Good heavens, my brain is tired.

Let winter break begin.

Whew.

For better or worse, I learned and crammed and remembered and wrote as much as I could.  My results won't measure up to my standards, but I've known that for awhile.  Still, I tried and that's all anyone can ask of me - including myself.  Right?

Distraction...or avoidance?

The periods of distraction are growing longer and longer.  This weekend, in fact, was one long loverly distraction.  Here are some specifics:

I baked a walnut-cinnamon apple crumble,

began to journal in this gift from one of my friends here,

and, on Sunday morning, sang (yes, sang!) soul-settling Christmas music with a family I will miss dearly.  (I wish I had a photo of us to post here for you - that, I suppose, will come in time.  But trust me - if I ever return to Galway, it will be to visit this family.)

In which I remind myself about what matters

After the official end of term (which was the Friday before yesterday), the university gives students a week off before exams begin.  I call this the study week.

My upstairs neighbors call it the play-techno-music-that-shakes-the-walls-until-4-am week.

So on Thursday night, I braided my hair, slipped into bed, and thought, it would be nice if they would just go to bed so I could rest.  We all need to study.  Don't they know what really matters?

Handling the "no"

Yesterday, 10:35 am: Saturday.

There is a measure of relief in Saturday.  All is quiet - so quiet, in fact, that I can hear the clock ticking away on the mantle.  We don't use it because it runs slowly unless it's on its back, where only the ceiling gets to know what time it is.  And when I sit still enough, stop the trembling, I'm surprised by what I sense: a heart, beating, a pulse, steady.  I don't even have to feel for it.

That's how grief used to be - like a pulse.

And nearly a month later, there is a measure of relief in what it's become.  These days, it's more like my breath.  It ebbs and flows, draws back for a moment before it crashes on the rocks.  In every day, though, it's always in the background...a reliable sort of soundtrack.

On Wednesday, I donated my old boots and promptly bought a new pair.  They weren't very expensive, friends, and I do like my heels.

Abide

"There is a sacredness in tears.  They are not a mark of weakness, but of power.  They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues.  They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love."
- Washington Irving (American author, essayist, biographer, and historian)

I'm all tuckered out.  It's been a long day.  But tonight, I'm going to try to write an essay.  Thanks to a dear friend's exhortation, this is now the goal.

There's something about a hot shower...

My Endocrinology professor requires white coats for her labs.  I feel like I'm cheating, wearing this when my white coat ceremony isn't until August...but it does give me a thrill to see myself in it.  I'm choosing to view this as practice (yes, at wearing the coat.  August is mere months away, after all.)

Although I'm posting this now, I wrote it at noon, huddled warm in a library chair and dreaming of coffee.  It's been a tiring day.  (And to my Union pals: I have yet to find anything at the NUIG library that compares with the couch tubs in ours.  I never thought I'd miss the library - that's a laugh and a half.  You all may also be interested to know that this one closes at 10 pm on most days, unlike our oh-so-healthy 2 am.  Preposterous!)

Settling in

Hello, friends!  I'm writing to you this evening from a little niche I found in a corner of the library.  (By the way, nothing on the computer front has changed, but each day is a new day, right?)  Oh, and speaking of new developments, here's one: I'll be living in a different apartment by this time next week.  (There is, of course, a reason for this, but if you're interested in hearing the details, let's stick to a more private forum, like e-mail.)  My new address will be:

126 Gort na Coiribe

Headford Road

Galway, Ireland

Of nimble spirit and nimbler feet

Update: I got an A on this paper!

Friends, my posts may be a little sparse for a little while...because unfortunately, I opened my bag this morning to discover that my laptop has a crack in the corner of the screen that has rendered it useless. Repairing it will run me at least 100 euro, so I'm making calls and shopping around to see if I can find a rental or something to at least tide me over until I find a more lasting solution.  In the meantime, Teresa graciously lent me her laptop so I could back up my files onto her flash drive, and finish/submit a paper that is due this evening to Prof. Jenkins.  And after I submitted it (a few minutes ago), it occurred to me that you all might be interested in reading what I wrote for him.  The prompt was something along the lines of:

How would you, based on your experience of Galway during the past few weeks, define Irish music?

Back to school

When my family and I moved to Ardsley, we lived just far enough from my middle school that I had to ride the bus.[1]  Fast-forward some ten years...and I now not only live on a campus, but my residence this year is also situated ridiculously close to everything I could possibly need, day or night.  Here in Galway, on the other hand, I have a twenty-minute walk between my house and campus.  This is by no means a complaint, but rather a comment about what a difference it actually does make to live away from the place where I take my classes.  Maybe I’m way off-base here, friends, but you can tell me if I’m not making any sense: I somehow feel more grown-up, more independent, because I can think, now I’m leaving school, and I’m going back to my house, where I’m going to make myself a cup of tea, finish my homework, and watch another episode of “Psych”.  (And if you're an adult reading this, that's right - "Psych" is for grown-ups, too.  James Roday is an equal-opportunity entertainer...and a skilled one, at that.)

Hakuna matata

When one of my friends (who studied abroad here last fall) found out that I had chosen Ireland, too, one of the things he told me to expect was an Irish housemate.  American universities, it seems, have figured that a good way to make American students mingle with/learn from Irish ones is to have them live together.  So Teresa and I waited, and Conor arrived on Sunday.  Now, I have to say that I wasn’t crazy about the idea of living (i.e. sharing my bathroom) with a boy – my closer friends know that this is just one of those things that I’ve always been very particular about.  Thankfully, Conor contradicts a lot of generalizations I often make about boys.  How, you ask?  He cooks.  He cleans.  He won’t allow either of us girls into the kitchen to help him.  He even fixed the three of us tea last night, before bed…and he does all of these things of his own volition.

I must admit…I’m impressed.

This road that we travel

Today, my mother took my sister and brother to Dorney Park, a water park near Philadelphia.  It’s great fun – I’ve been there a few times myself, and highly recommend it if you’re up for a road trip.  Speaking of road trips, I was thinking today about the weekend trips that my group will be taking while we’re in Ireland.  These excursions, which are organized by NUIG and linked to the Irish Culture and Society course, will give me a chance to see much of the country.  Here’s the tentative schedule:

Aug 27	Arrive in Shannon and travel to campus
Sept 3	Classes begin
Sept 9	Full-day trip to the Aran Islands
Sept 21-23	Weekend visit to Dublin
Oct 5-7	Weekend visit to Kerry
Oct 19-21	Weekend visit to Cork
Nov 2-4	Trip throughout northern Ireland

I can’t wait to see these places and take lots of pictures…

Please don't stop the music!

(That's right, friends...I did just make a Rihanna reference.  What can I say?  The woman's got style!)

Riddle me this: one class, seven books.[1]  How does that make sense?  I guess this is a taste of what it’s like to be an English major.  Being a Biology major, I’m used to buying three or four textbooks for an entire term – and sometimes, I can use one book for two different classes!  Crazy, I know.  Oh...I should also mention that as a Biology major, I'm also used to teasing English majors :)