Good afternoon everyone! Week two in Dublin has been nothing but a blast and there are so many highlights that will forever be remembered, especially the moment when time hit 12:00am on June 14th!
However, lets take a few steps back, rewind, and reflect on the earlier end of my week. My time at Financefair so far has been nothing but bliss. I could not ask for a better situation to be in, I have been able to continuously learn not only from my mentor/supervisor, but also from all of my coworkers! Being able to do this in such a positive environment has made waking up at seven in the morning not a pain at all. There have been various times I have stopped at the cafe in the middle of our district to get a “create your own” sandwich (on ciabatta bread of course), but starting today, I am starting to meal prep and to utilize the kitchen back at UCD more! Something I had realized this week was that without ANOP102 with Professor Yao Chen, I would be in the biggest pickle over here. The amount of excel formulas and functions I use on the day-to-day basis at the office has been frequent and without taking that class the data analysis/visualization aspect of my work would be tremendously difficult.
On the other hand, I have been taking a course with Professor Aikey named ACFM315: Judging Justice. Where over the following weeks I am here in Ireland, I will be able to compare United States and Ireland’s judicial cases, and truly see not only the differences between the two, but also the similarities. My favorite case that we had went over so far was Carpenter v. United States and it truly made me have a “woah” moment on what is truly considered private data on our everyday use on our technologies. This class is typically three hours long, and from a first thought, one may think “that sounds like a very long class”, and yes they are right… however, Professor Aikey and her teaching method makes time pass by so fast. Before I knew it class was already over and it had felt just like one of the 50 minute courses back at Bucknell.
Over the weekend, our cohort had taken a day trip to explore the Kilkenny and the Wicklow Mountains! While getting up early on a Saturday morning might have been a bit rough, the sights of both Kilkenny and the Wicklow Mountains had made it worthwhile (even when it down poured!). In addition, yesterday, the ACFM315 class had taken a trip down to the National Museum of Ireland! Kudos to our tour guide for making the tour not only informative but also funny.
Lastly, I wanted to highlight my birthday that also happened this weekend! Prior, one of my coworkers had given me a list of recommendations of must-go to spots around Dublin, and knowing me I took this like a bucket list, to complete before my 8 weeks are completed. A couple of my friends and I headed down Drury Street (highly recommend!) and while stopping in a local pub, we ran into another Bucknellian who is in the same year! He’s currently on a different program, but my friends and I had gotten the chance to meet a few people from his cohort and we truly hit it off. We ended up exploring the streets of Dublin together that night, stopping at places such as international, O’Donoghue’s, etc, and directly at 12am (Dublin time), my family had called and sung me Happy Birthday. It was a great start to 19, and I look forward to what’s next! (P.S. if you are ever around O’Donoghue’s, I would recommend taking a stop to go in, the locals there are truly amazing, the live-music is great, and they take care of you like one of their own!)
