SEDA gets its groove on

It may not feel like spring, but cold and rainy weather didn’t stop SEDA students from coming to the school and practicing their dance moves. Over 30 people took part in a free class organised by professional dancer Anna Paula Dos Santos Soares, who also happens to be a student at SEDA.

And just before St Patrick’s Day students attended a special lesson by teachers Teresa and Judy, where they could learn the basic steps of Irish cé-ilí (pronounced “keely” – a traditional Irish dance).

“I don’t really know much about Irish dancing, but I’ve prepared some introductory videos to help the stu-dents learn the basic steps,” teacher Teresa Nevin told SEDA News. “I’m al-ways happy to teach my students about Irish culture”.

Anna Paula’s classes will continue into April and everyone is welcome to attend the free lessons. At the first class last month Anna Paula taught her group the basics of salsa and forró – a Brazilian dance. But she said that if anyone wanted to dance tango, samba or another type of ballroom dance that

could also be made part of the class. “I can’t live without dancing,

so when I arrived in Ireland a little over a month ago I started looking for places to dance,” Anna Paula told SEDA News. “My classmates suggested I teach ballroom dancing here in the college on Fridays and I was more than happy to do that. I really enjoy teach-ing others to dance and I think every person has ability for it”.

Passers-by on Capel Street kept looking up at SEDA’s windows as the students were practicing their moves in the school’s spacious seminar room.

Most of the students enjoyed the class which helped them make new friends and have fun on a rainy afternoon in Dublin. A lot of them later went out to dance in one of Dublin’s many salsa clubs.

Anna Paula’s ballroom dancing classes will take place every other Fri-day from 2 pm to 4 pm and the next ones are scheduled for April 5 and April 19. Everyone is welcome to at-tend the free classes!

SEDA News, Issue 17, April 2013. Copyright: SEDA College. www.news.sedacollege.com

SEDA students after the ballroom dance class with Anna Paula last month. For more picture check out pages 10 & 11.

SEDA students got their dancing shoes on for free classes organised in the college’s spacious seminar rooms. Every other Friday SEDA student – and professional dancer – Anna Paula will be giving Latin American dance classes. And in the run up to St Patrick’s Day weekend students also had the opportu-nity to learn the basics of Irish dancing from teachers Teresa Nevin and Judy Bresnan.

ST PATRICK’S DAY

SEDA stu-dents paint-

ed Dublin green for

St Patrick’s Day - see the

photos!

Page 2

HAPPY EASTER!Ireland’s

Easter traditions

explained: Lent, Good

Friday, East-er Sunday

and Easter Rising

Page 8

POKER FACERegister now for

SEDA’s poker tour-

nament, win great

prizes and be the envy

of your friends! Page 9

RUSSIAN STUDENTSSEDA is set to

get Russian students this

year as online competi-

tion proves popular

Page 3

2 NEWS

Welcome to the April edition of SEDA News!This issue went to print just before Easter which is always a big cel-ebration in Ireland. There are many traditions connected with it, both religious and historical as Easter Sunday is the day when Ireland com-memorates Easter Rising. The Rising was an armed rebellion against the British in 1916, which is considered to have given the start to Ireland’s in-dependence. Most students also need to know about Good Friday, which is a “dry” day in Ireland. The law prohibits pubs, nightclubs, shops or anyone else to sell alcohol, so 99% of pubs and nightclubs in Ireland are closed on Good Friday (and that is also the reason why off licenses are always very busy the day before). You can learn more about Easter traditions in Ireland on page 8. Last month nearly every SEDA stu-dent went out on St Patrick’s Day and we got lots of pictures from the celebrations – check them out on page 11. Also in this month’s news-paper you will find an interview with receptionist Aileen, who actually participated in three St Patrick’s Day parades in Dublin, and a story about Carmen from marketing who hails from the sunny island of Mallorca.SEDA News also has three stories sent by SEDA students for our travel writing competition. One of the stu-dents wrote about his trip to Hol-lywood, another about skydiving and the third one – about a certain “lady in grey dress”. We got many more stories from you and they will all appear at some stage either in the newspaper or online on www.news.sedacollege.com. The competition continues so send all your travel sto-ries to news@seda.ie.I wish you a pleasant read. Get in touch on: news@seda.ie

SEDA News editorViktor Posudnevsky

A word from the editor

SEDA News: Ireland’s first newspaper for international students. Circulation: 1000 copies. SEDA College, 68-72 Capel Street, Dublin 1. Ph.: 01 473 4915; news@sedacollege.com; www.news.sedacollege.com; http://www.facebook.com/mySEDA.Ireland.

SEDA students paint the town green for St Patrick’s DayEmerson Rufo sent this picture of SEDA students enjoying the celebrations

Teacher Ashleigh will now be placing students into classes, dealing with student requests and keeping track of daily attendance. She will also continue teaching in the after-noons.

“The students are very welcome to talk to me if they’ve any ques-tions regarding their classes, chang-ing levels, wanting to take holidays and coming back to class, anything regarding their attendance and so on,” Ashleigh told SEDA News. The teacher will also look after SEDA’s Friday activities.

Ashleigh replaced Emma Bren-nan, who left the college to take up the job of a director of studies with another organisation. Emma worked in SEDA for three years and had this

message for all her students: “I would like to thank all the students I have taught over the last 3 years at SEDA –it was a pleasure and the experience was unbelievable! Remember... keep speaking English!”

Ashleigh Langille, who is origi-nally from Canada, started working in SEDA last year after teaching in Canada and Britain. She said: “I’m going to miss both groups I’ve been with for the last couple of months. It was really sad to say goodbye to them as a teacher, but I would love to still be able to pop in and say hello, or if they wanted to see me I’ll be in the office every morning. They’re re-ally good groups and I wish them the best of luck!”

Teacher Ashleigh is the new assistant

directorTeacher Ashleigh Langille was promoted to assis-tant director last month after Emma Brennan, who worked in SEDA for three years, left the college.

SEDA students had a great time on St Patrick’s Day in Dublin. Many students sent us photos from their celebrations – and you can see them on pages 10 & 11. St Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin was the biggest in Ireland and attracted a crowd of an estimated 500 000 people. Smaller parades took place in most cities, towns and villages around the coun-try, but the biggest St Patrick’s Day party was in New York, attracting

some 2 million people. A number of towns in Ireland

attempted to set world records on St Patrick’s Day. For example, Glenties, in county Donegal, tried to enter the Guinness Book of Records by hav-ing the largest gathering of people in leprechaun costumes. And Limerick tried to break the world record for the number of “St Patricks” gathered at the same place at the same time.

Date ActivityFriday 29th March Free Conversation Class

Friday 5th April NO CLASS TODAYFriday 12th April Free Conversation Class

TOPIC: Culture and travel

Friday 19th April Free CV and Job Interview Preparation Class

Friday 26th April Free Conversation Class TOPIC: Ireland

Friday 3rd May Film- Michael CollinsStarring Liam Neeson. Watch the fa-mous film about the history of Ireland

Friday 10th May Free Progress Test ReviewStudy session for the Progress Test on the 14th May in class. Ask any questions you may have and try a practice test.

Friday 17th May Free Conversation ClassTOPIC: Stereotypes

Friday Activities: 2pm in Room 8 with Ashleigh

3NEWS

Irina Anyugina who wants to study in SEDA

From Russia with Love

The Russians are coming! SEDA is set to get more Russian students this year as the college’s marketing team keep promoting education in Ireland to students from the world’s big-gest country. Last month the college launched an online competition offer-ing a free course in SEDA to Russians wishing to improve their English in Ireland. All they had to do was tell us a little about themselves and what they know about Ireland.

Many people have already applied to take part in the competition and the winner will be announced later this month. SEDA News publishes one of the texts that we got – from a Russian girl who lives in China. Irina also sent us some pictures of herself and her friends.

SEDA is set to get more Russian students this year as online competition proves popular

High attendance at CV class

Some 40 people attended a free CV class at SEDA last month. The class featured a presentation on how to write a good CV. Students also got some handy tips on look-ing for a job in Dublin. A recruiter from the Achievers agency, based in Capel Street, was due to attend, but could not come because of illness. The class was given by Guilherme Nassim and Helicon Alvares, who lived in Ireland for five years, work-ing in a restaurant and a hotel be-fore taking up the job with SEDA’s marketing team. Helicon said that over the years he assisted his man-agers with recruiting candidates and therefore knew what recruiters look for in a CV. The classes take place every other Friday at 2 pm.

Hello! My name is Irina Anyugina, 22 years old, Russian. Last 5 years I’ve been living in China, Guangzhou city. I am a student, learn-ing Chinese in university here and working as a Russian-Chinese translator. I got a lot of friends from different countries, but I found out that sometimes it’s hard for me to explain something in English. Last year my friends (btw some of them are Irish) and me celebrated St. Patrick’s Day, traditional Irish holiday. To be honest, I had never heard about that holiday before cause Russians don’t celebrate it, so that was my first St. Patrick’s Day. :) I got interested who is St. Patrick and why people celebrate this day. I asked my Irish friends and searched the internet. And since then I’ve read a lot of informa-tion about Ireland and I am really interested in Irish culture. I do really wanna go to Ireland and also it would be amazing to upgrade my English there. So I started to look for some colleges in Dublin and I found out that SEDA College has not much Russians, so SEDA organised a free English course for one month. I think that’s a really good opportunity, that’s why I decided to write this letter and try my luck! :)

I look forward to hearing from you! Sincerely, Irina Anyugina

Irina and her Chinese “family”

4 NEWS

Ronaldo De Freitas Moreira has al-ready been to Ireland twice with groups of students from his school – Nucleo de Estudos, which is located in Barbacena, a town in the Brazilian state of Minas Geraes. Both times his students at-tended SEDA College. An experienced English teacher, Ronaldo believes that the best way to learn any language is by getting into difficulties and trying to

overcome them using that language as a tool – something that you have to do every day when visiting a new country.

“When they arrive here the stu-dents have to solve lots of problems, like getting transport, finding somewhere to live, communicating with locals,” says Ronaldo. “Getting through every day is a challenge and it is by overcoming

these challenges that they improve their English”.

Ronaldo be-lieves this way of learning English to be much more effective than just going to classes. He says the students who went to Ire-land with him have attained great re-sults in a very short timeframe:

“There’s no denying that liv-ing in an English

speaking country develops the student’s abilities much faster. It also makes the students realise their limitations. When the students are in Brazil they get a romantic notion about learning a lan-guage. But there’s nothing romantic about it – you learn the language by getting tired and by working hard. But at the same time you also grow as a person. The student who stays in Brazil doesn’t get the opportunity to grow in this way”.

Ronaldo’s students are from all walks of life. A lot of them work for a French multinational called Saint Gob-ain, which has a ceramics factory near Barbacena. These people, mostly engi-neers, need English for their work. But there are many others, including those who are learning English for pleasure.

“Our intention is to make all our students visit SEDA College and give them the opportunity to be fully im-mersed in English language and cul-ture,” he says. “This kind of experience puts the student in a situation where they have to resolve various difficulties and conflicts, but that’s the only way you can attain growth”.

Ronaldo himself has been learning English since the age of 15. He is an in-structor at a military college and he also owns Nucleo de Estudos – an English language school and translation agency in Barbacena.

“We are very happy with the service we get in SEDA College”, he said. “And now that the school moved to a bigger city centre location it’s just perfect”. So far Ronaldo’s students have come for short courses in SEDA, but many “can’t wait” to return to Dublin and stay here for a year or longer, the Brazilian teach-er says. His school is already organising a third group which is due to visit Ire-land later this year

“I believe student exchange is a re-ally great experience and would encour-age everyone to do it,” said the English teacher. “It’s much more than just learn-ing a new language – you learn about life. It’s a process of personal growth be-cause only difficulties make us learn. By overcoming barriers we become more mature”.

SEDA’s Barbacena students can’t wait to return

It is finally time to announce the results of SEDA News’ New Year New You competition, which was launched in January. Rose Sampaio’s picture has collected more than 100 likes on SEDA’s Facebook page and that makes Rose the winner – con-gratulations! Our student will now get a free makeover, including haircut and make up, from the stylist Luciano Salkw. To see Luciano’s work check out the next edition of SEDA News!

And the winner is...

Rose Sampaio!

Two groups of students from the town of Brabacena in Brazil have vis-ited SEDA already and some of these people can’t wait to return to Dublin. English teacher Ronaldo De Freitas Moreira, who organised the trips, believes that Ireland provides a great combination of theory and practice that his students need to improve their English.

SEDA students can now improve their English vocabulary by using their mobile phone as a teacher. The college’s website has a new app which shows a different English quote and phrasal verb every day. To see – and learn – the quotes and phrasal verbs, students just have to point their mobile phone camera to QR codes, which can be found on the walls throughout the school – and scan them. Their phone will then open a page with the new English quote or phrasal verb. The app was developed by SEDA’s IT team and is one of the many innovations that students can expect to try out in the near future.

SEDA’s new app helps you

improve English

Ronaldo De Freitas Moreira in SEDA’s library

5STUDY IN SEDA

6 YOUR STORY

I used to work at an airline at the Maiquetia Airport, located 1 hour from Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela. One day I was at my of-fice and my boss called me to let me know I was chosen for a course with Boeing, in Los Angeles, California. Boeing is one of the biggest compa-nies that manufacture airplanes in the world, so I was very happy, but worried at the same time because Los Angeles is a very cold city compared with Caracas, which has temperatu-ras of almost 32 degrees Celsius the whole year.

Finally the day of the trip arrived and I went to the airport. 3 more co-workers went with me who were also my friends. At the counter the airline representatives told us that we had to wait until all passengers got into the plane to see if seats were available for us. We were lucky because we got our seats. Our itinerary was Caracas to Panama City and Panama City to Los Angeles. But when we arrived in Panama City we waited for two hours, and we didn’t get our seats. I was very worried, but I remem-bered that I have a friend who lives in Panama City and I called her. She picked us up at the airport and gave us a tour of the whole city and even took us to the Panama Canal Muse-um and I saw amazing things there. I was happy that we missed the flight to Los Angeles that day!

The next day we went to the air-port very early, and one of the em-ployees of the airline remembered us from the previous day, so she gave us our seats secretly. Finally we arrived

to Los Angeles. I didn’t have enough money to stay at a good hotel so I booked a room in a very cheap one. One night I went to McDonald´s and when I was going back to my room I saw a guy chasing me, so I ran as fast as I could, but nothing happened and the guy stayed outside the hotel. I was very worried that night. The next day I went to Boeing to do my course. The Boeing facilities were so amazing and technologically ad-vanced, I was so impressed. It is one of my dream jobs. The training was about Electrical Wiring Inspection and Maintenance for Douglas Herit-age Airplanes (DC-9, DC-10, MD-80 and MD-11 airplane series). I´ve been working for almost seven years in airplane engineering and mainte-nance of avionic systems, and I am an Electronic Engineer. I really love my work!

After the training finished we went to Beverly Hills and finally to Hollywood. It was my 26th birthday, and I was very happy to be in Hol-lywood. I walked the whole Walk of Fame on Hollywood boulevard. There are so many people dressed in costumes of movie characters, like Rambo, Spiderman, Superman, Charlie Chaplin and Star Wars – this film is my favorite. I took a picture with a Storm trooper and Darth Vader, it was an unforgettable experi-ence! That very day in the afternoon we had to go to the airport. I was very unlucky because we had to wait for 6 hours for the next flight. But finally we got back to Venezuela without any inconvenience. I was very happy about this long journey, it was an od-yssey.

Around the world with SEDASEDA students like travelling – and sharing their stories. Below are just some of the entries we got for our travel writing competition. The competition continues so send all your travel stories and pictures to news@seda.ie!

By Bernardo SERPA

I have always liked to expe-rience different adventures, like off-road driving, amateur races, camping, going to other cities for fun with my friends, mainly if the place had beautiful nature. I like to see new places and do new things.

I had this dream since child-hood: Skydive – to jump from an airplane flying about three kilometers high. I dreamed all the time about how flying would feel like. Last year some friends invited me to go skydiving and my answer was immediate – “Of course!! Let’s go!”

The place was called Boituva, a city in the São Paulo State which has authorization from the gov-

ernment to practice Sky-dive. The space reserved to this activity has all the resources to prevent any accident and to help you if something goes wrong dur-ing the jump. Despite that before jumping I had to sign a contract relieving the Skydive company of any responsibility in case some-thing bad should happen to me. Even after this I was excited to enter the airplane, to fly and to jump into the sky.

Before the jump we had to undergo training and simula-tions to guarantee the best flying performance and avoid all risks.

Getting on the airplane, I sat to the right of the pilot and felt

adrenaline rushing through my body. After about five minutes of flight we reached the required height. I was to be the last per-son to jump and when I saw the others I felt a little cold in my stomach! But no problem – now it’s all over: “I need to jump!” – I thought. The free fall took less than 1 minute, but these were the most exciting seconds of my life. After that the parachute opened and I enjoyed a beautiful land-scape from the sky.

It is difficult to explain the sensation: a dream came true.

It was a cold afternoon of No-vember, one of those days that reality crashes with the imagina-tion. Everybody around me was talking about her, about how gorgeous and stunning she was, some people even had tried to touch her.

I saw a couple appreciating her figure, in their eyes a blink of happiness illuminated the scene, but they were not the only ones. Everybody was trying to breathe in front of her, but she was so im-pressive that even I had to take a long a deep moment to realize how lovely and perfect she was.

The area was full of people, all gathered to pay honor to a wonderful man-made creation. For a moment I thought: “Why is she so lovely when she is al-ways wearing that same grey silk dress? She doesn’t move, but why do I feel so little in front of her? Why do I feel happy? Could she inspire the love that Shakespeare spoke of?” But she does in a way that’s difficult to explain.

Around her you felt like a little ant trying to reach the top of an apple tree. I thought that maybe that was her reason to be,

maybe she wants to show us that even if you are cold like a stone you can inspire love.

She was looking at me wher-ever I went, every time that I

looked back there she was, stand-ing still in that cold afternoon of November. I would never forget her name: Eiffel Tower.

A trip to Hollywood A lady in a Grey silk dressBy Ana PERERA

SkydiveBy Marcos GUIMARÃES

7SEDA PEOPLE

Aileen at the Dublin St Patrick’s Day Parade in 2011

Aileen, where are you from and how did you start working in SEDA?

I’m from Malahide and I’ve lived in Dublin all my life. I started working in SEDA College about a month ago. I was just looking for work in the city cen-tre to do with reception because I love working with people. It’s really nice to see so many students from all over the world – I find it’s really broadening for the mind.

What is your background?

I graduated from college just a few months ago. I studied model making in Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, De-sign & Technology. The course had to do with animation, film models, props, costumes, puppetry and so on. But I mostly developed 3D digital models for animations and advertisements. I can also do architectural models, props and any sort of particle effects, like explo-

sions, snowstorms, waves... The Irish film making industry is quite small, but it’s very successful. There are a few re-ally good production houses in Dublin, like Ardmore Studios. Several anima-tion films that were made in Ireland have been nominated for Oscars – for example, The Secret of Kells.

Do you speak any lan-guages apart from English? How do you find dealing with students from all over the world?

I speak a bit of French, but I don’t really use it here in SEDA. It’s actually quite easy to communicate with the stu-dents – even if someone has no English at all there’s usually some way to talk to them. The students are great – they’re al-ways trying. And if they don’t know the words they usually

have their dictionaries with them...

Being a Dubliner, what would you recommend SEDA students to see in the city?

I’m from Malahide and I can rec-ommend the sailing school there, which is really nice. You can rent kayaks and sailing boats and sail all around the harbour. It’s not that expensive and you can spend the day sailing or windsurf-ing which is quite cool!

In Malahide we also have a pier next to the beach where everyone goes swimming. They have this tradition of doing a really big swim every January 1: people of all ages jump into the sea and go swimming in the freezing water.

Have you ever tried it yourself?

I have tried it and it was quite nice and refreshing! To tell you the truth it

was absolutely freezing cold and you also have to be aware of the jellyfish. If the tide is in there are hundreds of jel-lyfish in the water, and it’s terrifying!

I think I spent about 30 minutes in the water. I was wearing just a normal swimming suit and had no prior prepa-ration or conditioning. At first it feels really cold, then it’s really hot and then you don’t feel your feet anymore. And that’s actually the nice point – once you lose the feeling in your feet it gets much better because you adjust to the cold. It’s only when you get out of the water that you start feeling really really cold.

Any nice places you can recom-mend in Dublin city centre?

There is a Korean restaurant in Parnell Street, just opposite Fibber Ma-gees pub. It’s called the Hop-House and it’s very nice. The Brazen Head pub in Lower Bridge Street has free movies

on every Wednesday afternoon. They put up a big screen at the bar and just play ran-dom old films. The galleries in Dublin are also fantastic, like the Science Gallery, the Royal Hibernian Academy and Hugh Lane Gallery which is very close to SEDA. I would also advise everyone to visit the Tea Garden on Or-mond Quay.

How did you celebrate Saint Pat-rick’s Day?

The college where I studied – IADT – always helps with stuff for the parade in Dublin so I’ve been in St Patrick’s Day parade for 3 years! One year I was an astronaut, another year I was push-ing the float and the next year I was a cat... But this year I couldn’t do it be-cause the rehearsals were way too late for me.

What’s it like being in the parade? Do you miss it?

It was really fun! St Patrick’s Day two years ago was ridiculously hot and I had to wear a giant foam astronaut cos-tume. It was so roasting that everyone was getting really really tired and just sweating in their costumes. You had to pretend that you were an astronaut and we had Michael Jackson music playing, so we had to moonwalk every 20 steps. And after that we had to pretend that we were in zero gravity. Sometimes the parade would stop and you had to per-form on the spot – run around in cir-cles, greet people, shake hands, do the astronaut high five and so on. You had to be high energy all the time. It was absolutely exhausting! When everyone took off their costumes we had to go and change clothes before we went out that night because everyone was soaked with sweat. It was good fun though!

Dubliner Aileen has plenty of storiesSEDA’s receptionist AILEEN O’KEEFFE always has a smile for our students, but she also has plenty of stories to tell – like the one about swimming in the freezing sea in Malahide, or being in a St Patrick’s Day parade inside a giant astronaut costume.

Carmen found SEDA by chance. She ar-rived in Ireland to work as an au pair and spent her first three months in the middle of nowhere – Mitchelstown, county Cork, where she had to look after a large family and do most of their housework. “The work was very stressful and at times I felt like I was kidnapped because it was such an isolated place!” says Carmen. “I wanted to improve my English so I decided to move to Dublin and then I found SEDA”.

At the moment she works in marketing, trying to attract students from Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Peru and other Latin American countries: “We’ve had students from these countries in SEDA, but only a few. I’m sure that in the future we’ll get more – we just need to “open” Ireland for these students”. Last month Carmen and her Spanish colleague Ferran visit-ed an international student fair in Mexico. They were the only ones representing Ireland at the event in Monterrey.

Carmen says she’s already used to life in Ire-land and is not planning on returning to Mal-lorca: “The economic situation at home is very difficult. In the summer in Mallorca you can find work because there are many tourists, but in the winter it’s impossible, so I prefer to stay here, improve my English and work”.

But, Carmen adds, the island is a fantastic place to visit if you’re a tourist. Both Ryanair and Aer Lingus have regular flights from Dub-lin to Palma, the capital of Mallorca, in the summer. “You can enjoy a lot!” says Carmen. “There are many amazing beaches. And if you like sports or active holidays there are plenty of hiking trails in the mountains where you can sleep in a tent and have a barbecue under the stars. And you can have plenty of fun too – the alcohol is so much cheaper than in Dublin!”

From Mallorca to MexicoCARMEN GELABERT CAPó who hails from the sunny island of Mallorca, just off the coast

of Spain, is promoting SEDA in Latin American countries and recently visited Mexico.

Carmen represented SEDA at an international student fair in Monterrey.

Carmen gave SEDA News some handy tips on what to see in Mallorca.

Sa Calobra - to get to this beach you will have to pass a very twisty road known as “the knot of the tie”. The beach is breathtakingly beautiful and is surrounded by spectacular cliffs.

Valldemosa – an old Mallorcan town with traditional houses made of stone surrounded by mountains.

Portocristo – a beautiful resort town with some magnificent beaches

Formentor – a place renowned for its lighthouse and spectacular views of the sea and cliffs.

Discovering Mallorca

8SHOWS & GIGS

MATCHBOX TWENTYVicar Street, 58 Thomas

Street, Dublin 8.Friday, 12 April and Satur-

day, 13 AprilFamous American pop-rock band will present songs from their latest album North as well as old favourites. Tickets:

€40.00.

FUNOlympia Theatre, Dame

Street, Dublin 2Sunday, 14 April

Everybody knows them for the hit single “We Are Young”, but the band has many other great songs and have released

2 albums.

WWE RAW WRESTLEMANIA REVENGE TOURThe O2, DublinFriday, 19 April

Wrestling stars such as John Cena, CM Punk, Dolph Ziggler and many more are coming to

Dublin. Tickets from €33.50.

PUBLIC ENEMYThe Button Factory, Curved Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

Sunday, April 21Legendary hip hop activists Public Enemy, who have just celebrated their 25th anni-versary, will play one show in Dublin this month. Tickets:

€32.50.

THE LION KINGBord Gais Energy Theatre,

Docklands, Dublin 2April 27 – June 22

World-famous musical based on the Disney cartoon is com-ing to Dublin for the first time. Tickets from €25 are available

on www.lionking.ie.

LORDIThe Button Factory, Temple

Bar, Dublin 2Thursday, May 2

Finnish rock gods Lordi will play Dublin’s Button Factory in

May. Tickets: €25.

THE DOORS ALIVEThe Academy, Lower Abbey

Street, Dublin 1Friday, May 3

The Doors cover band will re-turn to Dublin on May 3. Tick-

ets: €15.00.

GOING OUT

Tickets to all these shows are avail-able from Ticketmaster outlets.

To book by phone call: 0818 719 300Online booking:

www.ticketmaster.ie

Happy Easter!What is Lent? Why is no alcohol sold on the Friday before Easter? And why will the President of Ire-land celebrate Easter in front of the GPO in Dub-lin’s O’Connell Street? SEDA News introduces you to some Irish Easter traditions.

Where: Howth; When: 25 - 28 AprilThis month’s final week-

end is a great time to visit the picturesque fishing vil-lage of Howth, which is just 20 minutes by bus (or DART) from Dublin’s city centre. The village will host Dublin Bay Prawn Festival with a street food fair, music, entertainment and a programme of walks, talks and seaside antics.

Whatever way you like your Dub-lin Bay Prawns – barbecued, whole, shelled, fried, skewered, marinated, sauced – Howth’s many award win-ning restaurants will serve their fa-vourite prawn dishes in bite sized portions at the Street Food Fair, in addition to a variety of other minia-ture dishes, so you can enjoy the many tastes that Howth offers. The food vil-lage will also include cookery demon-strations for all those budding cooks.

During the festival Howth’s award winning restaurants and pubs will pre-

sent special value menus and speciali-ties. Those considering a dining expe-rience with a difference can take part in the Mystery Dine Around: guests will take a tour, course by course, of a selection of Howth’s finest restaurants finishing with a post dinner drink.

Also on offer will be street enter-tainment and a programme of walks, talks and seaside antics. And at night you can enjoy fireworks in the har-bour.

For more information log on to: www.dublinbayprawnfestival.com

Lent

Good Friday

Easter Sunday

Easter Rising

In Catholic tradition, which is observed by many Irish peo-ple, preparations for Easter begin 40 days before the actual holiday. This period is called Lent. Lent begins exactly 40 days before Easter Sunday on the day known as Ash Wednesday when church goers are anointed with ash (the

priest literally puts an ashen cross on their foreheads). During Lent people are required to give up something that they enjoy – such as their favourite food, sweets, al-cohol, cigarettes or even watching TV. This is done as an act of pen-ance.

The Friday before Easter is known as Good Friday, the day when Jesus Christ died. Though Good Friday is not a public holi-day in Ireland, many schools and businesses are closed on that day. All the pubs and nightclubs are also closed and you can’t buy a drop of alcohol on Good Friday as shops are forbidden to sell it

by law! So if you’re not religious stock up on some booze before-hand.

Easter Sunday is a day of cel-ebration as Lent is over and the pubs are open! There are usually many events, such as fairs, horse races and festivals held during the

Easter weekend. Many pubs are busy as the following Monday is a bank holiday so nobody has to worry about getting up early!

In Ireland Easter Sunday is also the day when the country celebrates Easter Rising, which occurred in 1916 (if you haven’t heard about it watch Michael Col-lins). The Rising was an armed re-bellion by a group of Irish repub-licans who wanted to end British rule in Ireland. They succeeded in capturing the General Post Office in O’Connell Street and a few oth-er buildings in Dublin. They then proclaimed the Irish Republic to be independent from Britain, but a few days later the rebels were crushed by British forces and their leaders were executed.

Nowadays, Irish republicans

throughout the country celebrate Easter Rising by holding rallies and processions. A formal cer-emony to honour the memory of the participants of the Rising is also held in front of the GPO in Dublin’s O’Connell Street. The ceremony is usually attended by the President of Ireland and many high ranking officials. It con-cludes with a fly over by the Irish air force.

Dublin Bay Prawn Festival

Dublin: One City One BookWhere: All around Dublin When: 1 – 30 April

If you like reading and you want to learn more about Dublin and its his-tory then this festival is for you. Dub-lin: One City One Book takes places in April every year and it celebrates a book connected with Dublin. Last year it was James Joyce’s Dubliners and this time around it’s The Strumpet City by James Plunkett. Plunkett’s novel is about an important event in Irish his-tory: a mass lockout of trade unionists by employers in 1913. Throughout the month of April a wide variety of events will be taking place in Dublin which will bring Strumpet City to life,

including m u s i c , t h e a t r e and live readings. There will also be plenty of talks and excursions relating to the book and the history of Dublin in general.

For more information: www.dublinonecityonebook.ie

The 14th Irish Latin American Film Festival 2013 will take place in Belfast and Dublin this month. The festival will feature shorts and documenta-ries about Bolivia, Mexico and other countries. But the focus this year will be on Nicaragua. Admission is free to this bilingual Film Festival, but at-tendees are requested to be on time for the screenings. Some of the films

to be shown are: Dreaming Nicara-gua, El tren de Las Moscas (The Train of Flies), Muralistas and Water Rising about the resistance to the privatiza-tion of water supply in Bolivia.

For full programme and more in-formation log on to: www.lasc.ie

Latin American Film FestivalWhere: The Pearse Centre, 27 Pearse Street, Dublin 2When: 19 – 21 April

9GOING OUT

SHOWS & GIGSERIC CLAPTONThe O2, Dublin

Thursday, May 9The English guitarist and songwriter will present songs from his new album and play old classics such as Layla at

the O2. Tickets from €55.

MEAT LOAFThe O2, DublinFriday, May 17

The American rocker will play new songs and old classics such as I’d Do Anything for

Love. Tickets from €58.70

BON JOVISlane Castle,

Saturday, 15th of JuneBon Jovi’s Because We Can world live tour will come to Ireland in June. Tickets: €79.50.

RIHANNAAviva Stadium, Dublin

Friday, 21 JuneRihanna will present songs from her new album Una-pologetic (including the hit Diamonds) in Dublin’s Aviva Stadium. Tickets from €59.50.

BLONDIEOlympia Theatre, Dublin

Tuesday, June 25The legendary ‘80s band will play Dublin in June. Tickets

from €44.05.

ROD STEWARTRDS Arena

Saturday, June 29British singer will play the RDS Arena as part of his latest live

tour. Tickets from €54.65.

EMINEMSlane Castle, co MeathSaturday, 17th August

World famous rapper Eminem is coming to Ireland’s Slane Castle (in county Meath, about an hour and a half’s drive from

Dublin). Tickets: €79.50.

ROGER WATERS - THE WALLAviva Stadium

Wed, 18 SeptemberPink Floyd founding member Roger Waters will present his live show The Wall in Dublin.

Tickets from €69.50.

Tickets to all these shows are avail-able from Ticketmaster outlets.

To book by phone call: 0818 719 300 Online booking:

www.ticketmaster.ie

Musashi: the amazing art of Japanese cuisine

Daniel O’Connell, whose statue stands at the very top of O’Connell Street in Dublin, was an important Irish politi-cal leader in the 19th century. He was also a lawyer and there is a funny tale involving him and a stubborn res-taurant owner. LILI CHATTERBOX sent the story for your reading pleasure.

Lately I had the opportunity to visit a place that will be hard to forget. I always walk down Capel Street see-ing the name of this restaurant and finding it attractive. I am a fan of the famous Japanese warrior Musashi and his book about the art of war, so I was wondering about the culinary arts hid-den inside this restaurant.

I found that every time that I passed it by the restaurant seemed to be full, but I always assumed that Japanese food was expensive so I was afraid to try.

But one day I finally decided to come in to Musashi for lunch with some colleagues, and, to my surprise, the restaurant had great lunchtime deals. However the best part was the service and the quality of the food. Be-

lieve me, it is worth every single cent! I had the Bento box and the miso

soup and for the 3 times I went over there the Bento box was the best op-tion. Fresh food, quality service and budget prices make Musashi a place that you definitely need to visit.

The restaurant has good options for vegetarians and you can also bring your own wine, and they will only charge a small fee to open the bottle and serve it for you.

To find out more log on to:http://musashidublin.com/about.php

By Tiago MASCARENHAS

There were six young fellows visit-ing a town one day. One of them sug-gested that they go and eat some food. They had some drinks before that. They went into a hotel, and one of the lads ordered a meal for them all. Each was to pay his own share. A pound of meat was placed in front of each of them. But one of the fellows told the woman to take away his meat, as he wasn’t going to eat it after all.

“I won’t,” said she. “It was ordered, and you can eat it or leave it.”

He ate a small bit of bread and took a cup of soup or tea, whichever it was. Tea wasn’t very plentiful at that time. After the meal, each of them went to pay their share, but this fellow wanted to pay only for the bread and the soup (or tea). As they were about to leave, the woman snatched this fellow’s hat at the doorway. He asked her to give it back to him, but it was no use. They started to argue about it, but she remained firm: she wanted him to pay for the whole meal.

Daniel O’Connell was walk-ing along the street when he heard the argument and saw the young fellow bareheaded. He stopped and asked what was the trouble.

“This is the trouble,” said the fellow. “Five others and my-self came in to this woman to get a meal. One of us ordered a

pound of meat for each of us. When she put the meat in front of me, I said I wouldn’t have any and wouldn’t eat it. She told me to eat it or leave it. I didn’t taste the meat at all; so I didn’t want to pay for it.”

“If this fellow didn’t eat the meat,” said O’Connell, “ ‘tis strange that he should have to pay for it. Give him back his hat.”

“He didn’t have to eat it,” said the woman. “The smell of my meat filled his belly.”

“You may be right in that,” said O’Connell. “I have always heard that all a woman needs to do to get an ex-cuse is to glance over her shoulder.”

O’Connell took off his own hat, put his hand into his trousers’ pocket, and threw a fistful of silver into the hat.

“Come over here now,” said he to the woman. “Place your nose over this money and take your time smelling it. Fill your belly well with it.”

She was taken aback by that.“Does that satisfy you?” asked

O’Connell.

She was covered with shame and made no reply.

“Give him his hat quickly,” said O’Connell. “You have got as good a bargain as you gave.”

That ended the matter. The fellow got his hat and went off.

Source: Folktales of Ireland, 1966. Edited and translated by Sean O’Sullivan

Are you good at bluffing?If you are then join us at the very first SEDA News

POKER CHAMPIONSHIP! Beat your friends and you will get a voucher to spend wherever you want (including the pub!). And this is not all: the winner will appear in the next edition of SEDA News so you can also show off your victory to all your fellow students.

Come and play with us!Send your name and poker nickname to news@seda.ie

“The Smell of Money for the Smell of Food”: an Irish tale

10 PHOTO ALBUM

CV class with Helicon Alvares and Guilherme Nassim

Anna Paula is inviting students to dance

Students from Barbacena in SEDA

11PHOTO ALBUM

Yasmim Abou Jaoude sent this photo

Send your photos to:

newS@Seda.ie

Emerson Rufo sent this photo of St Patrick’s Day

Tiago Santos enjoying St Patrick’s Day

12 A BIT OF FUN

Crossword puzzle

Congratulations to MARILENA RODRI-GUES! She won last month’s quiz and can claim her prize in Carol’s office.

Here are the answers to last month’s quiz:

1. The biggest St Patrick’s Day parade takes place in New York and is attended by some 2 million people every year.

2. It is said that St Patrick banished all snakes from Ireland.3. St Patrick originally came to Ireland as a slave – he was cap-

tured by Irish pirates and brought to Ireland against his will.4. St Patrick decided to return because he had a vision of Irish

people calling him.5. St Patrick used the shamrock to explain the idea of Holy Trin-

ity.6. St Patrick was born in Britain.7. He is considered to be buried in Downpatrick in Northern

Ireland.8. Centuries ago Irish people would wear green and go to church

on St Patrick’s Day.9. The leprechaun’s “job” is making shoes.10. According to legend, you have to catch a leprechaun or follow

the rainbow to the end in order to find the little man’s treasure.For more crosswords log on to: www.abcteach.com

Homophones (not to be confused with homophobes!) are words that sound the same but have different meanings. For example: write AND right. See if you can find the homophones for the words below and fit them into the crossword puzzle.

Send your answers to news@seda.ie, or cut this page out and give it to your teacher. If you get the answers right you can win a prize!

Your name:__________________________

___________________________________

Your e-mail: _________________________

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