So I'm back in Arizona trying to finish up at the UofA (our football team is currently rocking, if you haven't noticed). This is my fifth and final year and I will graduate as a very poor but pretty darn educated girl. Victory lap is where it's at these days anyway; nobody really finishes in four anymore. (I tell myself this to make myself feel better).
Since Dublin, I have been crazy with school and first exams, which I didn't do as well as I wanted on, but I did them, and that's what counts. I also met up with the American lady that I met in Dublin at my event ESOF!! (I'll tell the full story below) She asked if I was still looking for a new internship for my last year of school and I said yes! I have been working for AURP (Association of University Research Parks) for a few weeks now and I love it! I have been working with the events manager and the marketing director there so it's been great experience for when I graduate and go back to Dublin. They are currently in Madison, WI for the International Conference, and I just can't wait to hear how it goes. I get paid well, for an intern, and I really enjoy it, so what more can you ask for?
My friend Amber is getting married in November, and me and all my AZ girls are in the wedding in Northern California!! I am so excited for her! And I love her hubby, they are just perfect together. :) We just had the bachelorette party last weekend, and we rented a limo, went to a fancy resort, yadda yadda. enough said. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! Especially since me and Anne are the only ones who live here in Tucson still. Haven't seen some of those girls in years. It was good. CONGRATS TO AMBER AND ROBIN!! (They started dating officially over my 21st birthday. That's my claim to fame in all of this. haha)
BACK to what I haven't told you about Ireland yet:
While I was working for Conference Partners, I got to help organize and attend three conferences over the summer. Conference Partners is a pretty good sized company and is planning about 20 to 30 events at any one time, I'd say. Anyway, the events I mostly helped with were James Joyce Symposium, EuroScience Open Forum, and UK Research Forum.
James Joyce (11-15.06.2012) was my first conference and was over my third week of work or so. I was still pretty new at the area, but turns out, my tourist direction-giving-skills are supreme. Almost every single delegate was American so I was like their pride and joy. I made so many friends including this little lady named Barbara and her husband and this other guy named Fritz. They were all so extremely nice and they truly appreciated it when we helped them with anything. It was a good buffer conference for me because they were American and just nice people all around. Fritz was a bit different. He was from Switzerland and apparently a big deal in the world of James Joyce-ers (Joyceans I think they call themselves. whatevs). He would come to the desk everyday and bring me chocolates and ask to take pictures with me.. It would be creepy if he wasn't like 90 years old and he took pictures of everything, so it was ok. And I liked the chocolates. :) This is also where me and Ali became buddies.... aw Ali.
UKCRF was also a smaller conference. It was also fun and also at Trinity College Dublin. The delegates were all doctors so it was a different atmosphere, especially when dealing with the delegates.
ESOF (10-15.07.2012) is where it's at. It was in the Convention Center for a week and we had over 5000 delegates attend. There were so many amazing things there, like little tiny electric cars and stuff that they got onto the second floor somehow. And there was a submarine that they brought in. Just some cool stuff. So this one day a lady comes to registration and I hear her American accent so I say my dutiful American hello and ask where she's from, and she says Tucson!!! So then I said me too and after a bit she asked for my contact info in case I needed an internship when I got home. And I did!!! She is a wonderful boss too. I actually don't see her much. But it's fun. The same day at ESOF, actually like 20 minutes later, I tore my dress from the bottom all the way up past my butt cheeks to my back!!!! Instant karma. I got way too much good karma and the world had to fix itself. It was also only 9 am, so I put on my long jacket, ran to the nearest pharmacy, bought a sewing kit, and sat in the bathroom naked in a stall sewing my dress back together. Rough day after that. Haha. But well worth it. Cuz now I have a job. So there, karma.
Pics that Fritz took of me and then emailed me. What a nice dude:
I also haven't told you about how me and Larri went to a hurling match at Croke Park! It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen!!! Hurling is now my favorite sport followed by rugby and football. Geez. We saw so many people just hit others as hard as they could with their stick and some of the sticks broke and some didn't, and I thought some legs should have broke, but they didn't. It was mostly just insanity. On the way into the stadium, we got caught by this lady who had scarf things that she sold to us. But to be honest, we didn't know which team to root for, Kilkenny or Galway, so when she asked what colors we wanted, we just told her to pick. Ends up, she picked the wrong team. Haha. We also go face paint on the way in by some guy that was all about it. (Later we found out that he was our bartender friend's brother. Weird.) Not only did we end up sitting next to this chick going for Galway (we were decked out in Kilkenny colors) but I'm pretty sure she could kill both of us at the same time, if she wanted to. Also, we were losing, badly. Eh. What can you do? It was still the most amazing thing I've ever seen. They need to start wearing some padding.....
PICS soon... when Larri helps me find them... eesh. FOUND THEM!!!
Don't you make me responsible for your blog-followers happiness Karen! Jeepers! PS I like the first picture, especially a lot, kudos to Fritz wherever he may be.
ReplyDelete