Halloween and more

Last Monday through Friday was non-stop Dr. Horrible!  I always have the most fun in shows when they open. That's when the most bonding with cast-members occurs--when we're all huddled backstage mouthing along to the songs and dancing and whispering and being silly. It turned out to be a good show. In fact, we sold out every night. And the audience thought it was hilarious.  The guy who played Dr. Horrible was MVP...he must've watched the blog a dozen times, since he had Neil Patrick Harris down pat. So, even though the director was a bit scattered, it all turned out in the end. I even made some friends along the way.

Thursday night, we went to a prayer service at the O'Connell house for our friend, Declan, that died in an accident at Notre Dame. Winds had been pretty crazy for about a week--on Monday there were 61 mph winds, so the football team practiced inside. On Tuesday, the winds were about 50, so they thought they could practice outside. Declan's job was to video tape practices, and he was video taping from a lift/tower. 20 minutes before the tower fell, he obviously felt unsafe, since his tweets and facebook statuses before the accident were "holy fuck, holy fuck, this is terrifying." So tragic, so sad.  A lot of us knew him, and a few of us were close friends with him.  One of his best friends is here--he flew back to America for the funeral.

After the prayer service, things felt pretty subdued. We headed back to my room to have some hot chocolate and work on our costumes for the O'Connell house halloween party.  My California gurls (yes, gurls) costume proved more difficult to create than i expected. Without a hot glue gun, without working staples, without enough thread.... it was messy. But it all turned out in the end! California gurls won the costume competition at the O'Connell house. Best group costume. Basically, for those (like my parents) that do not know what the costume might entail, we were basically characters from the board-game Candyland.

The Halloween party was a blast--I really love how the O'Connell house tries to make this place feel like home for us. Lots of silly costumes, a trivia game, costume competitions, yummy food.... I was, in fact, two things for Halloween. A Tetris piece, and one of the California gurls. I made several quick changes, especially when it was time to judge the costumes. Near the end of the night, when they were about to announce the winner, Kevin Whelan subtly made his way over to me and said "Can you uh... can you kinda, uh change back into your uhm, your california girls costume?" It was hilarious. I was happy that we won!

Afterwards I had a few people over to my room. I was worried, since I didn't want to get a noise-violation again, and you weren't allowed to have more than 8 people in room without registering a "party." But everyone needed a place to pregame. So our motto was "quick and quiet." There were about 11 people in my room, whispering, being silly, drinking. All of a sudden, I heard a very loud, stern, slow knock on the door. My heart just about stopped. I told a few people to go into Siomha's room, a few to go into mine, a few to hide in the kitchen. I was freaking out. I went to the front door, shocked and confused as to how the Trinity police heard us. I took a deep breath, and pulled open the door. And there, ladies and gentlemen, was Mike Rodio, dressed as an Oompa Loompa. I've never been so glad to see Mikey Rodio. I was proclaimed "Ok, half of all these people need to go downstairs to Mike's room to drink or I'm going to have a heart attack." After that, I could relax. We all went out and had a fun night, noise-violation-free.

Saturday afternoon, the entire O'Connell house bunch went to the Ireland v. Australia Compromise Rules Match.  I LOVED it. I felt like I was at the Quidditch world cup.  The Irish flags waving, the scarves and flashing lights, the rowdy Irish kids parading down the street wearing green, the orange leaves swirling in the air. The roar of the crowd as we walked into the huge Croke park stadium was pretty overwhelming.  At first I didn't quite understand the rules of the game, but that's because the "game" doesn't really exist. Kevin Whelan explained to me why it is called the Compromise Rules Match--combining Australian Rules Football with Gaelic Football. So, they combined the Irish "net" with the Australian's poles (very much like Quidditch--a huge middle post like football, with two side posts). The Australians were professionals, and all the GAA guys were amateur. It was quite a game. Irish lost by 3, which made the game so exciting. I would love to go back again. After, I was tempted to boycott the ND game, because of Declan, but both teams wore little shamrock symbols on their helmets in honor of him. I went to Peadar Kearneys, where the bartender loves us, to watch the game with a few people. It was a fun, low-key kinda night.

Sunday morning, Siomha and I trudged to the O'Connell house to meet the bus for what would be the last O'Connell house trip. All us ND kids were going to the Boyne Valley for a day trip. We went to the Hill of Tara, Hill of Slaine, beautiful Newgrange, and an early Christian settlement called Monasterboice near Mellifont abbey, the first Cistercian Abbey in Ireland. Hill of Tara and Hill of Slaine were both more interesting in theory than they were in person. It was an incredibly rainy, cold day, and climbing up to the top of a hill can only be so exciting. Yes, hundreds of kings were crowned here, yes, St. Patrick built his monastery here, yes, amazing things happened, but can we please go inside?

My favorite spot was Newgrange. It is a 5,000 year old burial temple, older than Stonehenge and the great pyramids. Unfortunately, we weren't there for the amazing Winter Solstice, when the sun strikes Newgrange just so, perfectly illuminating the burial passageway. Even so, we were able to experience a little bit of the magical phenomenon. The tour-guide led us into the incredibly narrow, tight, rocky, short, pitch black passageway. It was actually quite spooky. I felt oddly claustrophobic and, to be honest, trapped. I think we were all a bit more shaken up than we anticipated. But it was all worth it for the light demonstration. Using a lightbulb set up at a tricky angle, they were able to give us a taste of what the winter solstice might be like. The narrow passageway was filled with a long, single beam of light. It was so beautiful. Once the show was over and our guide turned the lights back on, we were all ready to get OUT of the frickin ancient burial tomb. Spooky stuff.

I did not take this photo. No photography allowed. 

To end the day, we wandered through the graveyard of Monasterboice and admired the ancient Celtic High Crosses. We were lucky enough to have Geraldine Stout, the world's expert on the Boyne Valley with us the whole day. She really came in handy at Monasterboice, since she had the key to the ancient round tower there. We all got to climb up (5 at a time) the rickety, dark ladders to the top of the tower. THAT was scary. Since it was Halloween, I decided to make the tower climb a bit more fun, and freaked everyone in the tower out with a few scary laughs and "ooooh"s. I'm really cool.

However, Kevin's mannerisms were the highlight of the trip. I laughed out loud several times, watching him and Geraldine fight over who gets to talk. Geraldine would be in the middle of explaining something, and out of the corner of my eye, I'd see Kevin opening and closing his mouth, his hand outstretched, his fingers extending and closing in, like little body spasms. He was always trying to interrupt. It was hilarious. As soon as Geraldine would let him talk, there'd be no stopping him. He can go for 2, 3, even 4 hours without pausing for breath. Some of my favorite Kevin mannerisms are:

-flicking us all off. While he's speaking, he points, gestures, and moves using his middle finger.
-saying "kinda" after every third word. (ex: And ya know, they kinda, all the people, they kinda died, and it was kinda tough for the uh, for the kinda, for the people. D'you know what i mean?)
-clapping his hands together, waving his arms in the air, or doing any number of other odd gesticulations when trying to think of what he wants to say.
-closing his eyes while he speaks
-"or whatever"
-"d'you know what i mean" after every sentence.
-insulting the Scots

Everyone needs to meet Kevin Whelan at some point in their lives.

And now.... Mom is here!! I'll let her write the next blog.

Love,
Clare Mairead