Aslaug's Axe Shed

One thing I’ve learned about the Irish so far: they can’t figure out my name. And I’m not even talking about my middle name which, admittedly, contains a letter not found in the English alphabet. I’m talking about my first and last name only.

Joan Jacobsen.

How bloody hard can it bloody be??

Apparently it’s hard. So far, I’ve been “John Jacobsen” (THAT lasted all of eight seconds), “Joanne Jacobsen”, “Joan Jacobsen” (someone got it right) and … most puzzling of all “Mr. Joan Jacobsen”

How the f*ck does THAT compute??

Grr! Get it right people. It’s not that bleedin’ hard!

Apart from that, I’m doing grand. Picking up the odd colloquialism here and there, and giving at least one of my trainers a near-death experience from laughter (for some reason we got onto the Danish language, and I explained a few oddities to him, such as the fact that young Danish males will refer to a good looking girl as “en god sild” which literally translates into “a good herring”. We then had a ten minute coffee break while poor John collected himself again.

Friday will be final assessments from the training, and then it’ll be onto the floor, to get started on the job for real. It’s a nice feeling making my own money in a job that I know is steady and permanent. Everyone keeps telling me “Oh, you’ll want to go back to Denmark some time in the future, say in a year and a half” and they don’t mean on vacation. They mean I’ll want to move back. I fail to see why. My education is being devalued in Denmark to the point where it is utterly useless (apparently, history books can be written by anyone, dontcha know?), my family is highly mobile so they might just as well visit me here as I can visit them in Denmark (my brother is already talking about coming over sometime this summer), and apart from some very dear friends whom I know I’ll get to see when I DO go to Denmark on vacation, there is absolutely nothing holding me to that country anymore.

Why not make the most of it here? Even if I move away from Ireland, it might JUST as easily be to another country entirely, than back to Denmark. I’ve proved that I can do this by doing it once. Doing it again will just make it easier next time. But at the moment, I don’t foresee a “next time”. There are so many job options for people speaking a foreign language in Dublin after all.

Anyway, enough about all that. I’ll be getting my first paycheck soon, and it won’t be for a whole month, for obvious reasons. I started work on the 7th, after all. So next month will be quite scraped, moneywise, but may should be okay.

May in Ireland … with a cold pint of Guinness drought nearby.

Yup. Life’s pretty good, y’know.

Now on to the monumental task of learning Gaelic. Or simply Irish. Irishmen don’t refer to it as Gaelic, but just as Irish, I’ve learned. Admittedly, I don’t have the money to start evening classes until in a few months, but then I will certainly look into it. I love the sound of it. You don’t hear it spoken on the street, but you do see it everywhere. All official signs are written in Irish first and THEN in English. On the tram (or Luas as it is called in Dublin … the word itself is Irish, and means “speed”), the automated voice telling you what station is coming up ahead starts in English, then repeats in Gaelic. I can’t write what she says … but I can repeat it. The only reason why I can’t spell it is because Irish spelling and Irish pronounciation are kilometres apart! Case in point: “Dun Laoghaire” is pronounced “Dun Leery”, “Baile Amhlaoibh” (which refers to a Viking named Olaf and means “Olaf’s Town”) is pronounced “BalleAmli” or “Balally” in English (this is the Luas-stop I get off at to go home, by the way) or finally “Faiche Stiabhna” … referring to St. Stephen’s Green, the most famous park in Dublin, which is pronounced “facheh Steefnah” with a throat ch-sound like in the German “Achtung” (and yes, I know, most English-speakers make that a hard ch-sound but that is not the correct pronounciation). So even placenames are spelled way off from how they are pronounced.

Oh, and apparently, Irish has no words for “Yes” or “No” … it’ll be interesting to learn more about this.

Now, if only Monday could get here a little faster. I have a top-hat to buy!