Wrappin Up

Today the boys left Dublin. We're all a little sad knowing they're not just a Luas-ride away anymore. I've been so excited these last couple of weeks to finish school and go home that it didn't really hit me until recently how much I'm going to miss all of this. It's been fun.

One of the highlights of the past few weeks was celebrating Thanksgiving here. Steph got to come over break, which made it that much more fun for me! We had a really great time seeing the sights around Dublin and catching up. We four girls had been planning for quite a while to make an entire Thanksgiving meal, and somehow, we managed to pull it off in our tiny kitchen thanks to late nights baking and prepping in advance. We invited some of our Irish teachers from DIT to join us so we could show them a real American Thanksgiving. They said they'd all seen it in movies, but never really experienced one! We had the best time!! We tried to warn them ahead of time not to eat all day, but I think they still underestimated how much food we have and how much Americans eat on Thanksgiving. Nevertheless, they LOVED all the food and endlessly praised our cooking skills. An added bonus to our Thanksgiving was having Johanna Dwyer from Tufts University join us for a little while. She's only one of the biggest names in the dietetics and anyone who knows what's going in the nutrition world has heard of her. She's been in Dublin for the last month doing some observing and speaking at DIT and we were fortunate to have her stop by. I mean, how many people can say they spent Thanksgiving with Johanna Dwyer? I'll be making a point to bring it up in any dietetic internship interviews next year, that's for sure. The only downside to Thanksgiving was being required to go to class, which we all complained about incessantly the entire week, but it was definitely one of the nicest Thanksgivings I've had and will probably always be the most special.

After Steph went home, the real work began. These past two weeks have been spent constantly studying, paper-writing, and doing hardly anything enjoyable. I can't complain, though. My open-note, open-book Statistics "exam" consisted of two incredibly easy questions. Therefore, my grade for the entire class is based on those two questions, which I aced. My entire Communications grade is based on a 400 word essay explaining my views on the pros and cons of two different health promotion approaches. I think I finished it in about fifteen minutes. So far so good. My other classes haven't been so easy, but it's nice to know I'll be coming home with at least two good grades for sure. Kayleen and I were supposed to have an exam this past Friday, but when it got pushed to this coming Wednesday, we decided to spend our Thursday night watching a movie. So, Jeanine joined us and we watched "It's a Wonderful Life" with the Christmas lights on when we really should have been studying or working on those twenty-page papers we have due this week. Ah well....

Exactly one week from now I'll be back in America and everything will be back to normal. I seriously can't believe how fast the time has gone--these past three and a half months seem like a blur. I had waited such a long time for this trip and now it's almost over. So many good friends made, so many memories, and so much learned. I didn't really know what to expect going into this trip, but I wouldn't trade my experiences for anything. I'm so fortunate to have had this opportunity. It's been a blast and something I'll never forget.