The weather has suddenly turned cooler and grey, with highs in the upper 50s F, mid 10s C. Nevertheless, I’ve been compelling myself to get out for walks after work. I’m reaching for my flannel shirts again for the first time in months. Yesterday (Monday), I did a loop out to the Docklands, which I haven’t visited in awhile. Dublin docklands Today Taoiseach Micheál Martin announced a “gradual”...
The weather was clear and relatively warm on Saturday (high in mid 60s F, ~20 C). I did some routine chores around the apartment, and my weekly SuperValu grocery delivery arrived later than usual. In the afternoon I met up with a new friend, M, for lunch and a walk. He’s one of the many immigrants from Poland in Ireland and has been here 5 years. It was good conversation, although he lives...
It’s been a long week. Work is becoming increasingly frustrating. There is a lot to do, but I haven’t received enough training about how to do it, and in some cases, not even an explanation about all the responsibilities that fall to our office. For example, emails about “OHF approval requests” suddenly began appearing in my inbox, but I had no idea what an OHF actually is despite my best efforts...
My thoughts have continued to be on my friend Adam over the past few days. The grief comes and goes. I had met his sister years ago when she was visiting Adam in San Francisco, and I spoke with her over the phone on Friday. She forwarded my blog post to their uncle, who posted a comment and reached out to me over text. It meant a lot to be able to connect with them. Adam was living in Portland...
Yesterday evening I learned that Adam, a very close friend of mine, had passed away unexpectedly. Adam during our trip to Sonoma in July 2000 I had last texted with Adam about a week ago, and we had been in touch fairly often since my move to Ireland. We had chatted about the usual stuff — TV series we were watching, our job/work situations food, relationships, weather. There wasn’t...
The rest of the weekend was uneventful, even downright boring. I’m not complaining, though. The big event in Ireland was the Saturday night Gaelic football semi-final match. Dublin lost to County Mayo, which apparently is a big deal. The other semi-final match has been delayed due to COVID-19 issues. Maybe I’ll watch the final? Today I started my third week in the new job at UCD. The...
My second week at UCD is behind me. The onboarding process is still slow going, but I’m beginning to get into some of the actual work. I’m usually worn out after a day in front of the computer and just feel like taking a nap. This makes it challenging to get out for a walk. While the days are getting noticeably shorter, for now it’s staying light out in the evenings until 8:30...
I’m in the second week of the new job, and the onboarding process is still slow going. No complaints, though — it’s nice to have a gentle re-entry. So far the work-from-home setup is working well. After work, I escaped the apartment for a stroll to St. Stephens Green. Summer flowers in St. Stephens Green Summer flowers in St. Stephens Green Summer flowers in St. Stephens Green A thick...
This weekend has been mostly about home projects. I ordered a shelving system off Amazon UK for storing towels and other items in the bathroom. It wasn’t able to be shipped directly from the UK to Ireland, for whatever reasons, so I had to use my ReShip forwarding service (the same one I use in the U.S., they also operate out of the UK and Canada). I wouldn’t have gone to the extra trouble and...
I’ve wrapped up the first week of my new job with University College Dublin (UCD). It’s been a lot of onboarding tasks, system access requests, and some initial training on research grant financial reporting. Today I paid a visit to campus so that I could pick up a laptop, external monitor, keyboard and mouse. There were very few people around due to COVID-19 restrictions and the...