The Nose Knows

Oh yeah—the international student orientation meeting had one odd point. The Scotch director of international students woman was explaining how to deal with culture shock, what to expect when adjusting to Irish culture, things like that, when her focus turned to the different foods one would eat here rather than elsewhere. She then expanded on this, quite casually mentioning that as one's diet was going to change, one's body smell would change with it. "So, you know, don't be surprised if your body smells differently. It's going to happen."

I can positively say I noticed no change in my body smell when I moved to Ireland.

It was funny as well to hear the orientation people explain basic Irish parlance like "craic" or "yer man". They spent about five minutes on how "You okay?" doesn't actually mean "Are you alright?". In my view, that kind of crash course in parochial slang never, ever works. You need to go out and talk to people before you get it. Language is definitely something you need to speak to understand. Hell, I still don't understand plenty of the things said to me around here. I will admit to using some slang, even some of the more dodgy stuff that just sounds stupid when an American says it (ex. "That's grand"), but a lot of it is involuntary—I don't wake up and say, "I'm going to slip in a 'lad' or two today." I'm not going to cling desperately to my completely generalized East Coast American accent or vamp up the Philadelphia nasal twang just because some Irish get huffy when an outsider demonstrates familiarity with their culture.

Ah, I don't know. I do know I don't smell any differently. You can take a whiff when you see me next if you don't believe me.

A Snake Swallowing its Own Tail

Trinity has started up again, though the main event begins next week when classes start up. This is Fresher's Week, which means endless orientation meetings and profuse congratulations to the new students for managing to enter college. I've been told Trinity's admissions standards are ridiculously high, especially for the English program—out of a possible 600 score on the Leaving Certification test every student must take to complete their version of high school, the School of English apparently accepts no less than a 590 score. So there must be something to that. I certainly didn't score the equivalent on the SATs, but then again it's not the same test. Taking the SATs was a miserable, endless experience for me: I took it three times and only pushed my score up thirty points on the last try. I did, however, completely demolish the SAT II's. That was a proud moment.

Fresher's Week is also the week the international students are supposed to come out of their jet lag and let the realization sink in that they're actually staying here for a while. I guess it was stipulated that I had to attend the same orientations as the first year students and the international kids, even though I heard nothing at all that I didn't already know in these meetings. It was good to be refreshed anyways.

It's also the week for me to register for classes, which actually worked out without any hangups at all. On meeting my advisor, I explained my situation and she practically leaped out of her chair and into the School's administration to get me sorted out. She even gave me first pick of my option courses—as a full-fledged student now, I can't just pick whatever I want to take like last year. Instead, I have four required courses that run for one out of three terms each, as well as two optional "sophister" courses that run all year. Essentially given free license to take whatever I wanted, I first chose a class in Postwar British Fiction (still riding high from my enthusiasm for the Alan Sillitoe/Kingsley Amis/James Kelman/Nell Dunn books I've read this year), maybe because they demonstrate so well my opinions/thoughts on the process of reading and the interaction of the text and the reader. Next on the list was a course in...get this...apocalypse fiction. From the 17th century to today. All stuff about the end of the world. For an entire year. It's my dream class.

As classes haven't started yet, and I'm a little further along than not knowing where the library is, which kind of defeats the purpose of Fresher's Week, it still doesn't feel like school has begun. But this is the last week of the summer period. I've been reassigned duties at work, which I'll be starting up on Sunday. It's actually pretty interesting stuff: instead of just scanning papers in and going through them for general clients, I'll be writing up summaries of stories that have to do with the European Commission, the "executive branch" of the European Union. The European Commission has twenty-seven Commissioners, sort of like ministers, one for each member state, and Ireland's Charlie McCreevy currently holds the Internal Market portfolio. So it'll be mainly stories about trade regulation within the EU, which doesn't make me backflip with excitement, but it's a chance for me to learn about the administration side of the EU, which in truth really interests me. If a continent can, within the span of sixty years, go from nearly destroying itself to unifying and creating universal standards for trade, labor, human rights, and law, and make it work effectively...maybe there's hope for the world yet. So that's my new job. Watching the EU save the world from itself.