whiskey before roads.

Today I came to the realization that NUI: Galway is a lot like high school.  The girls are pretty and migrate together in inapproachable herds.  The boys are all bros in equally (if not more) inapproachable masses.  What's worse, these gaggles make unnecessary pit stops in the hallway, waiting for stragglers or pausing to gossip (because, everyone who's anyone knows you can't walk and talk at the same time).  As I was rushing to class this morning (on the verge of being late because of America's Next Top Model), I found myself murmuring angrily under my breath about how selfish and immature it is to stop in the middle of the hallway like it's the only way to ~*prove your popularity*~ or like no one else it the world could possibly need to get around you.  Insert eye-roll here.  And that's when I realized: I was back at Hilliard Darby High School.

Except, the last time I checked I was 20 years old.

The parallels don't stop there, either.  All my classes are lectures, and it's just so reminiscent of Mr. Wolf standing up at the front of the class (or, given the quality of my lecturers, rather not like Mr. Wolf) that I'm 15 all over again.  A few of the insecurities are back, as well.  Since everyone dresses so posh and cares so much about make-up, whenever I hear someone laughing near me, I always think they're laughing at what I'm wearing or the way my hair looks.  It's pure torture, really, because all I really want in life right now (yes, I have low priorities, so sue me) is for a boy to tell me that I'm pretty, or for someone I really admire here to ask me to hang out with them sometime.  It could be the most random act of kindness, but you know, one thing I'm realizing as I get older is that every little thing counts.  You have no idea how many notes from middle school I have saved, or letters from family when I'm away at camp.

I'm telling you, guys, let everyone know how much you love them. (I'm taking this page from the Awesome Life of Corey Patrick Harkins, by the way.)  Tell them they're beautiful and everything that makes you smile about them.  You'll feel better and it really means the world to them.

Dear Johnny Weir: You are awesome and beautiful and I love you.  Wow, that felt good.  :)

On Friday, I got the best surprise in the mail ever received by anyone in the history of man.  Yes, I am talking about Welcome to my World by Johnny Weir.  I read it in about 12 hours, a record for someone like me.  It's hard to imagine that everything I feel about Johnny could be summed up in 200-or-so pages, but it's a miracle, really.  He is very open and self-aware, and I really began to feel so much closer to him.  My arena has always been academics rather than a rink, but my parents are so supportive of me, and have sacrificed so much so that I can be where I am today (which is Ireland, by the way).  He's shy in large crowds, uses art as a release, and is a little bit petulant (okay, make that a lot)... Somehow, he touched every single reason why I love him (his artistry, unwillingness to compromise who he is, his pride in his upbringing/background, his innate talent, his passion, his vulnerability) and every single reason why I hate him (his petulance, his melodrama, his headcasing, his love of frivolous luxury, his ego, his treatment of Priscilla Hill).

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that it's an amazing look into the life of an absolutely amazing athlete and artist.  Definitely a worthwhile read.

Oh, yeah, and on Sunday, we went to Connemara.

(Kylemore Abbey)

I realized something else earlier, and that's that I am not an Urbanite.  I can't live in a city or a suburb without an open space to frolic through nearby.  Every single time the bus stopped on the way to Connemara was like an emotional release.  I don't know quite how to describe it, but being able to run around and spin and skip and jump and twirl was like breaking free from these old, heavy, depressive chains.  It didn't matter that the sun wasn't really shining.  It didn't matter that I'm uncomfortable in social situations.  I was in my element.  The air was fresh; I was "psh, pssh"ing at birds like a happy fool; and I really felt like I could do anything.

This is what I want to be doing, what I need to be doing.  I need to be climbing mountains and running through the woods.  I don't think I'm going to waste any more weekends, and I've already started compiling a list of places I absolutely need to visit.  Among these are Fountain's Abbey in Yorkshire, Croagh Patrick in Co. Mayo, the Dingle Peninsula, Kilkenney, Cork, Switzerland, all over Germany multiple times, Majorca... The list goes on and on.  I even thought about making a financially irresponsible decision and flying to Japan for Spring Break.  Wow, daring.  

I don't have much else to say about how Connemara made me feel, and I think pictures say it best, anyway, so here are a few awesome ones from the trip.

That may/may not be the Burren in the background...

 Connemara ponies :D

 "On this site in 1897 nothing happened..."

At the birthplace of the world.

These are "cottier" fields which would be worked by laborers in exchange for a place to live on the land.  A program that developed Ireland into a nation of paupers in the 17th and 18th centuries...

Something also amazing happened on Sunday, and I'll leave you with this because I think that this entry is already way too long.  RYAN BRADLEY IS THE NEW U.S. MEN'S FIGURE SKATING NATIONAL CHAMPION.  Guys, you have no idea how long I've been waiting for this to happen.  He's competed at 11 Nationals and I'm pretty sure he's been the pewter medalist and first-alternate to Worlds more times than anyone ever.  Plus, it's a big "screw you" to those who doubt any skater in their late-20s.  Yeah, that's right.  JEN GRAHAM: SOCHI 2014.  Just kidding, but, really.  Wanna know how much I was dedicated to this?  I Skyped with mom with her camera turned towards the T.V. just so I could watch this happen.  Think I'm kidding?

This... this is the face of dedication.  This is the face of your new Champion.  :D

Goals for next week:

Trip to Cliffs of Moher/The Burren

Find a bicycle

Mail more post-cards

Have a berry Bulmers and make it home alright

Rent an instrument?

Go to a German Soc event

Practice my [nonexistent] Gaeilge

salthill & diddley-dums.

This past week has been pretty eventful.  Monday marked the second year after Jenn’s death, my appointment with the Garda, and my first minor embarrassment here.  (I slipped down a hill and had to go to school, to the Garda, and back to school with a huge streak of mud up my jeans.)   Tuesday was less busy, but, what would a day in Ireland be without a mildly interesting/embarrassing anecdote to tell?  This time I was wandering around the city aimlessly with a friend between classes, and we were doing a pretty good job not getting lost when, all of a sudden, we took this road that was actually the entrance to a closed all-boys’ school campus.  Instead of walking past the same gaggle of sweater-vest-clad boys, we wandered around the campus a while, discovering gardens and statues of the Virgin Mary but no other exits, contemplating what it would be worth to suavely hop the stone fence so as not to suffer further embarrassment.  We eventually decided to just go out the same way we came in, which was the only way anyway, and it was a good idea, too.  If we’d tried to jump the fence, we’d have landed right in the river.

I think this is Shop Street.

I also went to my first after-class lecture on Tuesday.  It was by this guy from the National Museum of Ireland, and he was talking about his theories that the bog bodies dated from the Iron Age were actually the bodies of sacrificed kings.  I mean, how cool is that?  It was believed that, during the coronation ceremonies, the king was married to the goddess of the Earth.  As long as it was a good king, harvests would be plentiful.  A bad harvest meant a bad king meant the king had to be sacrificed.  It was easier that way, so that no one could really contest it.  These bodies are just so freaking amazing.  They still have their hair tied in knots that denote status.  You can tell from their fingernails what they were eating 4 months before they died.  You can find butter and other things in bogs, too.  How freaking cool!

School kids joking around with bog butter.

(found by a Google image search)

I was a little disappointed on Tuesday because I didn’t get to go to The Crane to see Trad Soc play, but I have someone to go with next week.  On Thursday, a girl from the Butler program and I went to the Dance Soc  intermediate Irish dance lesson and it turns out she’s an Irish music nerd too!  :D  It was so much fun having a dance lesson again, let me tell you.  It’s been way too long.  I learned a new slip jig and a new treble jig, and at the end, we were invited to join the advanced class!  We’re going to watch on Monday and see, but it would be super cool if I could join, because they’re doing this competition against other Irish universities called Varsities.  Even if I don’t actually compete with them, I still think it would be super awesome to train with them. 

Just a bunch of swans broing around in the Claddagh.

But oh, boy, am I ever sore.  I was dancing in my socks, which is pretty okay at contra, but for as intense as it was last night, there’s just not enough support there.  I’m hoping mom’s got my shoes in the mail and they come soon enough.  How exciting!  But I’m also sore because Amy and I just went on a three hour walk.  We set out for Salthill, which was absolutely amazing.  It’s indirectly part of the reason I chose Galway over other universities in the first place.  Well, because I absolutely adore the song Galway Girl, and Salthill is mentioned, so… Anyway, it was super exciting, and I may or may not have squealed with joy as the water became visible over the road.  After that, we walked around town, visited the Galway City Museum, and headed home.  It goes without saying, but I just want to say it anyway: I never want to walk again.

Epic self-timer shot at Salthill.  I am the master.

Goals for the next week:

Find the market and buy some bread/cheese

Plan a trip for next weekend

See a movie

Go to The Crane for Trad Soc

Catch up with reading

home.

A short entry today to start off the weekend.  For as much as I had to post about yesterday, a whole lot happened today, too.  For one, and most importantly to making Galway a second-third-or-fourth home (I lost count after Yellow Springs), today was the first official Formal Friday I've celebrated.  Last week was a little weird because no one had any idea what day it was and I forgot because I was in a really bad mood.  But I was determined to remember today!

Today I wore my thrift-store polka-dots, Julia leggings, Linda tank top, free box sweater, Mom necklace, saint bracelet from Casey, hiking boots, and Striz Sister hat.

I went to class, to Dunnes (tip: never go grocery shopping hungry!  You'll end up with more than you can fit in your backpack and have to look like a dork sliding around in the mud, trying not to drop your bagels, lettuce, and stuffed pasta), ate a box of raspberries, did a lot of dishes, and started a load of laundry while Amy was in class.  When she got back, we headed out to town to see some churches and hit up the Claddagh ring museum.

 Exterior of Galway Cathedral.

 

Interior of Galway Cathedral.

On our quest for St. Nicholas Episcopal Church and the Cathedral, we found two other little churches as well.  Honestly, from the moment I walk into these places, dip my fingers into the usually-freezing bowl of holy water, an almost magical feeling washes over me.  It's a feeling that's difficult to grasp, and more difficult still to string into coherent phrases.  In my art history class, the professor tried to get us to look at buildings and works of art like this through the eyes of the people who experienced them before us: to see the gigantic crucifix, the terror and uncertainty of Judgment Day, and to really experience that same sense of awe, of gratitude, love, devotion, and fear.  At first I thought she was certifiably insane, but the more slides we looked at, the more days I spent in the Medieval & early Renaissance room in the AMAM, the more I think I began to understand.  

St. Therese.

Art (in this case: religious art) is a form of expression--of love, devotion, respect--and it also evokes expression.  Here I am, writing a convoluted blog entry about my ~feelings~ after seeing all this art.  I was inspired to start playing viola at Newman Mass after hearing someone sing a beautiful Ave Maria at Midnight Mass my freshman year.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that, when I look at all these magnificent cathedrals with their stained windows, expansive space, ornate organs, all of it, even though there is some merit to criticizing it as frivolous luxury, I feel closer to and more comfortable with my own spirituality.  I feel connected, and I understand.  So, even if it doesn't seem like I'm making any sense, I know where I'll be going to Mass on Sunday, and that, like Formal Friday, is one more step closer to feeling like home.

Goals for the weekend:

Find the Farmers' Market and buy delicious cheese/bread

Go to Mass at the Cathedral

Do more exploring/museum fun

Join societies & clubs
FIND SOME TRAD IT'S ABOUT TIME SERIOUSLY

Bus tour up to Cliffs of Moher/Canamara?

swinging dead cats.

When I was younger, it used to be the case that you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting an Irish dancer.  Now that I'm older and have mostly moved away, it's become something like, "You can't swing a dead cat without hitting an Obie," and how true that is.  When I started working at Glen Helen, I wore an Oberlin shirt because it's all I had clean, and one of the first things Beth said to me was, "Oh, Nick Boutis went to Oberlin."  About six months later, I wrote a $50,000 grant for Nick Boutis during Winter Term.  Just a few weeks ago, someone from a LiveJournal community I follow was like "Oh, hi, I see you go to Oberlin and love Johnny Weir."

 Almost six years ago.  You can really date it by how much dance fashion has changed, and by how happy my wig still looks.  It's nearly 12 years old now and still bouncing.

The same goes for Ireland.  There are three of us on the program, and we'd all run in different yet almost concurrent social circles.  This fact is doubly true with the onset of Winter Term.  I'm not doing one this year because I didn't have my stuff together by the deadline, and I'm kind of in school right now.  Besides, next year, I fully intend on convincing a professor to sponsor the further development of my [nonexistent] figure skating skills.  Anyway, Winter Term means that tons of Obies are in Europe doing extraordinary things, and it just so happened that two awesome people were coming through Galway and needed a place to stay.  It all worked out and they were able to stay on my floor for three-or-so days.

I really can't express how much it helped having them around.  When I'm around new people, sometimes it's hard to be my goofy self.  Okay, so it's never hard to be my goofy ol' self, but it's hard to feel comfortable being myself.  Like, to be less cryptic, with Obies it's almost like "Yeah, I get you right away," and here I feel like I'm so out of context (but it's getting better as time goes on!)... Which is funny, because long, detailed angst aside, I've never really thought I gelled on the same level as most Oberlin students.  So, it was twofold-cool to have Obies around for a few days.  I felt more comfortable and free here, and I also started to feel like I actually do belong at Oberlin.

Anyway, it was triply awesome having them around because they're both excellent cooks!  And I am decidedly not!  My favorite story to tell is from when I was taking Clay's KP shift and Rachel and I were just chatting, checking on the beans Peter left boiling while he ran to IGA for some extra pasta, and all of a sudden the lid fell into the pot, beans flew into the burner, and caught fire.  It was quite an event!  Thankfully Rachel was still thinking rationally and came up with a solution before I ruined everything.  So, basically, I learned to cook this past week, and it was super fun because I was doing it with super people!

We made chicken picatta, brussels sprouts, and mashed potatoes!  And an awesome apple crisp with Dunnes butter!  Best part: leftovers!  :)

Classes, after a bit of a rocky start, I think are finally starting to tie together.  There was some apprehension in taking a German class, because that ended up fitting into my schedule was about equivalent to what we learned in high school.  After much consideration, I've decided that it's worth it because the professor reminds me a lot of Elizabeth Hamilton (read: super amazing and saintly and just plain wonderful) and I'm the only visiting student in the class.  If everything works out as easily and I'm hoping it will, these are the classes I'll be taking:

Celts, Vikings, and Normans (archaeology)
The Development of the Castle in Medieval Europe (archaeology)
Celtic Mythology, Religion, & Folklore
18th Century Ireland (history)
German Language II
Beginning Irish Language

Plus, with German, it's kind of like a toss-away class, but with special advantages like the ones listed above and with all the review I'll be doing with Grammar, hopefully I'll be able to write a darn good essay next semester at Oberlin (none of this forgetting-to-conjugate-every-verb nonsense!).  And it'll be an easy, peasy class.  So it's kind of like I'm cheating the system.  Oh, but now that I'm writing it all out, I'm feeling apprehensive again.  Hmmmmm... Alright, no more overthinking!  I'll figure it out later.  Have some pictures of Galway.

after much consideration...

So, after much consideration, at the good advice of a friend, I've decided to blog out my feelings.  It is my sincerest hope that, along the way, I'll forget all about these past few nights, and look back and wonder at how I ever managed to feel so unsatisfied in such a magnificent place, but for now, this is how it is.  I am disappointed.

To be fair, what have I manged to see of Galway so far?  Dunnes supermarket, where I've spent entirely too much money on just enough food to get by, and linens, and things like leftover containers that--surprise!--aren't provided because this isn't the co-op; Menlo Park, the apartment complex where I'm living in a single with two other students from the U.S. in the double next door; TESCO, kind of like Wal*Mart; the lobby of AIB bank and a comical man in a tie who helped me open an account; my campus which has one building from 1895 (I think) and the rest are from the 1970s or under construction and kind of (to be honest) a little ugly; and two different roads to school: one past some horses and some houses that look like Naples, FL (no, really, one has a palm tree) and the other along a busy almost-highway complete with rumors of recent fatalities.

So it's not really fair to be disappointed in Galway or Ireland already.  That's like declaring that I hated mashed potatoes before I'd had them, but you have to understand where I'm coming from.  I'm coming from a place where I work five jobs and, while I'm not asked to hang out every night or even every weekend, I've got a core set of people I see, and a routine that keeps me busy beyond belief.  I'm coming from a place where I wake up inside of a century-old building with ghosts, a history, and the smell of home-baked bread just down the stairs.  I know where I'm going and I'm (almost) past caring what others think of me.  I can go where I want with confidence, whether it's out to climb atop snow drifts or swing in the park outside Firelands or to chat with the statue of General Shurtleff.  There are buildings that mean so much to the campus that even Cass Gilbert couldn't mandate them destroyed.  There are buildings Mark Twain spoke inside.  I live in a fairy-tale at Oberlin, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, but a fairy-tale nevertheless.

General Giles Shurtleff

Fast-forward to NUI: Galway and I'm suddenly on a campus that is overwhelmingly modern and expansive, and maybe this is what you'd call "culture shock" but I'd call it stubbornness.  It's not culture shock.  I've experienced culture shock in five-or-so other countries.  This is my complete unwillingness to adapt to a new way of life--cooking for myself, learning to love a big, sleek, new campus, keep shelling out the euro--until I get something in return.  I want to be culture-shocked, if that can be a verb for the purposes of this blog.  I want to be completely overwhelmed with joy at where I am, and then I want to feel like this for a while, and then, after that, I can finally be proud.  Proud of myself, of what I've learned, and where I've lived.  When does the memory-making start?  Right now I'm too busy worrying about what others will think about me, not isolating myself, and all that other superfluous junk.

Did the past five semesters taking 16+ credits and working like a dog really make me so insensitive that nothing can make me excited anymore?

Alright, that's enough of my negativity.  After much consideration, I think it's best to be honest about how I'm feeling, because otherwise, it's just going to turn into this horrible, nagging guilt that I'm letting everyone down by being so disappointed when I'm across the Atlantic in Ireland.  So...

Resolved, that I shall spout no more negativity from this potato-trap I call a mouth.
Resolved, that I shall research one new fact about my new home, whether it be a bus route or a club to join.
Resolved, that I shall no longer gratify the question "How is Ireland?" with a response other than "The future holds great things" or something equally cryptic until I have a definitive answer other than "B'awwww, why am I such a loser?"
Resolved, that I will have a smile for everyone, no matter how hurried or angry or downtrodden I become.  My teeth are really white and will reflect all the happiness of an elusive sun into the eyes of passersby.

Also, please keep in mind that, when reading this, I blog what I feel at the exact moment.  At any given moment, I could feel completely differently, and my mood depends a lot on the company I'm keeping.  Right now, a lot of us seem to be frustrated.  Some with the smaller amount of hot water, some with the method of registration, some with the 25 min walk to school, and some, like me, with the lack of something cool to see.  I'm also incredibly tired and it's past my bedtime.  I do all my serious thinking at night.  I'll feel better in the morning.

so, i'm in dublin.

It's honestly a little hard to believe that I'm in Ireland right now.  Sure, I've had some trouble flushing the toilet in our hotel and the electricity only works with our room card in a slot, but the denial in me is willing to dismiss that as a quirk of the hotel and continue on as though this were just some strange new city in the Midwest.

Except it's not.

The foliage is freakishly green and the weather almost absurdly warm.  Could you sit on the top of a two-story bus in Ohio for the duration of a 1.5 hour tour without hating yourself for the decision?  Can you stroll through a park with strange trees and birds and playground equipment and then--all of a sudden--OSCAR WILDE is grinning a sultry grin and playing with the flower in his lapel?  No I say.

So far everyone is really nice.  There's a wild contingent that left dinner before dessert to go out drinking, and there were these two girls who just yammered on about boys and cats and makeup and Coach bags until I thought for sure they were aliens because they couldn't possible be real... but really everyone is super nice!

Some interesting things so far:

1) I'm more interested/fascinated by the biology of the place than the history.  As soon as I saw the first bird flying over our bus from the airport to the hotel, I wanted to know what it was.  The same goes for all the weird trees we saw in the parks.  It makes sense though, in a way, because both history and ecology are exciting ways to connect to a place, and since we haven't had much time to really explore when the cool old buildings are open, I guess biology is my best bet... except I haven't really learned any yet... I also think it's because Dublin feels very modern.  Apparently, during the boom, a lot of buildings updated to make it more appealing to the hip new young people who were coming in...

2) Most pubs where pour their final drinks around 11:30pm, which is totally a time I can handle.  My roommate and I checked out this place called the Library Bar tonight, and we pretty much just sat in big comfy chairs, surrounded by shelves of old books, nursing schnapps we weren't really drinking at all, and observed.  It was so relaxing!  I actually really enjoyed myself.  The only thing that could have made it better was music.

3) "If you put your money in the Bank of Ireland, it'll never see the light of day.  Literally.  There are no windows."  - Our Hop-on-Hop-off bus guide

4) There are rainbow colored doors everywhere because when Queen Victoria died, it was mandated that all doors be painted black in mourning, but the Irish never like to play along, so they went a little wild with colors.  It's so nice and happy.  The bright yellow doors are my favorites.

5) We went to the Guinness storehouse today, and ti was pretty interesting.  My favorite part probably had to do with the advertising.  They had amazing animal themed ads back in the day that made really no sense at all.  "My goodness!  My Guinness!"  It didn't takes very good to me, though.  Too "roasty" for my taste, to be honest.  Kind of like alcoholic coffee.  Also, did you know that Guinness signed the lease in 1759 (or 69?) for 9000 years?

Okay, that's it for now.  My battery is approaching the critical, and I'm a little nervous yet to try my power cord. No laptop fires until Galway!!!  Sorry no pictures either.  I haven't taken any.  I hope to remedy that fact soon.