Americans in Ireland

I haven’t written a blog since October 2012…. So we will see how long this one lasts.

I am doing this blog for my friends and family back home that do not follow my constant flow of Facebook posts and Tweets… OR for anyone (…mom….) who cares to have a more in-depth reading of Brendan and my adventures in Ireland while I do my MA in Scoring for Film and Visual Media at Pulse College. SO, here goes:

We have been here a month! The first week and a half was painful. Apartment shopping is not fun. But, we finally found a place. The apartment is a little bit further from school then I hoped, but it’s not bad. We are room-mating with another American couple (whom we met in person the day they arrived… HA!... we have gotten along very well though…) AND it has a balcony with a marvelous view. Brendan and I did get a chance to go to the Guinness factory. Did you know Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease!? Guess he had faith in his product.

 School:

In three weeks we have done a technology boot camp learning about Logic, screened the first movie we will all score a scene of, started orchestration class (had presentations on the woodwind group) professionally recorded (in a Windmill Lane Studio!!) 2 compositions using woodwinds, started working on how to edit and mix our recordings and had a couple days learning about the Music Business (copyrights, agents, royalties…). We also had a guest visitor: Garry Schyman, who is a professional game and film composer from LA. I was fortunate enough to be recipient of the Garry Schyman scholarship and was honored to have dinner with him. The following day he gave a seminar on game music. I have never considered the possibility of composing for game music—until now. It is a LOT more complex then I first thought. The music must be intriguing enough so that the player doesn’t turn the sound off, or get sick of the music loop if their character gets stuck (LOL). There’s a lot more psychology to it. Very interesting.

Cultural Encounters:

            Nothing I say in this paragraph is meant to be rude. They are just general observations…other then the fact that in American we drive on the “right” side of the road. And yes, I mean that as a double entendre.  J

-I noticed that all the doors of houses are painted, mostly blue or red, sometimes yellow. I asked a taxi driver if there was meaning behind it. He said no. It’s just fashion. I was kind of bummed there wasn’t more to it. BUT, I guess it would be similar to us painting our houses. Evidently the Irish just like the primary colors J… maybe some turquoise.

- My favorite scenario so far was: Brendan and I were sitting in a café. Two ladies walked in and an elderly gentleman went up to them and told them they were gorgeous and wanted butterfly kisses (evidently they didn’t know each other…lol… weird). The ladies then complimented him on his good health at 85 and he says “Oh, no. I feel unexpectedly pregnant”. (LOL!!!)

-Brendan and I were in a taxi, again, and the man was explaining to us that you can pretty much choose any word you want to describe a drunk man if you use it in the correct context. He said one of his favorites is “he was elephants last night”.

-Our teacher was talking about who a person who wrote for the television show (spelled phonetically) “Ee-or”. Bo (the other American) finally said “a TV show on Eeyore? From Winnie the Pooh?” The teacher and other 2 Irish students started laughing and said no “ERrrrrrr!”…. Evidently they say the letter “R” like “Or”… they also say the letter “Z” as “zed”.

-Another teacher was telling us to do an assignment “without waffle-ing”. Later I asked a classmate what that meant… it means to be serious or well thought out. You say “He’s a waffle-er” and it means he’s joking or messing with you. HOW DID WAFFLES BECOME SERIOUS? Weird. I still don’t get it.

Family:

Brendan and my tradition is to go to the zoo at every place we travel. The Dublin zoo had a TON of babies! Baby lion, baby zebra, giraffe, monkey, hippo, and 3 baby elephants!

Brendan is with me right now in Ireland. Sounds like his next job assignment might not be until November.  We are attended a nice church in downtown Dublin. Evidently there are a lot of people from Brazil here. One lady at church told me that she came here from Brazil to learn English. It is cheaper for them to come here rather then the States or Canada AND they can get work. In anycase, every Friday the church allows students learning English come and just “talk”. So Brendan is volunteering to talk to students every Friday so they can practice English. Very cool. Otherwise, Brendan is playing “Mr. Mom” AND doing a very good job at it… I might not let him stop. I came home the other day to HOMEMADE Guinness bread and chili.


Life is good.