendous amounts of sleep.  You will be happy to know though, I have made lots of friends.  Their names are:

Tea
Coffee
Starbucks
Library
Chocolate
Local Pub
Derivatives
Econometrics
Capital markets

We have spent so many hours together and are learning so much about each other.  We have become fast friends in the week that we have been introduced.  It is hard to describe the emotions myself and others have gone through over the past week and the emotions we will go through in the weeks to come.  The best way to describe my emotions can be best depicted in the picture below.

Love Always,
Amanda

Immigration and Fire Alarms

     I have been very busy with preparing for school.  I have already started studying for my classes and lectures have not even begun yet.  How crazy is that!! Last Friday I went to immigration in Dublin so that I could obtain a study visa.  After waiting in line for 3 1/2 hours my passport was finally stamped and my picture taken.  The reason I am telling you this information is so that you can experience it with me.  When they first swiped my passport all my information came up on their system.  The first question the officer asked me was if I was married.  I kindly told him no, that I was a student.  Then he asked me if I was a solicitor (attorney).  Again I told him no, that I was a student studying for my master's in finance.  Now, people who know me know I love to ask questions.  So I started to ask questions.  I asked the officer if he could please tell me what information the computer system was giving him about me.  Apparently, they had me down as being married, but abandoned, and a solicitor.  How is that for a shocker?  Not to worry though, everything is cleared up and I am back to being a student once again.  Talk about a perfect way to end a week.
     This morning around 4:30am I was awoke to a VERY LOUD fire alarm. I actually thought I was dreaming at first.  I quickly put on my robe and stumbled out of my room into the hallway where all my other housemates were gathering.  Many of us were half dressed and a bit disoriented.  The fire alarm was going off in our house, but then it spread to the whole entire building.  We were debating what to do (leave or not) when the alarm went off. I have heard a few fire alarms in my lifetime, but this one topped them all.  This alarm could wake the dead!!  When the alarm went off there were a few curse words and some sighing coming from our house.  Then, as we were going back into our rooms, someone came banging on our door asking if anyone was hurt or if there was a fire.  We then realized it was a false alarm and also that the alarm had started in our house before triggering the whole building.  This morning I went down to the front desk to ask what could have tripped the alarm and they said it could have been anything from a spider to dust.  Maybe this was payback for killing the spider few days ago.  Who knows!

Love Always,
Amanda

Castletown House

Yesterday I spent the day sightseeing.  I went to Castletown House where my friend Kieran is a tour guide.  Castletown House was built between 1722 and 1729 for William Conolly who was a speaker of the Irish Parliament.  Castletown House was kept in the family until 1965 when the Irish Georgian Society obtained it.  The house is now owned by the state and is open to the public with daily tours.  Castletown House is beautiful with lavish decorations and stunning wood and plaster work inside and out.  The central staircase inside is something to awwww over with it sweeping down from the second story to the first spreading out for all to see. Unfortunately pictures could not be taken inside due to the original oil paintings and statues.  If a flash were to go off from a camera the artwork would start to deteriorate.  For more information on this lovely house go the website  http://www.castletownhouse.ie/

Love Always,
Amanda

Whole picture of Castletown House from the website http://ireland.archiseek.com/buildings_ireland/kildare/celbridge/castletown/introduction.html

The Only American and The "Onion" Story

Yes my friends and family, I am the only American in my finance programme of over 100 students.  In the past years the finance programme was only about 60 students big.  With the economy down though they have opened it up to more students.  Today was orientation and part of the orientation was attending a Cultural Diversity lecture.  We had to stand up and introduce ourselves and then say where we were from.  Over 30 percent of the students at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School are international students and I am very proud to be representing America in the Finance Programme.  Since there are so many cultures represented in the programme we had to attend a lecture on diversity.  This is where the "onion" comes into my blog.  According to the lecturer we are all onions and have many layers that must be peeled back to get to our core.  I instantly thought of the movie "Shrek" and had to smile.  The lecturer was right though, each culture is different and we need to understand each person/culture in order to work with each other for group projects.  I am also the only American in my house at Proby Residences.  In our house there are 2 Canadians (boy and girl), an Irishman, a Frenchman, a girl from Germany, and then there is me.  Do you have any idea how many holidays we are going to celebrate with all these countries represented?  Too many to count!!  This year is going to be so exciting!!

Love Always,
Amanda

P.S. You will be so proud of me.  I killed a  BIG spider (not a daddy longlegs) in my room this evening.  Granted, I threw a shoe at it because I was getting nowhere near the thing, but I did it.  :)   And I know there is a saying about if you kill a spider it will rain.  I am in Ireland, it rains here almost all the time.  I do not think me killing one spider will make that big a difference.  I will tell you this though, any spider I see in my room is a dead spider.  I do not care how harmless the little critter might be.  :)    :)