Easter Weekend

(I wish I was better at coming up with creative titles.)

I had a pretty nice weekend. Other than the fact that I couldn't fall asleep Saturday night, it was very relaxing. I spent all day Saturday cleaning, and had the evening to myself to spend a little time online and finish reading "Dragon's Lair" by Sharon Kay Penman. I am meeting her next week at a book signing, so now I'm all set. :)

Well, one of our Easter traditions had to come to a close... our usual brunch place, Casa Gallardo (yes, they always did a huge brunch on Easter), was closed up, so we had to go somewhere else. We ended up just having breakfast at Bob Evan's, but it was pretty fun. Then we went home and watched NCAA basketball playoffs all afternoon (that Michigan/Kentucky game got pretty exciting, but didn't have the outcome we were hoping for), and then had a giant ham dinner at around 7:00 with strawberry shortcake for dessert. YUM. I'm all fooded out today. :)

Except I do plan to go to Schnucks and raid what's left of the Easter candy...

Band Practice

Just wanted to comment on how the band is coming along... had practice last night and it was a blast. I really like some of the songs we do, but others I could do without. And I go through highs and lows of confidence on whether or not I think I can really do this. Last night was definitely a "high," but that may drop again next week. I am taking lead vocals on a couple of songs, but most of the songs I just do backups on and sometimes I sit out completely. And while most of the time I'm having fun, I still wonder about the amount of commitment I'll have to give to this band once we start playing, depending on how often we're playing. So... wow, this post sounded very non-committal, but I just wanted to say that right now I'm having a lot of fun with it and I'm excited to see where things go with this.

Stupid Textbooks

This textbook I am using for my Intro to Hospitality class is ridiculously out of date. The authors seem to have no idea that the 21st century has in fact arrived, as the information is only current up to 1999. Five or six years have gone by without them updating the information in their book. Our class has well noted this, but it was never so apparent as in the chapter we're on now, on the tourism industry. We have to write our own thoughts on each chapter that we read on index cards, which the teacher calls "focus cards." Here's what I wrote on my focus card for this chapter:

"When I started reading this chapter, I thought, 'I'm going to refrain from making any comments about this book being out of date and Sept. 11, because I'm sure that EVERYONE will want to comment on that.' However, as I read, I realized what a HUGE injustice it was to the students reading this text to not update their book sometime during the last 3 1/2 years they've had. What they are describing in travel trends through the first decade of the 21st century is a fantasy world that no longer exists, without taking into account this world-changing event that altered the face of tourism as we know it. These writers can be called nothing short of negligent as far as this section is concerned, and reading the book now seems to be a waste of time."

The book shows predictions of airline travel trends up to 2010, which now seem to be rendered bogus without taking the damage that Sept. 11 caused into account. Nothing is said about security or terrorism anywhere and how it now affects how people travel. I just wonder if we'll actually be tested on this garbage.

Well, anyways. End rant. Time to stop thinking about school for now and go watch my new DVD, "Finding Neverland." Yay.

Beannachtam na Femle Padraig!

That's "Happy St. Patrick's Day" in Gaelic!

Go check out the History Channel's page on St. Patrick's Day. There's lots of cool links there, including a history of St. Patrick, a history of the holiday itself, a couple Irish quizzes, travel destinations in Ireland (the first one was on the Aran Islands... ah, sigh...), and info on important Irish literary figures. I didn't do as well on the quizzes as I would've hoped, but oh well. They were fun.

And this was my favorite "Irish saying" sign posted in Llywelyn's from last weekend: "There will be no drinking of the wine until it's time. ...IT'S TIME!"

Sláinte!

The Ides of March

Somewhere an old soothsayer must have said, "Beware the ides of March... and the rise of gas prices to over two bucks."

Sure enough, this morning the gas station on my way to work said $2.16 for unleaded. I kept saying it wasn't going to happen, wasn't going to happen... they say it's gonna skyrocket every summer and it never does... until now.

And I'm on E. Great.

SPRING BREAK!

I left class early today, after finishing our midterm. I think I did pretty well on the test, considering that my last couple of quizzes were not-so-great. So that's good. Hopefully that will bring up my grade. Now I have two weeks until I have to go back. It'll be nice having that time free next week. I'm really looking forward to trying out Modai, which has a free sushi happy hour until 6:30 on Tuesday nights. YUM. Then on Wednesday I can sleep in and not go to work until 11:30 or 12:30. It'll be great.

Ah, Freedom

Alright guys, the land line is officially turned off. And my cable internet is hooked up. I no longer have any use for SBC so now we can start enjoying cheaper bills. Yay!

I also got my Mac G3 over the weekend; thanks Craig!! I am very excited. Although my first order of business the next time I get online is to get Macromedia Flash so that I can visit Homestar Runner. This is very important. I tried it last night but was then confronted with two versions of Flash and wasn't sure which one to put on. I will also want to look into going wireless although right now I still have quite a bit of mobility with it hooked up to the cable modem. But wireless would be great.

And spring break is next week! Finally...

St. David's Day

We all know the fuss that's made over St. Patrick's Day, right? Not to discredit it at all, by any means, because I myself am about a quarter Irish. And this country has a lot of history surrounding the Irish immigrants who struggled here, so it is rightly celebrated. But there's another holiday that celebrates another Celtic people that is much more overlooked, and these people have a history just as fascinating as that of the Irish, and that is St. David's Day, celebrating the patron saint of Wales. Now most of you know what a Welshophile I am, but just in case there's anyone who doesn't, I have been in love with the country ever since first setting foot in it about four years ago. (Ok really ever since I read the "Here Be Dragons" trilogy by Sharon Kay Penman. I started the trilogy and was in Wales before I even finished the third book.) I got to visit it again in October of '03 and consider it a huge blessing that I got to visit such a beautiful and fascinating land twice now. I could go on and on about what I love about Wales, but I'll share with you a list of things that are particularly cool about Wales in general, in celebration of today.

• Welsh is the oldest European language still spoken today, and is growing at a rapid rate after declining almost to the point of extinction. (Correction: Welsh is the oldest language in the British Isles; read comments for further info.) :)
• King Arthur is said to have come from Wales. Also, Wales is said to be the last resting place of the Holy Grail.
• The stones used to build Stonehenge were most likely transported to their present location all the way from Wales, and builders from Wales may have even constructed it.
• The longest place-name in the world is in Wales: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyllllantisiliogogogoch.
• The smallest house in the world is in Wales.
• Mt. Everest is named for a Welshman: Sir George Everest.
• Famous Welsh people: Richard Burton, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Tom Jones, Timothy Dalton, Charlotte Church, Dylan Thomas, Karl Jenkins, Anthony Hopkins, Bertrand Russell, and Captain Henry Morgan (<- That one's for Tracie.) :)
• A guinea pig in Wales holds the world record for most Valentine cards received. (Craig, I thought you'd like that one. I sure did.) :)

There's so much more cool things about Wales, but I would be here all day. Happy St. David's Day everyone! And if you are a Welshie (and I know at least one person reading this is!), consider yourself hugged! :)