So, since another columnist got to the international election coverage article before me, I had to come up with something fast.

Let me explain myself first, because I know this probably comes as a shock. After all, I spent my first two years at BC rolling my eyes at whatever pop song the campus was loving, and in my unbearably condescending moods would try to explain exactly what social pressures made people think the Pussycat Dolls had any musical merit. I was a pill. To be sure, I had my own guilty pleasures: Justin Timberlake is objectively amazing, I was there on tenterhooks when Britney tried to reemerge at the VMAs last year. And as long as we’re being honest, I still listen to Hanson regularly. But these were ironic interjections in my playlists, for moments when we could all have a laugh at acting like preteens again. Otherwise, when my headphones were on, I had serious music by legitimate rock bands and singer-songwriters playing.

Har har, I know.  The rest.  What sucks about this article (aside from saying that I’m in London and being terribly edited–I really hope the printed edition hasn’t muddled my punctuation the way the website has) is that it’s outrageously exaggerated.  I mean, yes, I’ve been listening to a lot of rap here, but I listen to a lot of rap anyway.  And I also have been listening to a lot of Kate Bush, so it’s not even true.  Really what I wanted to write about was how I’ve started to really enjoy dancing, which has made me appreciate terrible music with good beats more, but I couldn’t because I knew I would be unconsciously influenced by this article, which does a fine job of capturing my sentiments.  (That link points to Trinity News, and I did get the blog editor position.  So all the incongruous font sizes and stuff you see in the TN2 Blog section?  I will be cleaning that up, don’t you worry.)

Man, I have been boring around here, but I SWEAR things are very interesting right now!  I’m doing a lot and I’m getting out of my room and my comfort zone and trying new things.  It’s just not stuff I want to publish online at the moment, you know?  But I promise I’m having fun.

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I thought this was my week to do World Record, but it’s not.  I thought of just reusing this one for next week, but then one of the other columnists used my topic, and it’ll be such old news by then that I said forget it.  So, I’ve got to come up with something new by Friday, and frankly the only Irish news I’ve got going on is inappropriate for a personal blog, never mind an independent student newspaper, so it’ll be a struggle near the end of the week.  In the meantime, have a look at what I was planning to publish.

“Are there actually Americans here today? Any of you?”

The four of us raised our hands in triumph.

“Wow, all of you! Er, I don’t think I’m allowed to say it, but… can I say congratulations?”

“Uh, yeah!”

I rarely talk politics because I am simply no good at it—I have no figures or famous trials in my head to cite, I haven’t volunteered or donated, and I usually resort to such talking points as “shut up” and “I’m smarter than you, that’s why.” I also don’t enjoy explaining my beliefs to someone, because it unfailingly comes out as though I’m telling them what to think. But that is probably because I’ve only ever discussed these issues with fellow Americans, the people who need to make the exact same decisions themselves.

So one night in a Killarney hostel, I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning talking with a French couple. It was the first intellectual conversation I’d had in ages, about philosophy and sociology and, with only two weeks before the election, politics. For the first time, I actually felt confident in what I was saying, even when all I was saying was drivel about not following the issues as carefully as I could. But that didn’t matter to them, and they didn’t cut me off or call me uninformed. I was a living, breathing American with a decision to make, and I talked them through how I was going to make it.

Being that living, breathing American in this pivotal period in history can be a lot of responsibility to bear when you’ve got the world watching. An international friend, never one to mince words, once caught me eyeing a sign for an on-campus debate about the U.S.’s foreign policy and remarked, “Isn’t it bad knowing that the whole world, well, hates you? Or not hates you. Can’t stand you?”

This isn’t really true—I have not been met with an ounce of outright disdain from any one person for simply being American. But there is always this jump to the election, and wondering why I am in Ireland when I should be voting at home, and this underlying sense that that person is depending on me. The world genuinely cares about what’s going on in America right now. This isn’t really a shock, since I think all American youths have been scolded for not knowing as much about the world as the world knows about us, but it’s still a bit strange to witness. To get the look from someone once they’ve placed your accent, a look that says, “And? What are you going to do about it?”

Thus, my European friends seemed fairly disturbed that I expressed doubt before the outcome when they were so confident that Obama would win. How could I remain such a pessimist when the polls sounded so promising? “You just can’t get your hopes up too high,” I said. “We’ve been let down too many times before.”

My Irish lit. professor saw it differently. “If you pick up today’s paper, you will see a large photo of two women,” he began on Tuesday. “Two women, one with tears rolling down her face, and one with a look of absolute reverence. And you don’t need to know who they’re looking at to know they’re looking at Barack Obama. And I talk about this not because our American students have their eyes fixed to the telly all day today, but because doesn’t that sound familiar? A man who inspires such worship and hope in people? Does such a description not remind us of our good friend Cú Chulainn, that ancient hero whose birth so closely resembles Jesus Christ’s?”

I appreciated the comparison, although it’s one that irks a lot of people. Not me, though. I don’t think Barack Obama is the Second Coming, but isn’t he, at the very least, an inspiration to make the world better? No matter which side you are on, I think the celebration that took place across America and across the world was rooted in hope. It’s not just a buzzword—it’s the feeling that woke me up early on Wednesday morning and has carried me through the rest of the week. It’s what makes me both excited to go home at Christmas but excited to come back in the New Year, because I know that both places are going to be okay. I want so badly to take back what I had told my friends, because what sort of thing is that to think? You can’t get your hopes up too high? Don’t wish too much because it can’t logically come true? What Tuesday has shown is that that is utter nonsense. The election of Barack Obama has made me feel invincible and full of potential to do great things. I want to do good, to make good, to be good, and I want to be the example for all of my international friends: they will see that living, breathing Americans aren’t sitting back or giving up.

</inspirational rhetoric>

I mean, I do feel those things, but they sound a lot emptier when they’re just sitting in a Word document, unpublished, or aimed at the wrong audience.  But anyway, that’s that.  I’ve got an interview with my new school’s newspaper for a section editor position on Wednesday, wish me luck.

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It was a philosophical week that began with this collection of remarks:

“And I had such a good day, too.”

“I’m just so confused here.  By everything.   Nothing makes sense to me here.”

“I take independence to a whole nother lonely level.”

“I miss BC.  And I don’t even LIKE BC!”

“I just wish I wasn’t alone here.”

I tried for a few days to write about these, to fit these things (said during one of two Skype Mega-Meltdowns) into the greater scheme of my time abroad.  The first draft was a far too poetic for my unliterary side, resembling something I would have submitted for a high school “tell me about yourself” creative writing assignment.  The second draft tried to attribute my loneliness to not feeling at home enough, and I planned to write the second half of it when I had tested my hypothesis (“If I learn to cook a new breakfast meal and clean my room, then I will finally feel settled in”).

The second half was never written, though, because before I could clean my room, I went away for the weekend with the International Students Society.  When the email had gone around and mentioned a limited number of seats, I impulsively put my name down, not considering that for 3 nights, 4 days, my other international friends might not be attending.  And lo, they were not.  And I was worried.  Rarely do I fare well in large group situations (large groups in my world are generally defined by 4 or more people), because I am not someone who needs to be the center of attention.  Thus, I don’t yell, or laugh big laughs, or try to lead the pack in a song.

Instead what I do is I think.  Recently, before I left for Ireland, I was in a big group, and I spent the whole night thinking, I AM THE DEFINITION OF A WALLFLOWER.  I AM THE DEFINITION OF A WALLFLOWER. And on our group’s first pit stop on the way to Killarney, I stood in the middle talking to no one, and there was that thought, creeping into the back of my mind: I AM THE DEFINITION OF A WALLFLOWER. The other part of my brain tried to defend my quietness, because it was quite late and I was quite tired.  That night, I typed an iPod note to myself:

Realized on bus that I surpress feelings to be stable.  When was the last time I sobbed?  Tuesday.  When was the last time I belly laughed? … Maybe prance upon your bed.  Maybe Howard Dean impressions.  Maybe that’s all though.

I typed this because my face hurt from smiling but my heart hurt from no connectivity.  We arrived at the hostel and split into groups of 8, which then shared bunk beds in a room the size of my freshman dorm.  Ours was made of the American, three French, three Germans, and a Swede.  I had trouble falling asleep, and I had trouble waking up.  The bathrooms were small and dirty and I had trouble maneuvering.  I then typed this note:

Had a dream about being back at Trinity.  Woke up into a nightmare.  Not really.  But this place is not mine and I was itchy all night.  It’s so dark and stormy.  I hope this trip becomes infinitely more fun before I realize just how miserable I am.

The weather didn’t suggest that it would, and yet it did.  At breakfast, I talked to a few people I recognized from classes.  Wrapped in raincoats, we boarded the bus for the long trip to the Blasket Islands.  Rain absolutely pummeled the bus, which took slow, creaking turns over the coastal cliffs.  It was at this point, when I whipped out my camera to take some shots, that I made a new friend in Alex, a German girl who noticed my camera and took out her own.  We talked about photography (and how we don’t know if we’re any good at it but we can’t wait until our first class so we can really try) until we got to the museum.  Afterward, after lunch in Dingle, I went to a pub with the Society’s officers.  We squeezed into the snug, shut the door, and wondered what was in all the shoeboxes on the walls, whether they were as authentically old as they looked.  I felt strange, being the only one who went to the pub with these four friends, but I did not feel uncomfortable.

Later that night, back in Killarney, we listened to traditional music in the pub.  Alex and I stood in corners taking pictures, and I knew one of the songs.  I went to bed early, not as itchy as the night before.

On Sunday, I was almost surprised by the amount of water in the parking lot of Ross Castle, until I remembered what the weather had been like the day before.  It was a sunny day, though cold, and it was really a sight to see.  There was a brief shower, but once we got to Muckross House it was lovely again.  It was at this point that I met Camille and Christoff, a French couple with whom I had lunch.  We met up with Alex and her friend and took a tour of the mansion and then the grounds.  It started to sprinkle a little more regularly, but we had been told we were going to see a waterfall, so off we went.

Ten minutes into the walk, IT REALLY REALLY REALLY STARTED TO RAIN, NO JOKE.  Big fat painful drops that even hurt the cows.  The Finnish girl I walked with didn’t seem too bothered, never once faltering in her story despite my interjections of “Wow!  Wow!  I am… it is really raining!”  My pants were 100% soaked.  One of my Chinese friends patted my leg in consolation, then exclaimed, “YOU ARE SO COLD!”  I shivered and stubbornly took pictures of a tiny waterfall.

I was almost extremely upset, being so cold and wet and knowing that these were the only pair of pants I had brought.  I was almost upset, until I just started laughing and saying, “I’m like a wet cat.”  Back at the hostel, with an hour before dinner, I sat on the floor with my infamous hair dryer (lowest level, of course) and using the radiator as an iron.  I was damp but presentable.  Dinner was quite nice, a reserved room for the 50 of us, where my table talked about what it’s like to date Irish men and how the approach differs in other countries.

And hold back your laughter, because this is true: I was told that I was the favorite American among the officers because I was THE SOCIAL AMERICAN.  “Really?”

“Yeah!  Look where you’re sitting, with all the international students, and look where the other Americans are!  They haven’t talked to anyone else this whole trip.”

And that’s when I realized that yeah, I had been extremely social this weekend.  I had made new friends, ones I fully expect to see on a regular basis: three Germans, two French, two Finnish, two Chinese.  And those that I don’t expect to see much I certainly had good chats with–the Swede and the other French and the other Germans.  I hadn’t spoken once to the other Americans and was mostly just embarrassed by them when the requested “Danny Boy” at the pub.  I was a social butterfly who had already exchanged numbers.

That night, I stayed up until one in the morning with the French couple having a very intellectual conversation about politics, history, and sociology.  At the end, when I yawned and said I should sleep, Camille said, “I think we have learned a lot!”

Monday morning, we packed our things and took one last stroll through Killarney before the rain started to fall heavily again.  I talked and napped and listened to music on the bus and realized that I had not typed myself anymore notes to consider–I did not have time, I was too busy enjoying the company of others.  I listened to myself talk and noticed that my speech pattern had changed, pronouncing “are” as “air” and picking up on foreign affectations.  Although I longed for my own bed, I felt the twinge of disappointment as we all clapped for the bus driver outside of Trinity.  Sure, I was tired and it had been a long weekend, and I needed some proper breakfast food, and I’m pretty sure the rain plus the hostel gave me a yeast infection, but I liked the familiarity of the west, the way I could see little slices of Chiltonville in certain towns.  I felt more comfortable with this group than with any other Dublin-based group, and I didn’t like to think that all I had was a weekend.

But future DUISS activities were announced, two in this very week, and so I walked home with not so much a heavy heart as a fluttering stomach.  The Finnish girl walked with me to the street corner.  “Isn’t it funny to say we are going home now?  When before we feel so strange to Dublin, this city?  And now that we have been away, we all call it home?”

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My second Heights article is out, and I had nearly as much trouble writing this time as I did last time, despite having been in the city for weeks now.  I find that, in general, it’s very difficult to write about my experiences here without sounding extremely whiny.  (Seriously, though?  Everything is backwards.)  So, rather than writing a sob story about my bad hair dryer experience, or my bad banking experience, or my bad scheduling experience, or my bad everything experience, I tried to be a little more positive.  And honestly, what’s more positive than video games.

Remember when you first got The Sims, and it was totally awesome and new and the possibilities were endless? You could start these lives however you wanted, reinvent people with a single action, and use money cheats? But then after a couple of kids and about 100 different living-room schemes, this whole “life” business started to seem a bit stale? And that’s when you realized that this great big world was actually just an isolated quadrant visited by the same nosy neighbors day after day, and beyond your backyard was just this faded gray nothingness, and that all of your fretting over whether you would get promoted to celebrity chef in order to pay for that Jacuzzi was for nothing, because in the end you were just one pixilated character?

Read the rest here.

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My first article for the Heights “World Record” column is out today.  Because I’m not in Ireland, this proved difficult to write.  I’m worried I came off whiny, but honestly, if I did, it would have been an accurate portrayal, because I’ve reverted back to tenth grade mopeyness lately.

Most of my days, I’m not doing much except folding socks and pining for an aisle seat. As such, this has wreaked havoc on my inner Lisa Simpson, who cried, “Grade me, look at me, evaluate and rank me!” to my boss the other day after hours of idling. I don’t know what’s happening in Boston, I don’t know what’s happening in Ireland, and it’s almost midterm – panic attacks, commence.

Read the rest here.

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“I’m writing my article right now about all my wonderful memories from Ireland.  Except I don’t have any.”

“I bet other people have already had tests by now.”

“When I’m at work, I demand that my boss grade my promotional quizzes even though I’m the only person who takes them.”

“Have you thought about talking to Maxine?”

YES, BECAUSE THAT’S THE THIRD TIME THIS WEEK YOU’VE TOLD ME TO.  Cripes all Friday, just because I want to write a term paper doesn’t mean I’m going to kill myself.

The whole reason psychology was so successful for me is because I elected to go.  If I’d been forced into it, I could have easily lied and gotten nowhere.  And in fact, during the five consecutive years that I saw her, there was a time when I wasn’t interested one bit in sharing feelings or thoughts, and shot down every interpretation she sent my way.  Maybe I was jealous of a friend?  No, not at all.  Maybe it’d be good to look into this sort of career?  I would not enjoy that one bit, no, that’s really a terrible idea.

That’s about where I am now.  But the assumption that because someone doesn’t want to talk to a psychologist means they should is all wrong, in my opinion.  My mom says she’d like me to because she thinks I owe it to Maxine to let her know where I am going and what I am doing.  I agree, to an extent.  If it weren’t for her bi-weekly “I believe in you” presence, I might have crumpled in on myself and never fought my way out.  But at the same time, I’m not finished.  It’s not like I can just walk into her house and go, “Guess what!  I made it across the pond!  We did it!  Your, and my, work is done.”  It’s not.  I’ve got a lot left to do, and I’m not ready to talk about it.

I’m also not ready to listen.  If there’s one thing I am 100% sick of this month, it’s people telling me what I will go through, what I will feel, and what I will learn.  I’ll expound on this slightly more (and slightly less) in my article, but others’ analyses of my trip are drilling wicked fears into my chest of having the most unoriginal time of my life.  The more I’m told I’ll never forget it, the more I think there’ll be nothing outstanding to remember.  No real justification for this, but I don’t like being treated as though I’m some passive recipient of magic.  I am not being acted upon entirely.  The main reason I get to do this is because  I made it so.  (Granted, I made it so because Maxine made me believe that I could make it so, which is one of those reasons I should talk to her.  I might talk to her.  But I don’t know.)

And just because I don’t want to discuss this in a one-on-one doesn’t mean I’m crazy.

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