Our students arrived on Friday, May 31. We spent Saturday in orientation and taking a walking tour of Athlone. We spent Saturday and Sunday touring the countryside (Clonmacnoise, cruise up the Shannon on the Viking Boat, Emo Court, and Dunamase).
Monday was the June Bank Holiday, so our first class was June 4th. There are 14 participants in the program this year, and since the group is small we aren't renting a classroom from the Athlone Institute of Technology. We're using one of the ground floor apartments in the Croi Oige Student Accommodation where we always stay.
I have nine students in my class. We started right off with Learn An Irish Story Fast so they could all get their feet wet. We then spent the rest of the session on normal first class stuff: introductions, syllabus, assignments, reading material,etc.
The left column top to bottom are Bayliann Livengood, Haley Maffia, and Zach McKenzie. The middle column are Wendy Townsend and Diana Lucente. The right column are Keely Parrish, Jamie Brewer, Ernestina Montoya, and Steve DesMarais.
They are a great group and I can't wait to see what stories they choose to tell!
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