Birthdays, Interviews and Language Exams

So today, for my birthday, I got: some lovely well wishes (thanks all!), a Harry Clarke colouring book (shush, I love his stuff), a slice of lemon cake, and, oh, a job interview and an Irish oral exam. Because.

I think it went well? It went better than my last interview anyway. I was shitting bricks about the Irish, because I haven't used the language since school ten years ago basically, but the Irish examiner was incredibly friendly and he actually calmed me down not just for the Irish but for the job interview as well. We ended up talking the entire time about languages and quirks of language and Irish connections to Europe and the difference between colour words in different languages and dialects of Irish we've heard, all in rather pidgin Irish on my part with large sprinklings of English and the occasional bit of French when my brain short-circuited on me, but I think it went well. He told me I actually have a good base of Irish, it just really shows that I haven't spoken it in ten years and if I started using it more in everyday life that I could improve an awful lot. I have no idea if that's good enough to get me the job, but even if it doesn't I think I feel really good about myself for having done it, and it was genuinely a really fun conversation. If I see that man again, I'm giving him a go raibh míle, míle maith agat, because he seriously made the whole day better for me.

And then when we came out of the exam, he spent ten minutes talking to my mother (she'd given me a lift down) about knitting and Donegal and types of boats and how absolutely appalling some of the local accents are. By the time I made it into the actual job interview, I was calmed way, way down. Heh. He was a nice man.