ceol 7 craic 7 ollscoil
Yes, you read that well. This post has a title in Irish!
I am not really converted, but have added a little q-celtic flavour to my life.
Firstly, I went yesterday to an evening of set-dancing at the O'Connell's bar here in Rennes. I never did set dancing in my life before, but most of the figures resemble quite closely to some figures I know from my baroque dancing lessons, so I did quite well for a novice! I am told there is Irish set dancing every Sunday at that pub, and I am planning to go more often. I love dancing, and learning a new style is always fun. The dancers were accompanied by a group of session players, and when we dancers had a pause, the musicians had their free sparring time, which was very entertaining to listen too, especially when they were accompanied by a girl who sang some songs in Gaelic.
Things never come alone, as it happened to be today the first day of the second semester, and I followed to day my first class on...modern Irish! The course I follow is a continuation of another Irish course that took place in the first semester, and the others are a bit more accomplished that I am, mainly because I have learned first an foremost to read Irish, and in Rennes the goals are learning to read texts, as well as to understand spoken Irish and being able to speak the language yourself. This is going to be hard...though the teacher seemed to be impressed by my knowledge, even more after I had told him I had only followed three months of irish lessons, and that more than a year ago. I still knew my mutations and was able to translate phrases by heart. Yay!
The other subjects I will follow this semester are all Breton:
*oral Breton
*syntax
*old texts
*oral literature
*linguistic history
*dialectology (or dialectal studies)
The first one is a continuation of my favourite subject of the first semester, and for the rest I am really looking forward to dialectal studies - I am very interested in spoken Breton, and love the richness of this language in variation.
Last week I followed a voluntary stage to ameliorate my knowledge of the language, and I guess I learned a lot over there!
We played parts of theatre plays in class, had a workshop storytelling (once I will become a real bard...), worked on our comprehension of the spoken language, and also did some grammar - it can't be all fun, not even in a stage like this. But the greater part was actually great fun, though vary tiresome in the end - 8 hours of class a day is heavy.
I also made new friends: at the stage I got better acquainted with a girl named Anna, and we seem to get along very well together! We started to talk about balfolk - she has lived for a year in Belgium and is since that time also as addicted as I am - and ended up first in Anna's house, eating dinner while listening to balfolk and medieval and renaissance music, and after that in a bar together giggling about life, men, and everything. Some teachers of ours turned up there as well, to heighten the fun even more!
I also performed a tarot reading for her and a friend of hers -please parents, if you read this don't be shocked, it's not something I do everyday- and Anna got very interested in the tarot, and is planning to buy a set herself. It was a bit a weird reading, because I did not know so well at that time neither Anna nor her friend, but through the cards I got a lot of personal information which turned to be all right. Sometimes this happens - when I read for others, things just turn up in my mind while reading the cards. But it is weird to speak about very personal things with other who you don't really know.
What else...Ow yeah, Florine has returned to Rennes as wel now, and this afternoon we spend together talking and drinking coffee comme l'habitude. It was good to see her again - I missed her! I had already seen her Saturday, when we went together to a demonstration against the Israelian assaults in Palestina, but there we didn't really talk, as there were more serious things at hand. I am so shocked by this assault -I can't call this a war-, more than 700 persons has been killed right now, and no one is intervening! This world is a bad place.
Although some good news I heard was that Obama is going to close the prison in Guantanamo bay, that news made my day lately. It means there is also hope for a better future, as America is concerned. But even superpower America can't do anything in Israel - the conflict is too complicated. Poor people. We can't do more than demonstrating our solidarity in marches, and light candles. So that's what I do.
And as I am ranting now, and as it is time for me to go to my singing lessons, I will leave this post at this.
x
Ennys
I am not really converted, but have added a little q-celtic flavour to my life.
Firstly, I went yesterday to an evening of set-dancing at the O'Connell's bar here in Rennes. I never did set dancing in my life before, but most of the figures resemble quite closely to some figures I know from my baroque dancing lessons, so I did quite well for a novice! I am told there is Irish set dancing every Sunday at that pub, and I am planning to go more often. I love dancing, and learning a new style is always fun. The dancers were accompanied by a group of session players, and when we dancers had a pause, the musicians had their free sparring time, which was very entertaining to listen too, especially when they were accompanied by a girl who sang some songs in Gaelic.
Things never come alone, as it happened to be today the first day of the second semester, and I followed to day my first class on...modern Irish! The course I follow is a continuation of another Irish course that took place in the first semester, and the others are a bit more accomplished that I am, mainly because I have learned first an foremost to read Irish, and in Rennes the goals are learning to read texts, as well as to understand spoken Irish and being able to speak the language yourself. This is going to be hard...though the teacher seemed to be impressed by my knowledge, even more after I had told him I had only followed three months of irish lessons, and that more than a year ago. I still knew my mutations and was able to translate phrases by heart. Yay!
The other subjects I will follow this semester are all Breton:
*oral Breton
*syntax
*old texts
*oral literature
*linguistic history
*dialectology (or dialectal studies)
The first one is a continuation of my favourite subject of the first semester, and for the rest I am really looking forward to dialectal studies - I am very interested in spoken Breton, and love the richness of this language in variation.
Last week I followed a voluntary stage to ameliorate my knowledge of the language, and I guess I learned a lot over there!
We played parts of theatre plays in class, had a workshop storytelling (once I will become a real bard...), worked on our comprehension of the spoken language, and also did some grammar - it can't be all fun, not even in a stage like this. But the greater part was actually great fun, though vary tiresome in the end - 8 hours of class a day is heavy.
I also made new friends: at the stage I got better acquainted with a girl named Anna, and we seem to get along very well together! We started to talk about balfolk - she has lived for a year in Belgium and is since that time also as addicted as I am - and ended up first in Anna's house, eating dinner while listening to balfolk and medieval and renaissance music, and after that in a bar together giggling about life, men, and everything. Some teachers of ours turned up there as well, to heighten the fun even more!
I also performed a tarot reading for her and a friend of hers -please parents, if you read this don't be shocked, it's not something I do everyday- and Anna got very interested in the tarot, and is planning to buy a set herself. It was a bit a weird reading, because I did not know so well at that time neither Anna nor her friend, but through the cards I got a lot of personal information which turned to be all right. Sometimes this happens - when I read for others, things just turn up in my mind while reading the cards. But it is weird to speak about very personal things with other who you don't really know.
What else...Ow yeah, Florine has returned to Rennes as wel now, and this afternoon we spend together talking and drinking coffee comme l'habitude. It was good to see her again - I missed her! I had already seen her Saturday, when we went together to a demonstration against the Israelian assaults in Palestina, but there we didn't really talk, as there were more serious things at hand. I am so shocked by this assault -I can't call this a war-, more than 700 persons has been killed right now, and no one is intervening! This world is a bad place.
Although some good news I heard was that Obama is going to close the prison in Guantanamo bay, that news made my day lately. It means there is also hope for a better future, as America is concerned. But even superpower America can't do anything in Israel - the conflict is too complicated. Poor people. We can't do more than demonstrating our solidarity in marches, and light candles. So that's what I do.
And as I am ranting now, and as it is time for me to go to my singing lessons, I will leave this post at this.
x
Ennys