This week I received a package of goodies from my mom, Kim and Sarah. Included were some very good oatmeal raisin cookies, assorted chocolates, Nutella spread and my blackberry. Now, I’m not one of those people who is addicted to their blackberry (unlike President Obama and this guy) so living without my cell phone has been very easy. Although, it does surprise people when they ask for your mobile number and you tell them you don’t have one. So I went down to the city centre in Waterford to buy an Irish sim card for my phone. Once there, I found an amazing phone service that’s offered by a company called 3 mobile. For €10 a month I get free Skype on my cell phone. How great is that? So now I can talk to people in the U.S. using Skype for only €10 a month. That doesn’t include the fact that I also get text and cell service as well. The phone uses its 3G data hook-up to access Skype and makes calls using the data network. They also have a cool prepay system here called “top-up” which enables you to pay for phone usage almost anywhere: grocery stores, corner shops, gas stations. You just tell them you want to top-up your phone for however much money, they print you a receipt with a code on it and you enter that code into your cell phone. Done. The cell (mobile) phone system is the first time that I can say that Ireland really has a much better system than the U.S. An area that they are really behind in is internet video. No Hulu, no NBC.com (they block European ip addresses) and no movies or television shows in their iTunes store.
This is going to be an interesting week at school because it’s RAG week. RAG stands for “Raise and Give” (actually, according to wikipedia that is a ‘backronym’) and it’s a week when the Student Union of a school holds tons of charitable events (concerts, contests, etc.) to raise money for different charities. As a result of the festival-like atmosphere it has also become a week known for partying and severe levels of intoxication. Our dorms have had signs up for the past week declaring that there will be no guests allowed during RAG week, if someone doesn’t have i.d. (we have magnetic swipe cards) they will not be allowed into the building. That seems like a reasonable precaution to keep the size of the parties to a minimum in a school-owned building (note: alcohol consumption is allowed in the dorms here unlike schools in the U.S.). However, I found a letter from the Student Union under our door this morning denouncing any “anti-social behaviour” during RAG week and claiming that they will be forming a neighborhood watch to drive around the estates here (non-school owned houses where students and members of the general populace live) and report any parties they find. Now honestly, what do you envision when you think of one of these neighborhood watchers? Do you know what I think of? Someone on rollerblades with a helmet on, wearing rainbow reflective sunglasses (at night) and a walkie-talkie. Come on, if a party gets out of hand people will inevitably call the Garda (police) so is there really a need for a neighborhood watch? I think the whole thing is just a thinly veiled attempt to justify someone’s purchase of some sweet walkie-talkies.