Now I have it: It's a Soap Opera

Socialising is a very important word here. Everyone is doing it, no one can afford to miss it, otherwise he/she won't be having a good time here. So I'm doing it too. Drinking beer, eventhough I don't like beer, going to loud parties, eventhough I don't like the music and trying to look cool with my umbrella instead of having to pretend to dance like the others. I tied my scarf around my neck, so it looks like an oversized tie. Together with the umbrella, used as a mike, I thought it looked quite cool. Audrey, the french girl, took a photograph of mine in that pose, need to check if it looks good outside the camera too.

Audrey Aupoix from Toulouse is one of those several characters I meet here in my socialising sessions. She is a chemist. I used to know some girls in my class back in Vienna who used to be really dumb, but somehow, due to some strange reasons they were good in chemistry (and I wasn't). But Audrey is not dumb, she is more like an adventurer. She came to Dublin already in summer and toured the whole country much before I arrived. As all french people, she has quite a sweet accent. Now I really regret it that I didn't study french at school. Miss Aupoix impressed me only when she borrowed the movie "Apocalypse Now" from the library. (I think otherwise I wouldn't have even mentioned her here). She said she likes the pychological aspect in the movie, not so much the war. Well, a woman who appreciates the pychology in a war movie must have something meaningful to say I guess. Hope I'll get into a deeper conversation with her soon.

Actually there is a lot to say about my life here in Dublin. But I
guess its due to the overkill of new experiences I'm not able to write all about it. A work like this actually needs to be structured, either chronologically, or in different categories (like Dublin the city, the people here, the traditions, the university, other students etc.), but since I discovered this new thing called Blog now, I will just write what comes into my mind and hope for the best that it has some interesting insight for the people reading it. (If it was for strict structuring, this paragraph should be somewhere at the beginning of this entry, right?)

Every story lives through its characters. There are so many different characters here. So far the past three weeks here have been like reading a new book. And there are in fact some clichè characters like in any novel or movie. Like Sven the "Show-off", or Marc, the soft-spoken witty guy, or Stephanie, the husky-voiced freaky girl. (My own role I will keep as a secret, after all there's a limit for psychical exhibitionism). There are many more, hope I can introduce them all to you gradually. I think I'll write a real-life soap opera here. Now thats the idea I just had while writing this here. And I'm a part of this soap.

Claudia is the german girl my roommate Malte is trying to get around, as I already wrote in my last post. Unlike us, she is living on-campus. Thats how this whole affair became quite obvious as we often saw Malte leaving us in order to see Claudia or pick her up from somewhere. Well, but something must have happened in the meantime. Yesterday we all were watching a movie at Sven's place, and you know what? Claudia was sitting on the one side and Malte on the other side of the room. Seperated by two really tall guys and a couch. Now thats really fishy. Today he told me that he won two tickets for a party tomorrow at the Hub (which normally costs 10 €). So I asked him casually who he's going to take with him. You know, really casually, like pretending not to know anything about their small love affair. I was washing up the dishes, and he was drying it (yeah like some 90s couple). So I didn't look at his face when he said "Ich hab mal die Claudia gefragt, keine Ahnung ob sie kommt...". ("I asked Claudia, but no idea if she's coming..."). I'll keep my ears and eyes open for you guys there.

Meanwhile Kylie, my latest discovery in that short list of really good-hearted people, is being seen almost only with Marcus. The last two times I saw her, she was kind of wearing a sad face expression. Couldn't really make out what is worrying her. Unfortunately the chemistry between us nowhere near what it was on the first two, three meetings. She is quite obviously not feeling very well here. For example she deliberately took courses which are assessed through the assignments done throughout the semester and where there is no final exam in january. So she can go back home before christmas and doesn't need to come back for the exams. Yeah, my assumptions are mostly based on careful observations. If possible I'll ask her the next time I see her what she's upto.

Today I had my first presentation in class by the way. As its brave blood running through my venes I volunteered to do the first presentation. (Yeah, go on, release that ugly word from your tongue you call such people who volunteer. I don't give a shit). I presented five news items of the last week in the technology field. Went through a lot of boring articles in Cnet.com, New York Times and BBC until I found some articles worth mentioning. The course coordinator, a really smart chap, was satisfied (thats what he said, no idea what he thought though. After all we are like 10 people in the course, out of which only 3 are Irish. So all the other ones, including me, are more stumbling than speaking English). I personally would say I could have done better if I had prepared myself a bit better. Talking free may be a real "do" in the list of dos and donts of a presentation, but if there are some languages issues like in my case, its probably better to write down something before. Well, the next presentation will be a much professional one, as I have to summarize an academical paper together with someone else. That ones going to be a tough one. But what they say? The tough ones die harder? Ha.

P.S.: Any bad words you find in my writings are under artistic license, so no need of complaining about them (or even overanalyzing which emotion the author may have felt when writing it).