As always, pictures never do a place justice and that was exactly the case with the Cliffs of Moher. The beauty of such a scenic place was absolutely stunning and is definitely something everyone should see when visiting Ireland. On the way to the cliffs, our tour guide was telling a story about a young boy who attended Trinity College. He had visited the cliffs and unfortunately fallen off last year. Although terrifying, the tour guide mainly told us this for our safety. But of course, I didn’t listen and I took full advantage of there being no walls to block people from going to the edge of the cliffs. I walked along the path and strayed off to see what it looked like at the bottom. My friends and I sat at the edge for a while just looking out into the Atlantic Ocean. After the cliffs and all the hiking, we were exhausted and treated ourselves to Murphy’s ice cream in Galway. Given that I love ice cream and that Murphy’s is reportedly the best ice cream in Ireland, I couldn’t help myself. There were so many flavors that I’ve never seen anywhere before and I tasted so many different flavors before finally settling on mango sorbet and Irish soda bread. The part of Galway that I happened to be in reminded me a lot of Dublin in the way it looked. It felt as if I was in Dublin walking on Grafton Street. I know that Galway has a lot more to see than what I saw so I’m considering going back for a weekend. More on that later though. 

The next highlight of the week was the Dublin Flea Market. It happens on the last Sunday of every month and was honestly a very interesting experience. Back home, I normally go to farmer’s markets but not flea markets. This flea market was on the smaller end, but still very interesting to walk through. Every person had something different and unique to sell. I love that you can find the weirdest things in random markets like these. I personally tried some pastries and go a falafel for lunch. The falafel was a great reward for having biked halfway through Phoenix Park. At the front of the park, there is a bike shop where you can rent bikes for the day. As long as you know how to ride and stay in the bike lanes, you are good to spend a couple hours in a beautiful park with green everywhere. 

As far as work goes, this past week I started a new project that relates to gender studies and how people’s expectations of gender equality for the future, effects and actually enforces gender inequality. Although it was a lot of reading through numerous case studies and different statistics, it was extremely interesting to learn that even though we work against gender inequality, in many ways, it is so ingrained in us that our mannerisms are what keeps it going at the same time. This is not something that I thought I would be reading about during my internship but as the study is being done by a PhD student and the student needs stats research done, I get to read all about and do statistical analysis for the study. I feel that as my time here goes on, I become more of a leader within myself. Before the internship, I believe I had many leadership qualities and was growing them more and more through the different roles I held in organizations. However, being a leader as much about yourself as it is the people around you. Seeing as I don’t have a dance team to lead or an organization to lead, I’m taking this time to work on myself and the self-awareness aspect of leadership. Self-leadership is something I consider to be extremely important considering it’s the ability to master yourself and be self-aware, be accountable, create successful habits, and take right action. Being able to understand what I can do, where I’d like to go, and change my communications and behaviors accordingly is something I find myself working on daily. I’m constantly aware of my thoughts and the impact or the daily activities I do and the result that they might have. I feel myself already enhancing the self-leadership aspect within myself and know that the next four weeks will challenge me even more.