the saudi arabian, thanksgiving, and open mic night

some weeks ago, we were given an assignment for our 'intercultural workplace' module, which was to choose a culture not our own and then act as someone from that culture in a mock human resources meeting. i choose to be a saudi arabian man named mr. aziz bin abdullah al-said. i went so far as to dress up in a saudi throbe with the head-gear and used a "middle eastern" accent the whole night. it was terribly fun and we all had a good laugh. most hilarious was seeing our demure, delicate moldovan classmate try to act mexican, our burly irishman from county clare trying to be korean, and cristina the spaniard attempting to be from australia.


i feel like i have passed a rite of passage this year, because i actually managed to host (successfully) a thanksgiving dinner at MY HOUSE. that is right people - i cooked! well, not all of it... i did set it up as a potluck, so some of the other friends brought dishes. however, I MADE THE TURKEY, and supervised the making of the mashed potatoes and the dressing. it was a little bit of a riot to try and do all of this in ireland, where turkey dinners are only eaten during christmas. but, i got a 14.5 lb turkey and actually cooked it with some "skill" (luck is more like it). in the end, about 10 people came over (mostly americans, a couple canadians, and one stray italian) and we all shared a lovely, far-away from home, college student thanksgiving meal.

pictures of the role play and thanksgiving:

thanksgiving

on another note, i've gotten involved with the music society at dcu, which runs a weekly open mic night at the campus bar (the "nubar"). the nubar is usually crammed with 18 year olds who can't hold their drink, mostly girls wearing daisy dukes (yes even in winter!) and ugg boots, and they constantly spill their drinks all over the place so that the floor remains sticky all the time.

however, on thursday nights, the nubar is transformed into a virtual livingroom where about 10 people show up, sometimes with guitars, and utilise the little stage to give impromptu performances. i met a chap named ciaran there the first night i went, and he turns out to be a singer with no instrument - perfect match! we started working some songs out together, mostly funny covers of boy bands and pop songs done kinda folksy - but it's been a real blast to be playing again.

this week, the music soc hosted a day-long songwriting workshop with some guys from balbriggan (that is a town to the north of dublin) who run a kind of music school. the dudes were good fun and brought in loads of gear. i was teamed up with a young girl called eleanor to write, arrange, and record a song in the span of about three hours. let me tell you, it is a little strange to meet someone, shake their hand, and go off and try to write a song together, knowing nothing about each other! we managed to pull it off and the song didn't even turn out half-bad. luckily, eleanor is a super soulful singer, and we even performed our little ditty (still nameless) at the open mic night afterwards.

pictures of open mic:

open mic nite

well, i have a job interview at a chinese newspaper later today, so wish me luck. i would be an advertising manager - essentially trying to get ads for the paper. it would certainly be different, but a great chance to work in a chinese environment and maybe brush up on my chinese skills, and also do some networking. here's hoping!!

(i fucking love living here.)