Like a Phoenix from the Ashes

…we rise again!

Now Playing: Beethoven’s first String Quartet, don’t ask me about opus numbers and that.

 

Hi again.  It’s been a while, I know, I know.  

You’re probably wondering (although for the sparse crowd reading this at present, aren’t wondering) what’s been going on.  I’m not going to rehash the last year – two years? – of my life for you, because chances are, you don’t care.  It’s also likely that even if we haven’t spoken recently, you’ve spoken to my mother, who has told everyone she passes on the street about what goes on in my life.  I love you, Mommy, and it’s cute!  

I am updating this blog, from my couch, in the lovely city of Philadelphia.  Leto says hello.  Whether or not Philadelphia is a lovely city is up for debate – either way, it’s quaint and has its own special charm.  It’s growing on me.  That’s all I can say about it, for now.  Ask me again in a year.

What am I doing in Philadelphia, you ask?  “Kate, last time you updated you were still in Ireland, talking about going to Dutchland!”  Since that last post, I’ve returned to the States, finished my BA at UIUC, and am now a doctoral student in the HSS department at UPenn.  I survived my first semester and am excited to be starting the second.  I’ve piled my plate high, but now’s the time to do it, before I begin TAing.  It’s daunting to think about, but I also had this sudden surge of adrenaline while I was up at the office today.  It has the potential to be really awesome, and I finally feel like I’m getting my feet underneath myself.  

My goal now is to write more.  Writing is a skill like any other.  You improve with practice.  I’m doing more than enough writing for work, it’s true, but mixing up writing styles can be a useful exercise.  I was going to write a lot more tonight, but it took me so long to remember what email this thing was attached to and to figure out how to work this thing again, that now it’s time to take the dog out and read.  My plan tonight is to finish Wrigleyworld: A Season in Baseball’s Best Neighborhood.  Expect a review to follow!

Welcome back loyal-readers-whom-I-abandoned, and not-so-loyal readers, and new readers alike!  I promise to be better this time.

February: The Lost Month

Now Playing:  WFMT Streaming – It IS their pledge drive at current!

Some of you must think I’ve disappeared off the face of the earth, and that’s only mostly true.  I wish I could say that I was out having raucous adventures, but that’s only partly true.  Are there no whole truths to be found here?  There is one: I’m back in the swing of things, and promise to be more active on this blog.  (Isn’t it funny that I resolved to post more, and then disappeared?)  I promise I have reasonable excuses as to my absence.  And with that, let’s away!

Three weeks ago – almost a month, maybe – I went to Connemara with Shawn on a day-trip.  That was on 11 February.  Rather than post the pictures here, I’ve uploaded them and will just post a link to the album at the end of this post.  There are a lot of them.  🙂  The day started off cold and drizzling, but by the time we’d been on the bus for an hour, it cleared up and the day was beautiful.  We went out to the Kylemore Estate (now an abbey for Benedictine Nuns), had lunch, wandered for a few hours, and came home.  Our tour guide really loved waterfalls.  We didn’t see any Connemara ponies, unfortunately, but we did see a lot of rocks and sheep.  One thing that really amused me was these little villages we would drive through; these villages were like four buildings.  Kylemore Estate was really awesome, and I have decided I am going to get married in the little Gothic church there.  It’s in this valley, in the middle of nowhere, and it’s just lovely.  I should say, if I ever got married. It was a delightful, exhausting day.  I should have just posted stuff then but I had about zero desire – I ate and fell asleep.

The weekend after that I went to the Netherlands!  There isn’t much to say about it, mostly because what happens in Dutchland, stays in Dutchland.  😉  Met a lot of awesome people, made some cool new friends, had a great time.

In fact I had such a great time that it kicked my ass.  I felt a cold coming on before I left, and the flying really aggravated it.  I have spent much of the last two weeks laid up with a few really serious infections in my head and chest.  I’m on ridiculous antibiotics that have helped with some things (and not at all with others) and will be returning to the doctor tomorrow for a recheck and a refill or change of my meds.   Please accept this as an excuse for not being around the blogosphere for the last two weeks.  I have very little memory of last week; it’s mostly a haze of crazy cold drugs and sleep.  I’m hanging in there this week – mainly because I have work to do – and hopefully will be feeling much better soon.

I would write more, you see, but it’s a busy day – class, and then I went and played piano (!) – and now I have a paper to write tonight, so I should hop to!  I haven’t been to the grocery store in days and have no idea what I’m going to make for dinner.  Maybe I’ll just order in.  I’ve never done that here and have no idea how it works.

In retrospect, a lot of these Connemara pictures turned out really, really nice!  How surprising and awesome!  I’m going to just link the album – there should be a slideshow option for your convenience.

Click here to be taken to the pictures!

 

Is it Monday already?

Now Playing:  Bear McCreary – Someone to Trust (Battlestar Galactica score)

 

I woke up this morning from a dream I feel may have been a nightmare, but further review has my jury out.  In the beginning, it was just the usual garbled mess that my dreams have been of late, brilliant moments of clarity amidst a strange, washed out world that I’m becoming unable to recognize.  But at the last moment, it gelled into cohesion, a strange and uncomfortable cohesion.

 

I was teaching philosophy to actively-resistant undergrads at a low-tier university.  Not history, not literature, not anything I find easy (to teach, understand, and get people excited about), but philosophy.  And as I was standing up on the stage of the lecture hall, at the lectern, with their bored, spiteful faces all staring up at me, I had that thought – ‘How did this happen?’   I don’t want to teach philosophy!  I want to teach history!  I’d rather teach Latin than philosophy!

 

The saddest part was that there was one girl who really actually wanted to do philosophy, but she was at the completely wrong school.  And I was telling her, “You could go to ASU, or Notre Dame,” or a list of others, but I knew she’d never get there.

I guess that I should interpret this as my brain trying to tell me something about this lofty goal of getting to teach university.  I guess I should be happy that at least there I had a -job-.  But really, philosophy?

 

In other news, I think I might start writing recreationally again.  Firefox says that’s not a word.  Screw you, Firefox, I’m using it anyway.

This post is really just an excuse…

Now Playing – AWOLNATION – Sail

…to link that song to the younger crowd.  The entire EP is pretty good, but what you have to do is put on your headphones and turn it up loud, to really experience it.  At least, that’s my opinion.

Also, today has another image dump!

Uneventful Sunday.  I got up early and have been doing the boatload of reading and writing I have to do for the beginning of this week.  I took a break an hour or two ago and ran some quick errands.  I guess I’ll just throw the pictures in!

This is the street I live up, on the right hand side:

I tried to go to the grocer today and buy some fruit and popcorn, but they were closed!  You can’t find non-microwavable popcorn in the supermarkets; apparently it’s a delicacy here.  This little grocer has little bags for fairly cheap, and the fruit is cheap and good.  I wish they had red bell peppers.   (The Tesco on campus has produce, however, and their peppers are WAY bigger and tastier than the ones at Dunnes, and cost six centers more.  I get better peppers for about a buck  and a half less at Tesco.   Good deal!)

The following is another picture of the Cathedral, and a little church on the corner about a block from my house.  I assume it’s still a church, although I don’t know.  The bells still ring on the hour (or sometimes quarter after) every day.  🙂

Some pics of the rivers I walk by every day  – I thought it was weird that there were two right next to each other, but apparently they’re two different rivers?  One is the Corrib, and the other is Friars River (as the plaque says).

I also took a panoramic video for your viewing pleasure, what I walk by every day. 🙂  I love that house across the river and want to live in it.

And last, but not least, some pictures of me and American-Friend Shawn out at The Quays, Friday night, which resulted in disaster for me yesterday morning.  I think he was a little more drunk than he would have people believe, and I’m hoping he doesn’t bother reading this, so that he does not know I have put up such incriminating photographs.  OH WELL.

The rest of the pictures didn’t exactly turn out.  (There were probably five or six more.)  We really need to stop taking pictures when drunk.

I’m not bragging here, but…

I find it amazing that DESPITE the fantastic potato-based goods, this country (thanks to my fiscal situation and being so sick for the first week and a half) has taken probably almost ten pounds off me. I know this is true only because all my jeans are no longer fitting as they used to.

Man’s Greatest Invention… (Also an image dump)

Now Playing:  Yann Tiersen – La noyee

 

…is the hotpot.  Hot pot?  Hot-pot?  This device that boils water in large quantities so tea is ever at your disposal.  I love you, Water Boiling Machine.  I am buying one when I get back to the States.  This is awesome and made my day.

I know I just updated last night, but I went for a walk today.  I managed to find a place that sells the city garbage bags!  SUCCESS.  And I took some pictures.  And some video!  Also, I have resized these images so that you can actually SEE what’s in them without having to scroll all over the place.

All I have to say is, the street musician scene here is awesome and I love it.  From 10 am to 2 am, there will be music wherever you go.

Couple pics from Eyre Square:Pictures from Shop St. and surrounding areas:

(That last one is actually in the Latin Quarter.)

Historic Kirwan Lane (there are things like this all over the city, just random old lanes):

And a couple shots of various street performers.  I thought the invisible man was cute.  The band is Keywest, who wins the Best Street Musicians of the Day award; I’d like to go see them, but I imagine they’re better acoustic.  They write their own music too, I think.

Keywest playing Katy Perry, “Firework”

They played a sad love song later that I wanted to record but the batteries were almost  dead.  I was annoyed.  Next time bring the second set of batteries in your pocket, me.

The last one is a MAN.  I thought he was a statue the first time I walked by, from the corner of my eye.  How strange, I thought, I have never noticed that before.  Is it a holiday?  A special occassion?  Then on my way home, some little kid threw a coin in at his mother’s behest and freaked out when he “came alive”.  It was neat.

Keywest and their crowd – I tried to get a shot, and the singer kept having to ask the crowd to press in so the various service vehicles could get through.

Happy Caturday!

Woes, and How to Avoid Them

Now Playing: Of Porcelain – Gone Til Morning

 

So, here we are on a Friday night, and I’m updating.  I ought to be out – I wish I was out – but my money situation has reached critical mass.  People keep asking me things like, “Don’t you have a credit card” or “didn’t you take out loans” and the answer is yes, but all the money is in America still, and I’m having to be terribly patient before I can wire it. Surely I could charge things, run the plastic, but have you looked at the fees?  I’m sorry, I’m not paying x-percent so I can have 17 euros worth of drinks or something.  So the last of the cash is being used to keep me fed.  Basically, I’m an idiot who didn’t really look into this wiring/transfer business before I came over here, and am paying for it now.

 

I’m compiling a list of things I wish I had done, and things I would recommend to people (other students) to do before going overseas for a semester (or year)  and on arrival.  So far, that list includes:

1.)  Get a lot of rest before you go.  Sleep as much as you can.  I should have slept more.  And be prepared when you get overseas to adjust to your body wanting to sleep 10-12 hours at a time.  I didn’t see fit to set an alarm the first day or two, and then found myself sleeping 12 hours, comfortably, for no reason.  That might have been a result of not really having any real down time between the hellish end of last semester and getting on the plane – I admit to being exhausted, doubly so when I got over here.  So make sure you get a lot of rest.  Sleep as much as you need, build up your body’s stores.  And arrive early enough to give yourself two days or so to let your body sleep through the jet lag.  That leads into number two…

2.)  Do whatever it takes to get and stay healthy.  Eat eat eat before you leave!  Eat healthy, eat junk food, whatever.  And take your vitamins!  Wear a mask on the plane.  I was sick upon arrival, and it was terrible.  I arrived two or three days before orientation started, and in those 48-72 hours had a ton of things to do.  Feeling like I had one foot in the grave made those things far more difficult.  Getting lost trying to find the bank wouldn’t have been a big deal if I felt well – it would have been an awesome chance for an adventure.  But I was running a fever, could hardly breathe for all the congestion, and at one point, lost in the rain, I just started to cry in the middle of some weird neighborhood.  I am not a crier, right?  The sickness just broke all the stress I was under.  Also, it made me terribly homesick.  Since getting healthy, I haven’t had a problem with that much at all (though I miss the fam, the friends, and the dog), and have even started having dreams where I move here permanently.  But when I was sick?  Man, I’d just lay on my couch and cry.  Being ill made me feel totally powerless, totally helpless, and it was the suck.  SO.  Do whatever you can/have to to arrive here healthy.

Healthy and well-rested, those are the big things.

3.)  For the love of God, talk to your bank.  And when they tell you, “Oh, sure, transferring money between the two accounts will be easy, no problem,” do NOT take their word for it.  This would not be complicated if I had set up my account for wire transfers before I left the States.  Since I -didn’t-, because I was under the impression that I could just do it online, bing bang boom, I am paying for it now with the run around and being on hold and waiting.  Always waiting.  Make sure you have everything set up and ready to go before you get on that plane.

4.)  Don’t arrive on a holiday/holiday weekend.  Just don’t.  Especially in Europe.

5.)  Do ask for help.  And get a little pad of paper and a pen to keep on you at ALL TIMES to write down directions.  In Ireland, for example, there are very few street signs indicating what roads are what.  If there are, they’re never in a conveniently located place.  It’s easier as a pedestrian – if I was driving a car, I don’t know what I’d do.  When trying to get to the Garda Immigration Bureau, I got lost three times.  A woman in a hotel finally drew me a little map, and then it was easy.  (Turns out it was about 20 feet around a corner from where I’d decided at one point to turn around and go ask for directions from the hotel before I got amazingly lost.)

I don’t know what it’s like elsewhere, yet, but what I do know is that here in Ireland everyone I’ve asked about anything has been as helpful as they’re able to be, and if they don’t know the answer, they generally point you in the direction of someone who does.  (I’ve also noticed they immediately adopt these concerned, worried, dare I say compassionate looks, which makes you feel a little silly, you poor, poor American.)

 

I’ve been pretty bad at updating this thing since I got here, but I’ve resolved in the last day to make more of a concerted effort to do so.  Also, this week I thought, “I haven’t taken a lot of pictures.  I should change that.”  But I feel like I live here, and so I don’t feel intensely compelled to take a lot of pictures.  I’m planning on taking a weekend trip to Rome in February, and imagine I will take a lot of pictures of that, but aren’t I in Ireland now?  If the weather is nice this weekend, I’m going to just strap on my shoes and go wander around the city.  That, and I still need to find a place that sells the garbage bags that you can just leave for sidewalk pick-up.  >_>  No one seems to know where I can get them, though surely I must be able to get them somewhere.  And somewhere reasonably close, too, I would assume.  So that is my task for tomorrow.

Yeah, planning a trip to Rome in February.  I can fly there for less than a hundred euro, and I’ll do some hostel shopping.  At one point I thought Rome would be my splurge trip, before I left the States, but since my experience in the hostel here, I’ve decided that’s the way to go.  Hopefully there will be fun people there to do things with.  I’m worried that my hostel experience here was unique, and that it won’t be that awesome elsewhere, but there’s only one way to find out.  The other thing  I might do is Paris over my birthday.  Not because I particularly want to go to Paris, or anything, but because I’ve learned the Louvre is free the first Sunday of every month, and my birthda… wait.  I’ve got so many papers due the week after.  Maybe the first weekend in May, or March?  That’s the beauty of Europe.  On the budget airlines you can fly just about anywhere for just about anything.  I found a ticket to Amsterdam for fourteen euros.  Yeah, you read that right.  No luggage, of course, just a carry-on, and it’s not going to be the lap of luxury, no service or anything, but it’s a two hour flight.  The travelers I’ve met say it’s pretty awesome.

 

For now, I just want to be able to pay my rent.

 

92% and counting…

Now Playing:   The Verve – A Man Called Sun

 

That’s how well I feel.  If only I could kick this cough the rest of the way!  Every day is a little better, though, and I’m finally sleeping through the night, which makes a big difference.

 

This is mostly a post to post a few crappy pictures I’ve taken, and to say a few words.

 

Before I left, I made sure to have Tommy’s, because I was so sad that I would not be able to have a decent hot dog over here, and more importantly, that I would not be able to find decent french fries.

 

What an absolute fool I was.

My love of potatoes and this country should never have met.  Never in a million years.  Basically, this place is heaven.

 

School is going well – registration is tomorrow and the day after.  I’m going to miss my philosophy class tomorrow to register with immigration; the school has given us set times to streamline the process and try to save us all day-long waits in the Garda Immigration Office.  I’ve got a bunch of classes I like, despite, to my dismay, the slimness of classes offered to visiting students.  Why that is, what the logic behind that decision is, I don’t know, but I managed to sneak into one of the seminars I wanted, so I really have nothing to complain about.

I successfully took out my garbage this morning!  Just leaving your garbage on the street for some mysterious force to come collect was scary, and still is scary, but I was very pleased to find it gone this morning.

The weather here is very nice.  Kids wander around without coats on; there are no leaves on the trees but I have to keep reminding myself that it IS in fact January, despite everything being so green.  Basically, I like it here very much.  I need to figure out bar etiquette, because I would really like to get out and start being social.  Other Americans for friends is cool and helpful, but I want to really get immersed.  I do not, however, want to sit on the wrong side of the bar and be taken for a trollop.

 

ON TO PICTURES. I advise you not to click on any of them because they are HUGE.  Next time I will resize them.  I’m too lazy tonight and have homework to do.

This is a horrible picture of the Shannon Airport at 7:30 in the morning.  It was really a horrible attempt at demonstrating how it was still nighttime at a reasonable hour of the morning.  (I have since come to learn that in Ireland, 7:30 is NOT a reasonable hour of the morning.  In fact, 9 a.m. is not a reasonable hour.  Isidora would love it here.)

This picture is meant to demonstrate how people park in this country.  You will notice cars on the same side of this narrow alley/road facing both directions.  It’s like that EVERYWHERE.  People drive like crazy maniacs here.  I am convinced there are no actual driving laws – it’s just a crapshoot.  This was from the first day at the hostel.  I have seen better demonstrations but don’t want people thinking I’m weird, taking pictures of cars that are clearly not mine.

I don’t know what bar this was in.  I was out with my Temporary Hostel Friends.  I just thought it was interesting. If anyone knows what bar this is, tell me, because the pub was pretty cool and open late.  The following pictures are of Temporary Hostel Friends – this is what happens when you let someone who isn’t you take pictures with your camera.  I have to try to find some of these people on Facebook, maybe.  The one good picture is the one I took.

This last picture is of the people who were trying to take pictures of us on all our cameras.  The chick to the right is a real photographer, and offered to do it right, but the guys were having none of it.

 

This is the bakery from which I got breakfast Sunday morning.  I had an apple danish and it was delicious.  It’s also one of the few bakeries open on Sunday, from what I’ve gathered.  I might try another on Saturday.  I’m looking for a cheese danish.  This place was good.  No Mirabelle, of course, but pretty okay.

This is the Cathedral two blocks from my house and just across the water.  It was a really nice day today, and I took a picture on my walk to school!

 

Anyway, that’s all.  I have homework to do.  This is my angry face.

Ireland, One Week Later

So, apparently some people were starting to wonder what happened to me!  I am here to tell you that yes, I am still alive, and yes, I am in Ireland successfully.  I have taken a few pictures, though none spectacular, but now that things are moving forward again I’ll certainly start trying to more.   I’m afraid this post is going to wind up just being a concise sort of run-down of what’s been up the last week.  Way too much to write, and too much time has passed, and there are certain things I don’t want to revisit.  Where to begin…

 

The flight over went fairly smooth.  There was a bit of chop, as the weather over the US wasn’t the greatest, and over the ocean it was rough here or there.  When we were going over the ocean it got a little scary once and I just sat in my chair and prayed for there to be some crazy island beneath us with Others that spoke Latin, because then I would finally have a practical application for all this Latin I am learning.  But we made it one piece, and I caught the first bus out of the Shannon airport to Galway.

This was “a long time ago” at this point, but I do remember riding on the bus (and a fairly nice bus at that) and scripting out a blog post, even way back then.  It was going to approach the question everyone asked: What’s it like?  We were heading north as the sun was rising, and I watched the scenery roll by.  I tried to make note of things; where fences line the roads, they’re often just stone fences, covered with moss and other plants.  Rusting out ag equipment sits in fields occupied by cattle, sheep, and fat old draft horses.  The livestock is just as likely  to be in one of these fields as it is to be in someone’s side- or front-yard.  I remember seeing a car, probably more recently abandoned, in a field with a couple horses in it – the possibility that those horses were abandoned is pretty real.  It’s hard to say how much of the derelict equipment is a result of the recession the country is it, but judging from the apparent age of the stuff, I have to imagine at least some of it predates the world-wide economic crash.  All the while I kept thinking about how gray and muddy, dirty and sometimes inhospitable this vast, sparsely populated countryside looked, and that despite that, it was somehow still green, and gives one the very real sense of things growing and persisting.

But how was I going to describe it?  “It’s like Wyoming, maybe, but greener.”  “It’s like the Midwest, but without the bleak flatness that makes driving through the center of the country absolute hell.”  Then I stopped myself.

It doesn’t look analogous to anything.

It looks like Ireland.

It’s beautiful here, especially on mornings when you get to the see the sunrise.  It is pretty much overcast a majority of the time, and it has rained every day, at least a little, for I don’t know how long now.  There are lots of places I’d like to do day trips to – the Aran Islands, Connemara, the Cliffs of Moher or the Slieve League – but those can wait for the weather to warm up a bit, maybe in March, April, or May.  Maybe at that point I’ll have a few friends to go with me.

So day one here was exhausting but resourceful.  Day two I noticed I wasn’t feeling so hot, but I’d befriended a few temporary friends via the hostel (which was, by the by, pretty nice for a hostel – better than I was expecting, to be honest) and went out that first Monday night.  I don’t know which bars we went to, but we went to three.  The first had a trad band playing, the second a 24-piece jazz orchestra, and the third no live music but it was basically the only place still open.  Guinness, Bulmer’s and dancing was had by all.  All in all it was a pretty spectacular night.

Tuesday I woke up 80% dead.  The next seven days were a horrible haze of illness-induced misery while trying to open bank accounts, find a place to live, find my way around Galway – or at least to campus – attend orientations, etc.  I don’t really want to revisit them, since they were pretty fiercely terrible days.  But we survived them and here we are!

So now I go to school during the week.  I’m in the process of trying to pick classes by attending certain ones and trying to finagle my way into others.  I’ll get it all worked out soon enough.  Most of my classes are on Mondays and Tuesdays, which is nice, because with the classes I think I’m going to be taking, I won’t have class on Fridays.  That could be nice if I want to travel, or just as a day to do a lot of reading and what have you.

I’m still learning how to do things like cook, here.  There’s a good produce stand just around the corner, and a grocer not too far away, but I can only buy what I can carry, and the selection is not very good.  So maybe next week I’m going to go to the other grocery store a bit to the north to see what their selection is like.  I’ll figure something out. I could really go for some good old Kraft mac’n’cheese, but I can’t find it anywhere!  And no one told me Ireland doesn’t have chai!  So I need to find an ethnic place or something, too, because surely I must be able to get chai SOMEWHERE in this country.

 

I must, right?

 

It’s going to be a long six months if I can’t.

This post took two days to write.

Now Playing:  Monsters of Folk – Temazcal, The Hush Sound – Hurricane

I’ve been meaning to do up a post for a few days now, but it kept escaping me, and seeing as this is supposed to be an Ireland blog, it felt a little silly to write about nothing.  But I probably won’t post again before I fly out of O’Hare and start this wacky adventure, and also needed something to do to help me relax tonight.

Firstly,  I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday!  Mine was nice and quiet, which after the last month or so was totally welcome.  Lots of Wii was played with the folks.  We discovered that Leto really -hates- Wii Resort Canoeing.  We were flailing and screaming and hitting one another (accidentally, allegedly), and he was freaking out.  Barking, jumping about, he even started to sincerely growl at us.  That’s right, silly never-hurt-a-fly Leto can growl, and did so at Wii rowing.  It was pretty hilarious, if you ignore how upset he got.

My Christmas haul was full of really useful things!   I started telling people I got “new” luggage, but screw that, I’ve never had luggage before.  So I got luggage for Christmas!  Real luggage.  I also got new fingerless gloves, which is great, because I lost one of the last pair on campus three days before winter set in, and spent the last few weeks of school dealing with fleece gloves that I had to take on and off to do anything.  (I know, I know, my life is SO ROUGH.)  Also lots of other neat things; all in all, very satisfying.  Very helpful, and very awesome.

My sister posted a number of questions in her comments on my last post, so I thought I would answer them for everyone here!

Any thoughts on the airports on the east coast being backlogged probably through the weekend?

According to all my sources, including the travel agency through which I booked my ticket, all flights on the east coast should be caught up by Friday.  I don’t think it should affect me, as long as the weather holds out, but just the same I’m keeping an eye on it.  I have a six-hour layover in Newark, so I’m not terribly concerned about missing my flight.  Just  hoping the weather will hold out.

Was your haircut at all influenced by the trip?

As a lot of my FB friends know, I chopped my hair off yesterday!  That picture was taken basically immediately after I got home, so the hair was still all producty and full of crazy volume.  It’s MUCH shorter in the back, being one of those trendy, hip hairstyles.  It’s scary to me, that I have one of those; my hair hasn’t been this short since I hacked it all off in junior high. 

I can’t say my trip influenced it any more than the fact that the bottom lots of inches were a disgusting mess.  You KNOW it’s bad when I look at it and am embarrassed.  I was ashamed to go to the hair dresser.  But yeah, it needed cut, and I’d been wanting to go short for a while, so what better time than the present, eh?  This is the first time I’ve not chickened out on my haircut.  I guess I’ve decided to just be brash and bold and live confidently. 

Are you nearly packed?

I don’t know the answer to this quest.  Yes – my clothes are mostly laid out, everything is consolidated into basically one place.  Still have some laundry to do, which is annoying Ma, but everything will be fine!  I have no idea how much clothing to take.  I want to take just one big suitcase worth of stuff.  That might change, as I’ve booked a room at the hostel directly across from the train station; my major concern was dragging my luggage through Galway, and since that’s not a problem, we’ll see.  That said, I don’t want to over pack, but six months is a long time.

I keep going into the room where my stuff is laid out, and I’m constantly eyeballing stuff.  Things get added, things get taken away – it’s like trying to balance an equation.   Packing is somehow the most inconsequential thing, and causing me stupid, meaningless anxiety.  Blaaaaaah.  I’m trying to narrow down the shoes I bring.  I’m  bringing more pairs of shoes than jeans at this point.  When did I turn into one of these girls?

And screw you, Express, for not having the jeans I like in the cut I like in the size I wear when I drove down to that hateful mall today!  And screw you, mall, for not having an Eddie Bauer store, to which I had a gift certificate and thought, “Oh, I will just go buy jeans there and save some more money!”  I hate that mall.  It’s my nemesis.

Have you told Leto yet that you’ll be gone so long?

I have.  He wanted to come with; I explained to him that this is just not possible.  That he would abhor spending twenty-four hours in a crate, in cargo, where it is cold and loud.  Also, I tried to explain that  he would have to be in quarantine for what, four to six months?  And that that would suck, too, and is basically the length of my trip.  He thought I was lying, but then I showed him on the internet, so I guess now he believes me.  Seeing as he’s a dog, he can’t help but believe everything he reads on the internet.

He knows something’s up – he gets a little upset when I leave the house, and is always spastically happy when I come home.  He hung out with me the other night while I sorted and folded and lined up the clothes I’m taking.  He’s a smart little dog and he has a nose for these things.  I’m going to miss him horribly.  But I’m looking forward to the future, when he gets to come live in Chambana again, and have a little yard and go out with us and shadow Isidora until she goes crazy.  😀

Also, one year cancer-free!  Rock on, Small Dog!

Anyway, those are the questions, and those are the answers!  Just about all the paperwork is done.  Logistics are worked out.  I’m a little stressed about the window I’ve given myself to find a place, but it’ll all be cool.  This is me giving thumbs up!  I am going to try to be social in the next few days, and will be busy, so the next post will be when the adventure is underway!

I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year – Don’t be afraid to stay in, to avoid being on those roads!

 

 

Edit for post-script:  Airborne is gross.  Blegh.  I better not get sick.