I'm officially an Irish nurse!

Well, it's official, I got my registration in the mail yesterday. I'm officially on the register for An Bord Altrainas (the Irish Nursing Board). Now I can stop being so passive and start ruffling feathers at work and they can't do anything about it. 

I had a rather eventful weekend. Thursday night I went to Estelle and Jay Z with Chandra at the RDS. It was a good show, not very packed. Friday, Jen convinced us to go to The Hoodoo Gurus (an '80's Aussie band) at The Button Factory. Also a good time. One of the pictures is her with the lead singer. Saturday, we decided to go to see Morrissey. It was at the old Royal Hospital which is now the modern art museum. It was outside on the grounds. The weather (mostly) cooperated. He put on a good show. 

Now that I'm all done with my work orientation/adaptation I have to start working weekends (boo). I worked my first couple of nights this week and it made me a much happier person. I know my educator doesn't want me working nights for the next few months (or as few as possible) but hopefully once that's done I can work straight nights or mostly nights. I'm working this weekend so there probably won't be much to report. 

My old weekend work crew from Regions sent me a fabulous care package for which I am so grateful. I have already utilized the Burn Center curly straw as you can see. I'm sure various other items from the package will show up around Dublin and in pictures soon. 

Rody Bolands

I went out on Saturday night with some girls from work to celebrate a couple of birthdays. I thought I would post a couple of pictures to introduce you all to some of my new friends. We went to a pub in Rathmines that was so much fun called Rody Bolands. The first picture is Jen and I. She's my friend from Australia that works in Nephro-Urology. The second picture contains Bridget (my roommate from New Zealand, she works in Oncology) on the far left, Jen, Rachel is in the pink (she is from Northern Ireland and works in the transitional care unit), and Mary is to the left of her (from Essex and works in the high dependency unit). Rachel and Mary are roommates and live in the same apartment complex as Bridget and I. The last picture is Rachel again. 

On another happy note...Niki is coming to visit me! She'll be here July 18th-27th. I can't wait to see her and explore Ireland with her. 

My internet frustration.

I have the day off today so I'm on a mission for internet that consistently work. We currently have our phone, internet, and broadband through one company. They haven't all worked together since we got it. I called the company to complain and tell them that I wouldn't be paying my bill until everything worked. The customer service guy who was helping me replied "You're just trying to get all kinds of money out of me aren't you...you Americans." I couldn't believe it. If not paying for services I don't receive makes me American, I'm proud to be an American. Argh. 

Another upsetting piece of news...the Ireland Prince show was cancelled. Nobody has really said why except that it was out of the hands of Prince and the production company. It better not be just Prince being Prince. 

Work is still slightly frustrating. When I first started work, my educator told me I would be expecting to "seek out my own learning opportunities" so I did. Then, the following week she told me I should only be focusing on the way the unit is run and the daily activities, not to even focus on the burn cares (this is a burn unit right?), basically telling me to stop seeking out my own learning opportunities. So, that week I just did what I was told. Then, the next week, my educator told me I seemed "disinterested". Kind of odd considering my Kiwi roommate had heard the exact same thing the day before from her nurse educator. I only found out this week that another one of our friends from Africa had also been told the same thing. Those nurse educators must go to weekly meetings where they're given the word of the week. The other week, it must have been "disinterested". I just told her that she was giving me conflicting tasks and that she needs to be more clear. It takes Irish people a bazillion words to say what we can say in one short sentence and I think they take that as disinterest. I kind of told her that in a very nice way. She has kind of left me alone since. At least all us foreigners kind of stick together. 

A couple of weekends ago I went up to Glencolumbkille for "The Gaeltacht". It's a big gaelic football weekend that happens at a different gaelic speaking location every year. Lots of towns apply and this year Glen was picked. They fixed up the town really nice. A lot of buildings had new paint jobs and landscaping, etc. The town was packed full of people from all over Ireland. It was great craic as they would say. It was football all day and then music at night. I'm glad I had the opportunity to go. Gaelic football is a pretty entertaining sport. It's like football, rugby, volleyball, and soccer all mixed. I got to practice a little Irish as well. 

In The Name of the Fada

I've been watching this really hilarious show over the last couple of weeks and I thought I'd share. It's called "In The Name of the Fada" which is a play on words. A fada is an accent over a letter. It's a "reality show" in which Des Bishop, an Irish-American comedian, attempts to learn Irish well enough to perform a stand up act in Irish. Even if you don't know any Irish, he's pretty entertaining. During his training, he translates House of Pain's "Jump Around" into Irish. The first link below is a link to the shows, the second link is one to his website. There is a free download of "Jump Around" on it and some of his other stand up acts. 

http://www.rte.ie/tv/inthenameofthefada/

www.desbishop.com

Bruuuuuuuce!

Friday night, Chandra was nice enough to invite me to see Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band...for free! Of course I said yes, I can't pass up live music. I was rather impressed, he put on a good show. It was about 2 1/2 hours non-stop. I was mostly there for Max Weinberg but they were all good. The weather cooperated which was good because it was an outside show. They mostly did their new stuff which I hadn't heard a lot of but I liked it. It was at the RDS were Chandra works. I had never been there, it's a nice place. It's in the ritzier part of town right near the US Embassy (which is good to know). The rest of the weekend we just relaxed. I finally watched Borat last night which was rather painful. I watched it through my hands covering my eyes, yikes! I think it's a movie you don't have to see more than once, if at all. This afternoon we had lunch at a co-worker's apartment who lives 5 floors down from us. It was nice to spend some time with co-workers outside of work and catch up. JoAnn is very nice. She trained in England and has been living there for awhile but has just recently moved back. Anyways, she helps us try to understand this country and the way things work. Back to work tomorrow, no Memorial Day holiday here. Next weekend is a bank holiday weekend again and I'm off to Donegal for the Gaeltacht. It's just a weekend full of Gaelic Football and music. It apparently brings quite a few tourists into Glencolumbkille so it should be a bit of "craic". I'm looking forward to a long weekend away. I'm going to try really hard to utilize my camera. 

Home Phone Number

We now have a land line in our apartment. If, for whatever reason, you want to call me it's way cheaper to call a land line. The number is 011 353 014422636.

More pics...

Here are some more pictures of my apartment and the football game.