Music Class Performance, SW Design Project, etc

  Limerick, Ireland
Saturday, May 12, 2007

(Photos: music class performance; at the Greeks' house.)

The last couple weeks have been pretty fun. Besides the fact that I had to turn in a 25-page report on a software design project, take an oral exam in Irish, and take a two-hour final exam in traditional Irish music, I also got to practice my tin whistling skills, learned a new card came, went to a conference on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and attended a few parties.



My software engineering project was a full design of a software system (my partner and I designed a website to allow users to find products in foreign cities, e.g. a study abroad student looking for a place to buy Jiffy peanut butter in Limerick, Ireland [check out the entire report in pdf format in this post's photo album]). It took a long time to create, but it was a really good experience for me, as I had never really designed a software system before. (I did implement and partly design a website, www.writtenonthecity.com, while I was working in web development, but there was never really a thorough design process used for that work.)



The Irish exam was only about five minutes of being asked questions and responding in Irish - cake! The music exam, though, was a bit more difficult. As my first exam (as in, final exam) in a different school, it was an interesting experience. We were packed into a room for two hours, had to have our IDs out on the desk while we worked on the test, and we weren't allowed to have anything other than our writing instruments. The test had five short questions on it, and we were to pick two of the questions to answer, in detail, in essay form. Our responses were to be in a booklet which we were provided. Altogether, it wasn't too bad, but it was quite different from the type of tests I'm used to taking, wherein you have to answer all the questions, and they rarely expect full essay answers. But I think I did well on it, so that's what counts.

At the end of our traditional Irish music class, all the tutorial groups were (forcibly) invited to put on a performance, so, on Wednesday, the 2nd of May, we did. Jake and I played tin whistle, Philip and Dieteke danced (Dorien was sick, otherwise she would have danced too), and Kelly played piano. It was actually a pretty fun experience (except that I started laughing towards the end of our tin whistle session, which sent everyone else into howls), as you can see from the videos.










The card game I mentioned before is called "bida" (except it's Greek, so it's pronounced like vee-thuh). Mine and Philip's (my German roommate) friends Stelios and Nicos spent several hours teaching us this complex, but highly entertaining, game. They also cooked us some great food (as you can see from the pics).










We also went to a party at my friend Matthieu's house. He's French, and so there were a ton of other French people there, along with some Spaniards, a couple Germans, a Greek, a couple Americans, at least one Irish person, and maybe a few others. A good time was had by all, as we wished some of the French guys well on their departure back home.