Week 10 - Personal Development : (The sun is shining in Trollywood) 17/03/12 - 23/03/12

I had a lot of university work this week as our Intercultural Studies – Global English and Media Discourse has finished and we have been given a take home exam to complete. This exam consists of questions on the future of English and the different purposes of English in other countries. Additionally, Rebecca, Megan and I gave a presentation on our field study of Inclusion of Special Educational Needs. The presentation was one hour long in comparison to our usual ten minutes in Stranmillsis. However, the presentation allowed us more time to discuss our experiences and although it seemed very long we really enjoyed sharing our findings. It was also very interesting to listen to other students field studies about different topics such as marketing and political science. I really have enjoyed this module and will look forward to starting our Education and School Practice module next week.

The temperature has increased this week and the sun has been shining every day. I hope this weather lasts as I feel like I am on holiday especially when we can sit out on our balcony and admire the lovely view we have. It’s been great spending a lot of time outside in the park and being able to go running along the riverside. I found it strange that the Swedish are still wearing their winter coats and scarves during this hot weather.  I got a few comments from the local Swedish people passing whilst running saying ‘spring is here’ however, I’m not quite sure whether they were saying it due to me wearing a pair of shorts or because it was the first day of spring. I also got to experience a traditional Swedish band playing in a local bar on Thursday.

The beautiful park beside our accomodation.

International Dinner

On Friday Megan, Rebecca, Ryan (a student from University of Ulster) and I spent the day preparing traditional Irish Cottage pie for the International Dinner. We previously attempted Irish stew but we felt without gravy it wasn’t the same. The International Dinner gave me a good opportunity to get to taste foods from all over the world including Ukrainian, French, Italian, Turkish, Chinese, Korean, Latvian, and Polish specialties. It was interesting to see the different types of foods and try some things I have never heard of or tasted before. I know I will never have an opportunity like this again so I made the most of it by tasting everything up until the point where I could not physically eat any more. We had a lot of fun making the food even though we did not win. The Turkish won as they cooked many different types of food from spring rolls to deserts. I really enjoyed the Ukraine’s potato cakes and also the Italians homemade pizzas even though they arrived much later, as it is their tradition to have dinner much later than we do. I’m looking forward to the rest of this weekend as we are having a barbeque.