Even Blogs Have Sequels

Hello.

My old blog has sputtered out and pretty much died, and besides I’ve noticed myself avoiding it, crossing the street when I see it coming the other way, pretending not to hear the phone when it calls, just hoping that by ignoring it that it will eventually go away. But there it sits, waiting for me to write.*

So here’s what’s happened in the meantime.

After a lengthy and harrowing process, I’ve since transferred to Trinity College from NYU. The original plan was to pack up and leave on August 17, find accommodation in New York and complete my last year of college there. As I approached that date, however, it became clearer and clearer that this course seemed so ill-advised and so repellent to me that I had to see if I could stay in Ireland. I don’t, however, really want to discuss the transfer process. It’s a story that, because it consists entirely of bureaucratic wrangling and intense personal meditation on my future, just isn’t very interesting and was frankly an embarrassing time for me: I flopped around like a fish out of water for an entire month as I first had to get all the application materials in, then wrestled with accepting Trinity’s offer. The offer essentially puts me back a year in my studies: I’ll be entering the third year of a four-year degree this year, rather than finishing up as I would have at NYU. Living in Ireland and Dublin, however, is so rewarding for me, so much better for my spirit, and simply so far off the beaten path, that the usual panic and waves of regret I get when making an important life decision never came when I said “yes”.

So I finished out the feeling of summer with two weeks at home in Philadelphia. Once there, I did…nothing. I went to the beach at Atlantic City. I went to night clubs and bars in Philly. I saw Modest Mouse at Festival Pier and Man Man at Rittenhouse Square. I did my awful Irish accent at every opportunity. I saw my family and my friends. I went deep-sea fishing with my dad off the Jersey shore. I had lunch at Steak and Hoagie factory and breakfast at Eagle Diner. I got some CDs at Siren Records in Doylestown and stocked up on Tastykake and junk food at K-Mart. I watched the Phillies kill the Mets, over and over, blocks away from the Wachovia Center in South Philly. I read the Philadelphia Weekly in the Last Drop on Pine Street and rode the R2 Warminster local, making all stops, Market East and Convention Center next. For nearly the entire trip I kept an itinerary of what I was doing, except it tapers off at the end – because I realized it consisted of family stuff in the morning and afternoon, and drinks with friends in the evenings, over and over, for two weeks straight. For me, there is no greater therapy.

The time came, however, to take the trip back and begin my second year in Ireland. I left laden with a suitcase of junk food (including some Twinkies and white gravy mix for Kelly) and a duffel bag of clothes resurrected from the mothballed pile, and a computer saddled with about six hundred new songs, pillaged from my parents’ CD collection. It was difficult to leave, difficult to part with my friends, with my mom and dad, basically my entire core of emotional support, and haul off again, and though it was very painful at the time, even as soon as a day afterwards, it looks like it’ll be worth it.

The flight out of Newark was relatively painless; I know the airport routine at this point, it’s just a matter of bringing enough stuff to occupy yourself and organizing everything so getting through security is as swift as possible. By a strange twist, I ended up sleeping for most of the flight (through the dinner and through Talladega Nights too), so I wasn’t a total zombie upon arrival. I expected some trouble at customs, thinking it might look suspicious that I was coming back so soon after my student visa had expired, but I had my letter from Trinity in hand and was essentially waved through, with a month’s time allotted to re-register at the GNIB. Easy peasy.

I wasn’t gone from Dublin for very long, only two weeks, but it was a crucial time: the summer has now ended (though in person I would whisper under my breath that the equinox isn’t until September 23rd, thank you very much), fall weather is creeping in, the Dáil will be reconvening soon, and the time to get serious is now upon me. Of course, nothing physically has changed, not like at home, where things are subtly different each time I come back, but that feeling hit me when I was taking the bus back to Sandyford: that weird feeling, nameless, that Kelly and I have discussed and which is almost impossible to describe—I guess it’s the feeling of moving from one culture to another, but not for tourism or pleasure. The feeling of settling into a large commitment, one of my first large commitments.

In time, my Irish cadence in speaking, wiped away completely back home, will come back, and I’ll settle into the routine of going to Dunnes for my dinner and taking the Luas and all that. I must make a conscious effort, however, not to hold back this year. I deferred on a lot of things last year, or didn’t put in as much effort as I thought I would, simply because I thought I’d be leaving shortly anyways. Well, I’ll be around for a while. So now is the time to make things happen. I have a new list of short-term goals and long-term goals, and I intend to get them done. It’s an exciting feeling, considering I’m in a position to really do some creative work, really participate and engage with people.

* Anyone who feels like doing some rummaging around can find the old blog here.