New place, different problems

It has been a while since I updated. Its because I had shifts all week last week at UCD. There was some environmental epidemiology conference going on there all week. People from different colleges were there presenting whatever they had. Stuff like "the effects of smog on people living in houses of different heights"? I'm not sure if they did a study on people living in tall houses or people living at high altitude. Most of the studies seemed dumb and they were all done by people whose names I couldn't pronounce. What I did at the conference was facilitate the tea and coffee breaks and serve the lunch everyday. They had about 4 tea and coffee breaks throughout the day, so it was ridiculous. The environmental people are weird though, and it seemed like they didn't like talking to people, especially the tea and coffee people. I would walk through the main hall while they were all in there looking at their boring posters and I collected trash but no one would move out of my way when I was coming through with a giant trash bag. One guy asked if there was a bag for recycling, so we told him that we separate it in the back which was a total lie. They also got real mad if we ran out of cheese sandwiches because they are vegetarians. It was probably the most boring thing I have worked, but it was good because it was all week long and it was very easy.

Random things on my body have been hurting lately and I don't know why. Maybe I have arthritis.

Todd and I moved into a new place that is much nicer than the last one. It isn't very far away from the other place, but somehow the neighborhood is much nicer. There are no loud Italians, or weird Brazilians, or slow internets. However, the wireless here doesn't reach all the way to our room, so I have to go into the living room every time I want to use it. And there is a refrigerator in the dining room that has a dead rat in it or something. When someone opens it a wave of stink blows through the entire house. We told the landlord about it and he is supposed to come get that thing out of here tomorrow.

I randomly remembered that I used to have a livejournal in high school so I looked it up and it's still there. You can go look at it if you want. Just click THIS THING. It takes place in the last semester of my high school career. I thought it was pretty funny. Alright, this is red 5, I'm going in.

Bray

Long one

It's 2:15pm and I feel like a lot has already happened today. I cranked up the job search machine again. Man, when that thing gets going, there is no stopping it. I don't know how many jobs I applied for this morning, but it was a ridiculous amount. It's a little bit frustrating because the way to apply for jobs here is on the internet, so I feel like I'm not really getting the application through to anyone because it is only online. That's mainly why I send them out in the masses. I also changed a tactic a little bit today and if it works, I'm going to be a little bit mad. In the past I had been using the Word 2007 .docx type of file. I thought today, because I'm in Ireland and they might be a bit behind the times that they might have the old Word and might not be able to open my resume so every one of my applications would be for crap. Anyway, I applied for about 4 yesterday and who knows how many this morning and on the way into town on my bike, I got a call for an interview at some cafe this afternoon. In the past, the soonest I'd heard from anyone was about 2 weeks after I applied. Anyway, hopefully I'll get this one and then I'll be able to save some money instead of living check to check.

I decided to put a couple pictures from the Guinness storehouse on here since Todd hasn't done it yet. His will obviously be better than mine, but he's lagging his picture uploading. Maybe its because his mac can't connect to the internet for more than 5 minutes at a time so it takes him an entire day to upload any amount of pictures. My dell doesn't have any problems though.

Italians are loud. Jane the Scottish girl left so now Todd and I are the only English speakers in the house. Someone took a dump in the bathroom in the hall the other day that smelled up the entire place for about 2 hours. I want to play halo.

Still no job....Yar

Well...still no job, but things are feeling a bit more comfortable.  Sorry I haven't posted anymore "artsy" pictures on here.  I've been really busy.....O.K.  that is a complete lie.  I have, however, have been working on a portfolio blog (www.toddpiersall.com)  It is not ready yet and is still bare bones, but I figure why not let the people see.  Anyway, somedays I feel like a photographer and somedays I fee like a dud.  Most days actually....

But let me catch you up to where I am right now.  I have recently gone to the Guinness store house, where I learned how they make their booze (pictures to follow).  The best part of that tour by far is the view you get at the end.  You can see all of Dublin in a circular room high atop the storehouse.  Splendid.  

I met a missionary named Kelly who is from Colorado.  He just so happens to be a captain of an ultimate frisbee team here.  He was a great blessing to meet.  As I was telling David, it was definitely an answer to a prayer.  The second answered prayer actually...the first was when David thought he lost his wallet and was about to call it quits on Ireland.  He found it though.  Hooray God.  

I eat a ton of pizza.

I am now volunteering (I think) at the Delfin language school here in Dublin.  I offered to have conversations with non-english speakers.  Sounds noble doesn't it?  Well....at first my intentions would purely to get some money.  But once I discovered there was to be no money awarded, I was still excited to do it.  So, I had my first conversation tonight with Caridad at a coffee shop close to where I live.  She asked if I wanted to learn Spanish and I said yes...but I suppose she picked up on some hesitation in my voice because she said... "If you want to learn Spanish you must commit!!"  Yikes.  Anyway, she invited me to a party at the language school tomorrow at 7.  I promised I'd go..... Oh, I forgot to tell you about Todd vs. The Swiss part of the story but since this post is already long, just ask me about it via facebook or something.

And for those of you who were expecting artsy pictures.....here you go!!

 

 

 

I work

I started my job working for a catering company called With Taste. I worked at the Dublin Horse Show, which apparently is a huge deal in Ireland. I had a row of 14 tables that were set up in the Grand Stands. It was ridiculous and I don't want to explain how everything was on here because it would be too huge of a post. You can go to the horse show website here. I worked 9 hours last Tuesday setting up everything, then I averaged probably 13 hours a day every day after that for the next 5 days. My feet hurt

Last night I worked at the Dublin Castle. You can look at the website for that here. It is also the building in the pictures that Todd recently posted. Apparently it was establish in 1204? The rooms I worked in were ridiculous and to be able to book an event there, you have to have permission by some high up government people. We served a bunch of Americans from Metlife. I wasn't able to take any pictures of the place because the only camera I have is my video camera and I didn't want to lug that around everywhere. If you click on the 360 degree panoramas and then click on St. Patrick's Hall you can see where the drink reception was at the event. It was pretty good, and now I finally have some money that I can blow on stupid stuff.

I was riding my bike past a taxi on the way home from the horse show the other day and someone stuck a balloon animal out the window and hit me in the face.

Dublin Castle

I didn't actually go in here...although I soon will.  Somebody must help me with this whole blog thing.  This system keeps resizing these photos for me and cropping them.  Blah.  Kyle...Spenser...I'm looking in your direction.  Anyhoo, B&W is my favorite.  David worked all day.  I explored.  Ha.  

These are the botanical gardens in Dublin.  It's actually fairly close to where we live.  I'm only loading these because it takes forever to load images with the internet(s) that we have.