Monday, Monday

I apologize for the dry spell - Kirsten was right, I do lose interest quickly! No, I think the real reason is that my routine doesn't seem as exciting now that I've been doing it for two weeks.

But I did have a good week. I am currently researching international standards of child welfare, and today I'm reading the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The work is really interesting, but it is going by fast; I hope that I will be able to accomplish something significant during my time here! I have also enjoyed my little field trips: apart from the SICCDA conference last week, I went with Catherine Hickey, who is the director of FLAC, to a ceremony at the Ballymun Community Law Centre. Ballymun is another neighborhood in north Dublin similar to Beaumont, where I live, and Coolock, where I will be working for the second half of the summer; they're all sort of villages that have been incorporated into the city. Ballymun was built in the 1960's or 70's as a place to house disadvantaged people who needed to be moved out of the city. They built the infamous "Ballymun Towers," huge apartment buildings like tenements, to give public housing to this group, and then sort of left them, and all kinds of social problems resulted. But they've really cleaned it up, and FLAC opened the Law Centre there in 2002, I think, and it's exciting to see how much has changed. The ceremony Friday was to honor some of the residents who completed a Housing Law course through the National University of Ireland-Galway. They gathered every week to listen to lectures and made recommendations to the Dail (the Irish parliament) on how Housing Policy could be revised. It was exciting to see these working-class people involved in shaping policy that actually affects them. There was a government minister there, handing out awards, and I met some of the professors and lawyers who had been involved in the project, and some of the students. And I got a free sandwich.

Friday was Grainne's last day, so a bunch of us went out to celebrate. We went to the Market Bar, which is in an old market building, complete with high ceilings, brick walls, and a balcony. We had tapas and drinks there, and then moved on to a couple of other places in Temple Bar. The people I work with are a lot of fun, and I will post some pictures of us soon.

My weekend was pretty uneventful. I just did some more sightseeing around Dublin. I was going to take a trip, but I'm feeling a little bit broke, and there's so much to see around here that I was satisfied to hang around. I went to church at Christchurch Cathedral, which is beautiful, and to the Dublin Writers' Museum and some art galleries. And, as it was actually sunny, I did a lot of walking around. So, nothing too thrilling, but a nice relaxing weekend overall.

And now it's Monday, and I should get back to work!