Sunday was the perfect beginning to an awesome semester! Hiking up the Sugar Loaf Mountain with my fellow Boilermakers was a blast! Paul, Fiona, and Ciara are three students from UCD who have recently studied at least one semester abroad on Purdue’s campus. The invitation for all of us to come with them was very welcoming and I’m so happy we all could make it! Jacie, Conner, Leeza, Andrea, Halie, and I learned a lot about each other as we made it up the mountain. For all nine of us to go on this adventure together is a memory I know I’ll never forget!
After being a bit chilly at the top of the mountain, we decided to go to another windy spot on the coast. Of course we made time to stop at Insomnia Coffee Company between locations! Coffee break, yes! Our second destination was the Dun Laoghaire Marina where we walked the length of the pier learning more about one another along the way, and of course taking plenty of pictures. The bottom left picture was taken at the bottom of Sugar Loaf Mountain and the bottom right picture was taken from the pier. Can you see Sugar Loaf? Wow. Talk about an amazing day with some very amazing people.
The title of this blog starts with “grand” because that’s the word many people in Ireland use instead of awesome, sweet, great, and you could go on and on. But no, just grand everything. I like it. Today was my first day of classes due to the lecturer of my monday’s class being unavailable for the first week of classes on UCD’s campus. Today I fell in harmony with my first class, Non-Ruminant Animal Production. I am very interested in pigs, as many of you know already, and I am excited to learn about poultry production as well! The lecturer prides himself on knowing every swine producer in the country of Ireland and I know I’ll enjoy learning from his passionate and relaxed lecturing style. I spent a couple hours sitting my the lake reading a book and taking in the sunshine I might add!!
All was great until the second class of the day, Food and Agribusiness Strategy. I thought learning why different companies developed certain business strategies would be interesting and something I hadn’t been exposed to yet at Purdue. I quickly realized that this fourth year level course, with an essay style final exam to be expected, requires a good amount of prior agricultural economic understanding. I’ve known since freshman year that Ag Econ is not my thing. It so happens that both of tomorrow’s classes are canceled, so looks like I’ll have plenty of time to take a long walk in the beautiful weather and look up possible alternative modules to replace the strategy course. Wish me luck!!
morgan in ireland 