RAG Week: 11 - 17 Feb

So Monday followed the same trend as the rest of my weekend: boring. I don't think I even studied on Monday, so it was even less interesting than the days before. That's ok. I could say I was prepping for Raise and Give (RAG) week. RAG week has kind of turned into a giant party that starts on Sunday and goes until the next Sunday. But it had a good origin. This year there were three charities for which all the Societies and Clubs were raising money: Irish Guide Dogs, Penny Dinners, and Barrettstown. So there were like a bajillion events happening on campus all week. Example: The Physics Society did a Zombie Takeover. At registration for the event you were given two armbands, one white, one red. They each had a matching number in order to identify you. If you were tagged by a "zombie", someone with a red tag on, you turned in your white armband and put on your red one. But in order to protect yourself, as a human you could throw socks at the zombie (if it was on campus) and stun him/her for twenty seconds. At the end of the week, all humans had to make it safely back to the starting point to receive a medal. So there was an entry fee to participate and the funds raised went to the Irish Guide Dogs, which was by far the most popular this year, I think. It's the charity I heard most about anyways. But over the years, actually just the last five or so, the good spirit of the week has turned into a mass party for all of the college students, sometimes even adult members of the community.

So that means when we went out on Tuesday, the club was packed. There was hardly any standing room, let alone dancing room. Some of us got stepped on a few times. Katherine and I decided we couldn't stand the crowd any longer and headed home. Because it was RAG week, there was a guard on duty all night when we got back to lodging. We had to tell him our name, apartment and room number. I think he even wanted photo ID. What a madhouse. But before going out that night I had successfully made Stuffed Zucchini Casserole and pulled it out of the oven just as everyone was coming home. Perfect timing. That was my Tuesday accomplishment.

Abseiling: walking down a wall...

...a really tall wall.

At some point on Tuesday night I had promised to make pancakes when we all got home. However, it was entirely too late to be making pancakes so I got up early the next morning instead. Now, remember, I haven't had much practice cooking things. When one of the other girls came in, she looked at my pan and said I was practically deep frying them. Much too much oil. Oops. I didn't know any better. But in case you were wondering, deep fried pancakes aren't the worst thing I've ever had. Normally on Wednesdays I have just one class from two to four. Jemma, Jocelyn and Katherine are all in the mountaineering club and were going to abseil off the tallest building on campus starting at one. I decided to go, at least to see the first few people go down. The mountaineering club was raising money for the Irish Guide Dogs, and so the first person to actually go off the building was a blind guy. That was fantastic planning on their part, if you ask me. The next person took a bit of time to get harnessed and on the side of the wall so I was going to have to miss the girls going down because of class. However, halfway to the building I ran into my lecturer and he said there was a mess up by UCC and our room was occupied. Class had been rescheduled for later in the evening. Unfortunately that was when Mass for Ash Wednesday was, so I didn't go. I did see the girls down the wall though.

To fill in some of my extra time on Wednesday, I had started an essay. When I woke up Thursday morning to work on it some more, I discovered all of it had disappeared. ... It was only a paragraph, but it was a very beautifully crafted paragraph that I had written while half asleep. Plus all my notes for the format of the rest of the paper disappeared too. Sometimes I just want to kick technology in the rear and tell it to straighten up. I was lucky enough to have written some of it on a piece of paper first. There was enough there that I could remember what the paragraph had mostly looked like, and I managed to recreate it with just a few word changes. The RAG week events started coming to a close on Thursday. The Zombie Takeover had a final gathering to see who had survived. Humans had a two hour window to make it safely to the amphitheater to be counted. However, the zombies knew about the gathering and were prepared. Although we didn't participate (we missed the opening ceremony), we did get to sit and watch as people tried to make it to safety. One guy took his bike down the steps to beat the zombies. He had two pairs of socks in his mouth and another three or four stuffed in his pockets. It was quite impressive. We decided to go out that night. As we were sitting after dinner, watching videos of the Harlem Shake, I had gotten up to refill my glass.

The wine crime scene

I returned to my seat, which was on the back of a chair. Of course, with my luck the chair tipped and I took a tumble. Jocelyn says she saw it in slow motion because I was trying to keep from spilling the completely full glass. I failed, epically, and covered the entire room in red wine. It looked like I had been attacked by a zombie, or something, and the kitchen was the crime scene. And of course, the fire alarm went off right as we got the mop out to clean the mess up. And then Jemma locked herself out of her room. ... It was a very eventful ten minutes. The pubs were once again packed. We tried a new one called An Bróg. It wasn't as much fun as we thought it would be. The DJ played mostly rap music. So we decided to go back to Riordan's, which has kind of become a standard. There's always good music there and lots of fun. However, it was a 21 and over only night. That was sad, but we didn't really want to go back to the Brog. Instead we stopped for pizza and went home. It seems that the later it is in the day, the better the pizza tastes. So at three in morning, that pizza was beautiful.

And since we stayed up so late on Thursday, I thought for sure I would never make it to class on Friday. I did it though. I was even up early. Since I was so early, I decided to try a different route, and guess what I found...a post office. I looked at it and was like "really?" But I was in a good mood and it didn't bother me. Since I didn't have anything planned for the weekend, I decided to go to the Chaplaincy and see if I could get in on their weekend trip to the Rock of Cashel. I got there, turned my money in, had a question, you know all the usual. The trip leader came to answer my question, looked at the signup sheet, and decided there were not enough people to make the trip feasible. There had to be a certain number to get the group tour, and a certain number to get the bus...lots of things, and there simply was no way that it was going to happen. so I was a bit disappointed. It meant I would be spending another weekend in the apartment.

Not having plans for the weekend gave me plenty of time to get my homework done. I finished the essay that had disappeared on Wednesday night, and realized, I didn't have much else that needed to be done for the next week. Just some little random readings that would be better right before class. I made it through Saturday ok, but Sunday was a terrible day. Katherine was gone on a tour trip, Jemma and Jocelyn were gone for a hike, and I was home alone all day. Normally that would be fine, but the same thing had happened the weekend before and I didn't have any homework this time. I about went stir crazy. I resolved that day that the next weekend absolutely could not be spent in the apartment, at least not alone.