That Sweet Poitin from Ireland Green

So the last time I wrote on my blog school hadn't started yet. Well, it's started now. It's hard. For the first time in my life I have to actually buckle down and study. I've always been a decent student, but by no means stellar. I'll be the first to admit I could have worked a lot harder and done a lot more work as an undergraduate, but, as they say, that's neither here nor there.

Now I'm doing homework all the time. Seriously, all the time. There have been a couple of occasions when I've gotten frustrated and thought to myself that I'm not cut out for graduate school and that it's just too hard and that I'm not good enough to be here. But when that has happened I just go to bed, and when I wake up in the morning and go to class I realize I'm not as dumb as I thought and that I can acquit myself fairly well if I put in the time and effort to actually do the work assigned me.

Because of the intensity of my classes I would probably hate school a lot right now if it weren't for the fact that I love my classes. If for the first time in my life I'm actually working hard and being a good student, then I have to say that similarly, for the first time in my life I'm actually really, really enjoying all of my classes. Everyday I go to class and I'm fascinated by the discussion. Maybe the fact that I'm prepared for class and the discussions held therein leads to my interest in the subjects being discussed, but that line of thinking just leads us to a chicken and the egg dilemma, so I'll just leave it be.

As you're reading this you're probably asking yourself, "Sam, so what? Why do I/why should I care about your life in graduate school? In fact, why am I still reading this?" That's something I don't have an answer for and that you'll have to answer for yourself. A better question that you should be asking yourself at this point is this: "That's great Sam, but what does all of this have to do with illegal Irish moonshine?" Now that's a question I can answer.

Tonight I'm skipping FHE because I need to read Hawthorne's The Blithdale Romance for my Leadership in the Humanities class. The whole book. I should have read at least part of it over the weekend, but I was doing the reading for my Composition Pedagogy class instead and I didn't get around to Hawthorne. On top of reading The Blithdale Romance, I have to write a short "progress report" on it discussing my evolving definition of leadership as it relates to the humanities and the ways that Hawthorne's work has helped to shape that definition. I then have to present this short paper to my class tomorrow morning. In short, I have a lot to do tonight. It's going to be enjoyable, but it'll be a lot all the same. You'll notice I still haven't answered the question about "that sweet poitin."

Well, my soundtrack for the evening started out with this:



and has gone on to include this:



this:



this:



and this:



I could continue on in this vein, but you get the idea.

While I've never been to Ireland and therefore my views of the same may be somewhat romanticized, right now I want nothing more than to sit in a pub with some good friends and order myself some bangers and mash and a tall brew. Except I'd probably just order a soda not a brew. Because I don't drink. While I'm really enjoying school, this little scenario that I've just painted sounds a lot more appealing. Unfortunately I can't do any of this.

Instead I'll have to content myself with listening to drinking songs and dreaming of a place where, "at the foot of the hill there's a neat little still where the smoke curls up to the sky. [And where] by the smoke and the smell you can plainly tell that there's poitin brewing nearby."

Maybe in a little while I'll take a break and go off campus to buy myself some Provo poitin: Cherry Coke.

Sláinte!