Freak Out!

These past few days could be described as a series of 'freak outs.' Disclaimer: Nothing major happened, no bodily harm, no random attempts of any Egyptian business men picking me up, so don't hit the panic button or anything.

The first in the series I'm going to describe to you is just Halloween in general. I'm not really around children here in Dublin unless I'm in town and they are out with their parents, so some of the costumes I saw this weekend and last week (not just Halloween night), that ADULTS were wearing were a little frightening- the point of Halloween I suppose. I'll even include the moment when I was turning the corner and literally bumped into somebody who had scary clown make-up on. Somewhat comical now that I look back on it.
My Halloween was spent with my friend Sarah Jay and her friend from home, whose name was Sarah as well. I went as a cowgirl for just about the 4th straight year, but in all fairness I was 'Butch Cassidy' with my bestest friend 'The Sundance Kid' who was played by one of my bestest friends in real life, Miss Lindsey Junk. But, I promise, nothing remotely close to a cowgirl or Western themed outfit next year! We spent the majority of the evening at a really cool pub called the Bleeding Horse. Supposedly after some myth if you put the blood of a horse into a fountain in a nearby country-town, then you'll live forever- at least that is what an intoxicated Rockstar told me. It was a neat pub though with lots of steps and side rooms. Almost like a maze really. I was leading the three of us into the pub and as we were approaching the bouncers (who were also in costume as knights), one said to me, "Wait! Don't say anything . . . you guys are American!" Of course he was right- I think it was the John Deere camo hat that gave us away and the other Sarah had a Cubs jersey and hat on? How could he guess?

The next freak out was actually a very good one! It happened yesterday on yet another field trip that I took as part of one of my classes. We went to Jim Bolger's main training yard about 2 hours away from Dublin and this place was 'class, deadly and brilliant' according to my Irish classmates, my American adjectives used to describe this place would be amazing and awesome! He has 100 horses there in full training, enough walkers to have 60 horses walking at once, two all-weather gallops, two grass gallops, 2 horse spas and a treadmill! Not to mention the big 'lories' or horse trailers he had parked. Oh and a good looking John Deere tractor to keep the gallops maintained :) . The treadmill was the best part of the trip! He actually pulled a horse in and put him on and went through the gaits with us. It was awesome to actually see the horse in one spot going through all the gaits, you usually just observe this as they are passing by, but to see a horse in a run, pounding away at this treadmill was an amazing sight to see. I wish I would have seen this when trying to learn the gaits of the horse, cuz it would have made so much more sense as you could see the diagonal feet moving at the trot and the three beats of the canter! Sorry, I've switched over into horse mode, but it was just crazy cool!

Another 'freak-out' moment happened last night that I caused to someone else. My parents teach at Lapel High School and have for, um, awhile now, and their seniors have the option of taking a trip to Europe every year. One of the English teachers started it like 14 years ago and just has kept it going as they study British Literature, so why not take 17 and 18 year-olds on a 10 day whirl-wind tour of Europe? Anyways... my mom sent over a little care package that included my dress for the ball this weekend at the tetrathlon, with Jerry, the main teacher. So I had yet another adventure in down-town Dublin trying to find their hotel, which I successfully did :). I walk into the restaurant part and I see a boy wearing an Indiana State shirt and hear the American accents and walk over to the table where I recognize one of the boys as a kid from my church. He was too absorbed in his card game to notice me, so I said his name really loud in an accusing tone and he and all the other boys looked at me like, "What the heck?" The look on Will's face was priceless. I have already shared the experience with his little sister, which I'm sure she'll get a good, gut-wrenching laugh out of. Anyways, through the breaks in his stammers, I informed them that I'm studying abroad for the semester, yatta, yatta, but it was such a good 'freak out!'

So it was just freaky Monday yesterday as the final freak-out that I'm going to describe to you also occurred yesterday, but drug into the wee hours of this morning. I knew I had an assignment coming due in my Farm Management class, so I pulled out that paper to check on when that date was at 11pm last night, and sure enough it was today, November 3rd! @#$%!- yep that was pretty much my feeling last night and cause for a freak out for sure. So I stayed up until about 2:30 this morning with the help of chocolate digestives (cookies that are supposed to be eaten with tea, but are amazing on their own and typically really cheap) and orange juice. I got the majority of it done and then decided to get some sleep and finish it later this morning. So I went to bed and woke up at 7 to finish it and had a finished product at 8:30 this morning :) I get to class at 10am, have it all printed out and find out that it wasn't due until 5pm today. At that point though, I was done with it and turned it in. Maybe he'll give me a wink for having it done by class time. Some of the kids hadn't even started on it yet. I mean, I wasn't much better, but at least I appeared prepared, and its all about the impressions right?

Welp, I'm going to get started on another assignment that I know is due in two weeks, so I prevent a future freak-out. I hope all your Halloweens were great and that you're not having the amount of freak-outs that I've being having recently, although, not all have been bad.
Have a terrific Tuesday everyone.

Cheers!