The sun was shining as I woke this morning for our day off. And what a treat the day would turn out to be. Hottest day on record for many places across the UK. I spent the morning in the sun where I was able to begin reading a new book.

Today was a very exciting day, that came about pretty surprisingly. I had an email from my Psychology thesis professor/mentor, Thomas Pruzinsky, that I received a few weeks after graduation and had yet to respond to, until about a week ago. I filled him in that I was in Northern Ireland playing football, and it just so happened to be that he was traveling through Ireland and the U.K. for work, having meetings and speaking at different places. And of course one of his stops for a few days was Derry. So we planned to have lunch, and closer to time sorted all the details. We met at 1pm today at a nice restaurant in town and shared a lovely meal.

Professor Pruzinsky has really been my influence to head in the direction of Positive Psychology after I took his Positive Psychology class in the Fall of my Senior year. This led me to then take him for my thesis and focus my thesis on Positive Psychology. He is so genuine and interested in the well being of each and everyone of his students. He will give you all the time he can to help you in any way, and having spent many extra hours with him discussing and constructing my thesis with him, we built a special bond. I have the greatest respect for him, as does he have for me, which for a student of his, I appreciate greatly.

We talked about my journey here in Northern Ireland, the possibilities, opportunities, struggles, and successes. We spoke about Quinnipiac as an institution, and he shared more of his knowledge and the work he was doing while on his trip. It was a wonderful hour and a half shared with him in a completely different setting. Unfortunately we were unable to do some Derry sight seeing as he had to rush off to an unplanned meeting at 2.30pm. So we parted ways after a lovely time.

My afternoon of small world connections didn’t stop there however. Wardy came and picked me up and we headed to watch a friend of his coach a game in the Foyle Cup. Watching the young kids brought back all the memories of the various rep tournaments I played in as a kid. The friend that Wardy had gone to see is most likely moving out to New Zealand to play for Southern United in the upcoming National League season.

And then to top it all off, I headed off to another Foyle Cup game, where Laura Nicholas, who plays on the Quinnipiac Women’s team, also was. We were there to see Marty Walker, the former goalkeeper coach at Quinnipiac from my Sophomore year. Marty is originally from Derry, but has been in the states for quite awhile now. He had brought over an academy team he coaches based out of Norwalk, CT. So I got to catch up with both Laura and Marty which was great. Marty had originally helped with my first few days of trials at Cliftonville, so he has had a connection throughout my journey here.

After a very long day, in the hottest temperatures that I may experience, it was finally time to head home. Made a good dinner as always and then sat down to watch a documentary on New Zealand wildlife, Cast Adrift. One of my friends who I grew up with filmed a lot of the aerial drone footage for the documentary, so it was awesome to watch that and also just see the natural beauty that New Zealand holds!

Here are the highlights from the 4-0 win for Derry last week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om9aoNTYEGE&feature=youtu.be