I cannot believe that I have less than two weeks left in Dublin! This trip has gone by so fast.
Last week, I worked fully remotely, which I really enjoyed. I’ve always thought that I could never work a remote job. I love being around people, and my coworkers at home have become some of my closest friends, which really solidified for me that I needed an in-person job in the future…but I don’t know, this week has opened my eyes to all of the perks of working from home. It is so nice to have full autonomy over how I manage my time day-to-day. Not to mention, the flexibility of getting to work from any location is fantastic. I’ve now become extremely open to the idea of working a hybrid job one day; I’d go as far as to say that a hybrid position is probably my ideal job now.
I decided to work on campus this week, so I went back to the UCD library. Most of my work consists of tasks that involve a lot of reading and writing, and for me, that means needing a workspace that will hold me accountable to getting my work done efficiently. Can I do these tasks from the comfort of my bed? Absolutely. Will they take me twice as long? Yes. I wrote about this a bit last week, but I seriously cannot get over how much the library on campus just entirely exceeded my expectations. I was not expecting it to be so renovated. It is such an ideal place to settle down and lock in at.
This week, my supervisor asked me to do a selective literature review that looked at the impact that pet therapy, using dogs, has on patients experiencing long-term hospital stays. Overall, the work of the lab is focused on extending animal-assisted intervention from trained therapy dogs to family pets in an attempt to make the experience more personalized, and in turn, more therapeutically beneficial. She had me look into what these kinds of programs potentially look like on an international scale. Are they occurring in other countries? If so, how does their protocol work? Lastly, throughout this week, I worked on formulating a pitch for the RTÉ article.
My internship has allowed me to practice so many new and old skills, and although leadership has not been something that I’ve really been able to put into practice throughout my role here, I do think that my experiences will have an impact on my leadership style once I’m back home. As a leader, I tend to be very project-oriented, meticulous, empathetic, and fast-paced. Slowing down is something that I have had to adjust to through my work in Ireland. Not everything needs to be go, go, go, and although that is a bit of a challenge for me and not how I prefer to operate, I do think it is a skill that could make me a better leader at home. It is definietly important to be cognisant that everybody works at a differnet pace, and as a leader it is important to honor that and support it.
Beyond work, I had a great time with my friends this week as well! Over the weekend, Kendall and I planned a three day trip to Derry, Sligo, and Donegal.
On Friday, Kendall and I got up bright and early and took a four and a half hour bus from Dublin to Derry. I was beyond excited to go to Derry! My grandma lived there for several years, and my mom was actually born there, so it was really exciting to get to see a place that my grandma has told me so much about. Beyond that, I have long been interested in learning about the Troubles and Irish history. Not only are the Troubles something that my grandma spoke to me about often, but it’s a topic I’ve studied in school as well. It was honestly surreal to spend the day in Derry and see how deeply impacted the city still is by the conflict.
The Derry Girls is also one of my favorite shows, as well as Kendall’s, so we got a kick out of seeing all of the different Derry Girls landmarks, jokes, and references sprinkled around the town!
Another unexpected perk of Derry is that it has an O’Neill’s outlet store! We were thrilled, and each bought a pair of track shorts. Paul Mescal, we’re coming for you.
After spending the entire afternoon in Derry, Kendall and I took another bus (around an hour and a half) from Derry to Donegal Town where we had booked an Airbnb for the weekend. What ended up being SO lovely, is that the woman whose home we were staying in, Helen, was around the weekend we were there. We got to chat with her throughout our stay, and she gave us great recs around town. She was also just genuinely the kindest person ever, and we had such a nice time getting to talk with her. I feel like every time I get to speak with somebody from Ireland, I feel so much more connected to my time here in general. It’s also worth mentioning that everybody who I’ve met here has been so welcoming and nonjudgmental. To that regard, talking with Helen felt so comforting and homey.
On Saturday, we took another bus from Donegal Town to Sligo and spent the day there. Not to be dramatic, but Sligo is easily my favorite place that I’ve ever been to in the entire world. From the moment we stepped foot in town, I was raving about the place. Which is maybe overzealous, but I think Sligo just embodies all of the qualities I’d want from the city I live in. It was small, but in no way empty or understimulating. The town is old, but entirely updated and incredibly accessible. I loved how colorful all of the storefronts and restaurants were. The Garavogue River runs directly through the town center, which is gorgeous in itself. In many ways, I found it to be similar to Pittsburgh, and maybe I’m biased, but I think that Pittsburgh possesses a lot of those same qualities. All that to say, that our day in Sligo was my favorite afternoon that I’ve spent in Ireland.
We got a delicious lunch, coffee, and shopped around a bit. A goal of Kendall’s and mine has been to find the perfect wool sweater, but we’ve been waiting until we found a store that really spoke to us. In Sligo, we happened into a wool shop and met the nicest man who helped us try on different sweaters and choose our favorites. We were the only ones in the store, so we got to talking with him for a while and even ended up chatting about the Gaeltacht and Oideas Gael, which is the Gael scoil I attended last time I was in Ireland. He told us that apparently Oideas Gael is the school Mary Robinson attended to learn Gaeilge! We did end up buying sweaters, and it was just the perfect experience. I am so grateful that we waited for this moment to get our sweaters.
Begrudgingly, I left Sligo and we bussed back to Donegal Town. Donegal Town is essentially a circle, which is really aesthetically pleasing, not to mention extremely easy to navigate. Saturday night, Kendall and I decided to do a pub tour in town, and it was so much fun! Everywhere plays live music the whole night, so there is seriously no way to have a bad time.
On Sunday, we got breakfast from a diner in town and then did some shopping. I had stopped in Donegal Town on my way to Oideas Gael and remembered one shop that I LOVED and could not wait to go back to. It’s called Forget Me Not and has lots of different artisan goods. We also randomly happened into a wool shop called Triona just for fun to look around, and yet again, met one of the nicest people ever! There was a girl working there, around our age, named Eva and we ended up just hanging out with her in the store. She was so excited when she found out we were from Pittsburgh because she is a huge Dance Moms fan so that was realy fun. It’s always so exciting when people are excited to talk to us about Pittsburgh. We also seemed to happen into Triona at the perfect time because they were doing a weaving demonstration and invited us to watch! Before we headed out, we also toured Donegal Castle, which was smaller than I thought it would be, but still worth it.
That wraps up this last week, til my next blog! Slán!