Well, I didn't make it to the market on Saturday. Instead, I did a very noble deed: I slept...until 15:00! And on Sunday? I slept until 14:00! Sunday, I suppose, was truly a day of rest. I went to the market on Sunday with Brendan, only to find that all our favourite farmers were only there on Saturday; Sunday's market had about six booths, mostly artisans selling their crafts, a sushi vendor (yes, sushi at a farmer's market; maybe I should have asked if it was wild or farm-raised?), and the crepe vendor. Every time I see or think about crepes, I am always reminded of eating them on the streets of Paris with my family in December of 1999 at 6:00 am! We couldn't sleep because of jetlag, so we wandered the city. Ever since, I've been a sucker for button, cinnamon, and sugar crepes. And, hey, at a price of €2 ($2.80), who could resist? I tried something different this week, though: a ham, cheese, mushroom, and olive-oil-soaked onion crepe. Tasty, but very messy!

I went with some folks from the other housing development in our program—Menlo Apartments—to listen to some traditional music on Sunday night. It wasn't quite what I had envisioned, but they did play Johnny Cash. He seems to have a large fan base here in Ireland; almost any time I have heard live music, somebody always plays at least one (if not two) Johnny Cash classics.

I registered with the Immigration Bureau this morning. I decided to avoid the queues (lines) and go immediately when they opened: 7:30 a.m. It was an easier idea in theory to wake up than to actually do it, but nevertheless I made it there. For the nominal fee of €150 ($210), they'll review your paperwork and issue you an Irish ID card giving you unlimited access to the Irish border during your tenure as a student. Oh, and if you don't do it, they deport you. I suppose they need some funds to support all those socialized programs...

I haven't completely decided yet, but I may drop my Game Theory & Industrial Organisation course. My professor is Russian-born, and seems to be in his own world most of the time. He lectures out the window (I kid you not), and his sentences often trail off at the end—just the part of the sentence that's crucial to your understanding of the topic! I was reminded of sophomore year of high school today. In Chemistry that year, I had a teacher who always had several dry-erase markers with him, but they were always dying, thin, or any colour but black. The ideal market for me is alive (hehe, a “Harry Potter marker,” you could say!), thick, and Model-T like—black! Anyway, I bought dry-erase markers for my Game Theory professor today because he “couldn’t find any other marker” than a fine-tipped, red, dying marker. (Even the other students said they couldn’t see it, but that didn’t persuade him.) Moreover, I have repeatedly asked him to read what he is saying as he writes it so that I can access the information that others get visually. That doesn't seem to click for him. It's for all these reasons that I think taking his class would make for a very challenging semester. I know GW offers the same course, so maybe I'll take it there; maybe I'll take something different. We'll see. I have until Thursday to decide. Lucky for me this semester, and unlucky for all future semesters, I wouldn't have to replace the course with something now, but I would have to take a full load of classes (5 each term) for the next four semesters.

The Disability Support Service was able to track down a reading list for my Irish studies class that begins next week. Sadly, the reading list is a packet of photocopied pages from old books that is of such bad quality that the DSS coordinator can't read most of it, and that means the scanner won't be able to either. We're trying to track down a cleaner copy, but I may have to find a reader for that class. We'll see how that goes, considering my past experiences with readers have been that I have trouble staying awake and focused!

That's all for tonight. We'll see what tomorrow (er, today) brings. Maybe rain? Probably. Maybe coffee with Stephen who came out of his way to say hello to me outside the library today? Hopefully. I'm making dinner with Corinne, that I know for sure. Chicken and soy sauce are the first two ingredients, seeing as that's what we both have on hand that go together. Maybe we'll find something fun to add into the mix!