tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50650411696326074212024-03-19T03:46:34.730-07:00Dublin AmateurUnedited ramblings of Alice.Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-28299935621106262662010-06-23T09:49:00.000-07:002010-06-23T09:49:35.933-07:00The Next LifeIt is hard for me to believe that is was just a few short weeks ago that I was walking down the cobblestones of Dame Lane, knocking over men's pints and being forgiven because I'm a woman.<br />
<br />
Necessarily, it seems like a lifetime ago now. That's how it is with transitions. I'm living in converted barn which used to house migrant workers when the cherries were in season. This small town of Fish Creek is so definitively "American" it hurts my eyes sometimes. My eyes that were adjusted to the overcast beat-upon nature of Dublin.<br />
<br />
Now all of this may seem somewhat flowery and hard to pin down, but it gets very real. I was diagnosed with a Vitamin D deficiency a couple of days ago, meaning that my very chemistry was changed by my sojourn above the 45th parallel.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">This is all by way of saying, I had very good intentions to write about my week stranded in France and Germany at the hands of the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Eyjafjallajökull Volcano (yes, I copied and pasted the name from Google), and my trip to the northern coast of County Donegal. However, I'm finding it difficult to submerge myself back in that universe and write a monster post about either of those things, so I have decided to reminisce anecdotally, which will be far more interesting for everybody involved. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">My cop-out takes the form of some pretty pictures: </span></span><br />
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</span></span>Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-18030779997868422892010-05-26T16:22:00.000-07:002010-05-26T16:22:09.082-07:00Just sayin'No, that last post didn't make sense to me either. Forgive me, english language. I am at your mercy.Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-65744129217384412292010-05-26T16:19:00.000-07:002010-05-26T16:19:31.923-07:00The New Frontier SucksAt some point during your preparation to study abroad, you are handed a piece of photocopied paper on which was a graph demonstrating the rise and fall of your hate/love for your new country. Typically, there is a honeymoon period, followed by hatred and frustration, then gradual acceptance and appreciation(Cobblestones are frickin' adorable, ouch cobblestones, cobblestones just old-fashioned cement). <br />
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The point is, right now, I'm in the "hatred and frustration" phase of my re-entry to 'Merica. It might have soemthing to do with the fact that my severe jetlag is coupled with a sinus infection, but I choose to believe that America simply SUCKS right now. Except for my friends and family, homecooked meals and water pressure. <br />
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My accidental vegetarianism is very confusing for me when I grew up eating steak and potatoes every night in this house. BBQ chicken just smells like heaven, but then I saw my brother ripping is apart with his hands and gnashing the flesh with his metal-reinforced teeth and I found my veggie-legs. <br />
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On the plus side, I can't really remember anything for longer than about thirty seconds, due to my brain automatically rewiring to think "Ow, my face hurts", so this entry will mercifully end now. Going to go buy some Bocaburgers at the Jewel, which I don't think I have ever done before. They will be all like, what Alice you're a vegetarian now, and I'll be like hell yeah I am, animals are people. But mostly I just really like bread. <br />
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This blog will be ending soon (Sorry, Mom), to be replaced my something else which will basically consist of hilarious anecdotes about annoying children at work who smash pizza dough into the table with incredible super-toddler strength. <br />
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Still need to write blog posts, however short, about my trip to Donegal(which was nothing short of amazing - in my top three of favorite all-time trips, and not just because I met a King and had nothing to say to him), and my epic journey home from Berlin via France and ferry.Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-79178021288417445262010-05-12T07:55:00.000-07:002010-05-12T07:55:25.956-07:00Thoughts on a Sinking ShipTo start this off, I just observed a pair of tourists taking pictures of the front of my building. It was too cute, and also appropriate timing as I was having a moment of appreciative fondness for the cuteness that is Dublin.<br />
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On my way to get coffee today, my bus passed by the European Union offices on Dawson St., just down the street from Trinity. There was a pretty sizable demonstration going on outside protesting the bank bailouts in Greece. My taxi driver last night had some pretty strong opinions as well. He was saying, and I'm not informed enough about this to judge his opinion, that while Greece was being bailed out by the EU, Ireland had to save its own banks, and the working class people were taking on the brunt of the burden. He was also saying that its a double-standard to bail out the banks while there are thousands of homeowners drowning in debt from the mortgage crisis, and there was no effort to bail them out. He feels the Irish Dail is prioritizing the corporations over the working people.<br />
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One thing that I have noticed about Ireland, at least in Dublin as that is all I can speak to, is that everyone, from your barman to your taxi driver, is somewhat well-informed, and has an opinion, about what's going on in their government. I'd go as far to say that there is a far bigger tradition here of political engagement than there is in the US. Everyone has an opinion, however philosophical or out of touch with the realities of governing it might be. I find it refreshing.<br />
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Anywho, I seem to be finding myself at a point of transition. I'm leaving this gorgeous country in 13 days, which seems completely unfathomable. I've been coasting/racing through these past three weeks of exams, just wanting to get to a place where I can enjoy Ireland without stressing over political philosophy and Freudian determinism, that I am just realizing that after I take my last exam (Saturday), I'll have just over a week left here.<br />
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If I had been forced to return the states after last semester, I think I would have felt like I hadn't accomplished much, or hadn't taken advantage of my time here. I don't feel that way now. I've worked hard, played hard, and I'm kind of itching to move on to the next thing.<br />
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While I love Dublin, and Ireland, I feel like I'm just kind of waiting for my next adventure at this point. Namely, that would be moving to Door County and starting to waitress again. This year has been amazing, but I am happy to go home and spend time with family and friends before my last year at SLC (AHHH).<br />
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That said, I had an amazing day on Tuesday. I visited the Hugh Lane Gallery across the river, which has on display, in a very creepy orange-tinted side room, a reconstruction of Francis Bacon's studio. This is bizarre on many levels. I really do like Francis Bacon, but they made a lot of hay out of the fact that his studio had been gifted to them by his sole heir. This would have been cool if the studio has any special significance, other than what they seem to have concocted. On the walls were all these quotes from Bacon about how he couldn't paint anywhere else other than his studio, and that its filth made him feel creative. If anyone has ever had an artist friend, or visited a studio, this is a pretty common thing. The artistic mess? The studio itself was moved and rebuilt inside the gallery, with the visitor being able to stand inside this little three-walled glass box that was recessed into the room. There were also the original windows that could be seen through, and one could walk over the staircase (yes, over, it was covered in plexi-glass) - the gallery made a very big deal about the steepness of the staircase, and that it had a rope in place of a banister...cool? I, although it may just be me, just couldn't see what the big deal was. Inside the room was just a bunch of junk - old photos, hundreds of paintbrushes, and an old rusty circular mirror that, oh jeez, might have been designed by Bacon himself, given that circles were a big theme in his furniture designer days. How revolutionary.<br />
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Anyway, it seemed to be just a tourist attraction. Just a gimmick, which I think ended up making Bacon look very silly. Perhaps he was as self-involved as the juxtaposition of the quotes with a reconstruction of his junk piles made him out to be, but I'm sure that wasn't his intention when he bequeathed the space to his heir.<br />
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This has been a theme with many of the Irish art galleries I have visited - painfully overselling their mediocre collections, which just serves to make it awkwardly obvious that they don't have a lot to work with.<br />
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All this being said, I always love Jack Yeats, in any gallery, anywhere.<br />
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After this painful exercise of pretending I know what I'm talking about (Political Philosophy exam on the books for Saturday), I'm off to Donegal to take advantage of my last change to immerse myself in the breathtaking beauty of this place. One day will be spent climbing the Slieve League, which are supposedly the highest sea cliffs in Europe. Hopefully, I won't get blown off. Although, this seems to be a possibility as they warn against climbing the thing in misty conditions or if you have vertigo. I assume they warn against the trek if you are overly in-touch with your Freudian death-drive, as well. Har har<br />
har.<br />
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Good afternoon, and good luck to me.Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-35711516084417811372010-04-26T14:09:00.001-07:002010-04-26T14:09:40.375-07:00PromiseI have to take six exams and write a paper, so I'm not doing this now, but I must write some sort of epic poem about my journey from Berlin to Dublin at the mercy of the volcanic ash cloud.<br />
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Recommence anxiety attack.Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-59546436704448580492010-04-11T16:17:00.000-07:002010-04-11T16:17:11.762-07:00If You Are Sane, DNR (Do Not Read)Once I've bought the Redbull and consigned myself to a night of work (and perhaps the next morning, too), all motivation for my task goes out the window. Perhaps said motivation is given wings, as the Redbull commercial advertises?<br />
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Oh, how the mighty have fallen. I remember this time a couple of terms ago, I wrote my 45 page conference paper in two nights (without any prescribed assistance, I might add). Now I find myself dreading the commencement of a simple seven page exercise in regurgitation.<br />
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Seven pages! I balk! Child's play, I say.<br />
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Hopefully, once these dreadful assignments are behind me, I shall be able to ruminate here on topics other than my procrastination and the loathing that it spawns. For now, however, my mother will just have to get a real time update on how her tuition money is being squandered.<br />
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My overall feeling of the day is that I hate the internet. As my main outlet for procrastinating, I have delved further into you, ye devil of technology, than I had ever wished to. You have stunted the sense of humour of our youth. No, I do not LOL, nor do I ROFL. Rather, I WFH (weep for humanity).<br />
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With the utmost hypocrisy, I challenge you to RAFB (read a fucking book).<br />
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That's enough for now.<br />
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P.S. An Irishman referred to "nite" as the "American spelling". Way to go, USA. We suck.Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-3646756795247685422010-04-09T11:17:00.000-07:002010-04-11T16:01:21.249-07:00Dublin Bucket ListI have yet to accomplish many of the things that have been on my Dublin To-See List since the very beginning. So, I preface this list with this: Yes, it is embarrassing that I have been here for so long and have yet to do these things, but I was caught up with other things like school... and drinking. Up until a short time ago, my time here seemed infinite - May was miles away. Well, now it's April. Bucket List Time.<br />
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1. Phoenix Park<br />
2. Hugh Lane Gallery<br />
3. Bray<br />
4. Howth<br />
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This will obviously be added to in the coming days - Just had an itch to get this thing down on internet-paper.<br />
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To Berlin on Tuesday to see the fabulous Amanda Faraone. She is a blessed creature with whom I look forward to consuming viele Bieren. Hopefully she'll be kind about my Deutsch. And, come to think of it, my English.<br />
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Oh, I should probably work now. (Anybody up for some online Boggle?)<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Update: Restaurants</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Gruel</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Queen of Tarts</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">That Burrito Joint That's Supposed to be "Legit" on Baggot St. </div>Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-5103853670988198092010-04-07T09:41:00.000-07:002010-04-07T09:41:07.245-07:00Update From Your Resident DemonsDudes, I'm pretty sure that President Obama watches The West Wing, and is just trying to be Jed Bartlet. I mean, that'd be my strategy.<br />
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/06/AR2010040602663.html">And You Thought Health Care Was a Doozy?</a><br />
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In other news, an avalanche of new music has invaded my otherwise perfectly diligent work ethic. Ha.<br />
<br />
I received a postcard from a friend in Wisconsin yesterday, containing updates on her life and happy wishes for spring. Also included was a little update on what the news had been obsessing about lately in the States (Health Care). I found it really adorable that she would think to include an update about the news in the States, like I can't or don't check it everyday over here.<br />
<br />
But then I realize that I really don't get that kind of exposure, the saturation of the media in your surroundings and the obsessive nature of the coverage. I.E. watching local news, reading local papers, etc. I can't say I necessarily miss the media-party (I could really give a patoot about Tiger Woods, as a golfer or as a sex addict), but it was a nice reminder that I perhaps check my local news site a bit more often.Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-56055836922526733662010-04-05T12:56:00.000-07:002010-04-05T12:56:18.554-07:00Useless RealizationI really never should have taken a Senior Sophister seminar. Although fascinating, nobody in the department thought to tell the visiting student that the mandatory exams test nothing specific, but rather a general ability to discourse on philosophical topics. Which you should have after you have spent the past four years doing nothing but studying philosophy, and the past five months writing a 100 plus page philosophical thesis.<br />
<br />
I think I might just have to be okay with failing this particular class. Or at least with doing very poorly. So, I'll cry about this tonight, and move on. Nothing to be done. Maybe this means that instead of stressing out for the next six weeks, I'll actually be able to enjoy my remaining time here.<br />
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Sorry, Mom, I don't think your daughter is going to be a philosopher. Professional worrier, maybe? Professional setting-the-bar-too-high-so-I-always-fail-Person?<br />
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I need to be done with a school for a while. Say, about three months. Ah, how convenient - Door County, embrace me, please.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvbm6bdLDmbwCTh1uuoQ72V5cN8BcRT3GmL7392uesnNW6DQF8bXCVk3pR4I-bx8Nva2C2LzEgEDZxJK5T6dcqk5MzhTwfCNFFQ2DUkHcxmaJz7G1SGfOA6Sty3T5pVCrS2LF50C39p7U/s1600/Photo+10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvbm6bdLDmbwCTh1uuoQ72V5cN8BcRT3GmL7392uesnNW6DQF8bXCVk3pR4I-bx8Nva2C2LzEgEDZxJK5T6dcqk5MzhTwfCNFFQ2DUkHcxmaJz7G1SGfOA6Sty3T5pVCrS2LF50C39p7U/s320/Photo+10.jpg" /></a></div>Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-48093975091427247582010-04-05T05:47:00.000-07:002010-04-05T05:47:40.410-07:00Dublin Still SurprisesOn a cab ride from Kilmainham to Ranelagh, I looked out the window to see two small boys riding ponies bareback through the streets. I turned to the person next to me for an explanation, but apparently its an, if not common, unsurprising sight in Dublin.<br />
<br />
This city blends rural and urban life in a way that I've never seen in an American city. I don't know if its because there is such a large separation between the rural and urban cultures in America, or something else, but it is worth mentioning that almost everyone I meet has a family member who owns a farm.<br />
<br />
Young working class children will buy the ponies and ride them bareback around their neighborhood and the outskirts of the city. Apparently, the Smithfield Market is one of the oldest traditions in Dublin, where working class youths go to trade horses and ponies for cheap. For 300 years, and still today, you can go to Smithfield on the first Sunday of every month, buy a horse, get the horse shoes fitted by a blacksmith, and ride away with no questions asked. In a capital city of Western Europe.<br />
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Nothing very deep or blog-worthy to say, just an image to remember. I like getting to know "old Dublin", pre-tiger and all that noise. Just reminds me that the US is just a teenager, compared to wizened Europe. Wizened, not wise. Just sayin'.<br />
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Wish I could find a picture to post, but they are all protected online. Might have to go myself with my camera...<br />
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Anyway - off to find truth (or more likely a lot of crap I will make up to reach a word count).Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-71773749744231198982010-04-03T09:59:00.000-07:002010-04-03T09:59:57.361-07:00This is what I think about when I ride the bus.On the bus today, a mustachioed woman sat next to me and, very craftily, somehow wound her way from discussing the moral-deficiency of bus drivers to her own suffering under the employment of a nun. She bristled (ha!) at the thought of a sinful nun demanding clerical work of her. However, all was well in the end because the priest of the order told the bearded lady that the nun in question had committed mortal sin. Thus, the fuzzy female was confident that her nemesis will meet her justice in the the end.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, on another planet, I decided I don't like coleslaw on sandwiches. Older women on buses require very little encouragement, so I had sometime for my own thoughts.<br />
<br />
I hope I never grow a beard. I'm currently writing an essay on Ronald Dworkin's theory of rights, in which rights are trumps to the concept of liberty (blargh, blah, bullshit). Parallel thought: beards are trumps to women's beauty, unless you like that sort of thing.<br />
<br />
I remember when I was small my friend Chris would always ask his mom if she would still love him if he were a worm. Mom, would you still love me if I had a beard? Be honest.<br />
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HALT. Fleet Foxes just came on in Starbucks. That'll do, pig.Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-71277384354193639062010-03-18T04:14:00.000-07:002010-03-18T04:14:15.149-07:00VergionsA couple of days ago, I went to the Ruby Sessions at Doyle's, a pub across the street from Trinity College frequented by students and normal human beings alike. The Ruby Sessions consist of four acts (this past Tuesday only three, alas), in a quiet, jazzy setting with candles and couches and couples.<br />
<br />
It's the perfect place for a date, really - low lighting, booze and something to talk about built into the setting. I was pretty miserable. I had just started antibiotics to shove out this sinus infection that has been ravaging my face and chest for the past month. That, companied with a complete inability to take any of the performers seriously, had me in quite a state. Although, it proves that I was on a date with the right person, because we were both equally miserable.<br />
<br />
I don't think I could really bear to describe the scene in any detail, so just a few words:<br />
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Spoken-word poetry. Love songs...about dead people.<br />
<br />
"Could you make the guitar more oceanic?", says the musician to the sound man.<br />
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Let it suffice to say - the biggest sin in my book is taking yourself too seriously. Sinners, all.<br />
<br />
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In other news, I spent St. Patrick's day asleep. Saw the crowds from afar, sea of green. Maybe it was the drugs, or the sickness, but I was completely uninterested. It was all the craziness you would expect, in a completely dull way. Big crowds, lots of beer, yelling, skipping, puking. Facepaint on babies, on trashy girls, fat men. Blah.<br />
<br />
Currently, exiled to the living room, due to my flatmate's night going exceptionally well. Love you, Julia!<br />
<br />
Headed off into the day to learn about Trinity's sculpture collection, and hopefully regain some of my will to live.<br />
<br />
Though, despite my miserable state, I am dreading leaving this city. Where will I get a proper pint?Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-40849681936727765602010-03-07T17:10:00.000-08:002010-03-07T17:10:33.723-08:00AvoidanceSo, I'm still up. I'm writing an essay about freedom and self-realization. Isaiah Berlin believed that its an infringement on one's freedom to have another person make a decision for you in your best interest.<br />
<br />
I'm pretty sure that I would be okay with that right now. If I were smart, and didn't like the night as much as I do, I would write this paper right now, instead of typing this, and therefore be able to sleep for a decent amount of time. Tomorrow, I would awaken, eat an apple instead of drinking coffee, and also take a shower.<br />
<br />
Funny thing is, when I actually do start working on the essay, the word count just keeps climbing effortlessly. However, I'm so appalled by the writing and utter lack of scholarship that I retreat back into my procrastinating shell to avoid self-inflicted shame and admonishment.<br />
<br />
But guess what? Whenever this essay is done, in an hour or five, once I've emailed it to myself, I'll probably never think about it again. And the stress leaves just as easily.<br />
<br />
Yet another reason I will never be an academic. Also, I hate tweed.Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-4007702997164574902010-03-06T07:07:00.000-08:002010-03-06T07:07:22.458-08:00Black Hole of Academic Self-Loathing<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">Why am I so incapable of starting to my work? The closer the due date looms, the more entranced I get with the game of how long I can wait before it all hits critical mass and I have to remain hunched over my computer for 18 hours straight so I don't get myself booted out of this fine institution. So, in addition to stress levels verging on a full on panic attack (with the creditors still calling me about paying for my last emergency room visit - 100 euros to have some 24 year old med student tell me to breathe into a paper bag? I'll splurge on the brown bags for next time) I am left crippled with my neck twisted so far out of alignment that I have to drink my celebratory pint through a straw. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">This would all be fine and well worth it if I was even remotely interested in the paper topics handed down to me. Last semester I loved this time, just throwing myself into the phenomenology of faith and the outer-horizons of cups, but in all honesty, do I really give a flying flip about Rawls' Theory of Justice or the digression in Plato's Theaetetus? Not in the least. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">It's a good lesson, in a way. I'm finding my niche in philosophy. The stuff that makes my head explode, but in a pleasant way. This stuff, however, is pure chinese water torture. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">It will get done, I know. I've been in school too long to not know that. But it is precisely this conundrum that I face - I know it will get done, but I just can't seem to force myself to do it anymore. So, then, how will it get done? If, after years of school, its been drilled into my head that work just has to get done, I know longer panic about getting said work done, how will it? </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">At least, at Sarah Lawrence, everybody is just as irresponsible about work as me - the countless nights in the library of Heimbold spent dry sobbing over your conference work, only to look over and see your own agonized facial expression mirrored in the face of your closest friends? Nothing beats that camaraderie. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">It's a sunny day in Dublin - the rays are taunting me through the gross victorian curtains hung in the window of our ornate living room. Give me the industrial austerity of Heimbold any day over the lonely purgatory hell of my fully-furnished front room. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">Oh, feck it. I guess I'll just keep typing. Socrates, you're a real ****. </span></span>Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-45909775707741004742010-03-02T12:28:00.001-08:002010-03-02T12:28:42.207-08:00Caffeinated Crackdown<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Q: What are you doing for the Haitian children?</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A: Poppin’ champagne, oh ho. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Monday of Reading Week has come and almost gone, thus my procrastination has reached its saturation point. I have discovered most concretely something that I have subconciously known about myself for a long time now - I am completely incapable of keeping to a healthy work timetable. I know this is true of most students, but its more than that I am unable to wrap my mind around the fact that my stress levels would be more bearable if I just started my work earlier and proceeded slowly forward in small increments of dedicated study time. I find it actually much more enjoyable to not think about school at all for weeks on end, and then seclude myself in the library for days on end on some kind of masochistic study binge. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There is just something so satisfying about jacking yourself up on coffee and having a days long academic bender. I’m sickly looking forward to this week of all out hellish work ethic and seclusion. I love letting my whole world revolve around the inner workings of one nine page paper. Staring at the horrible fake wood table having a slight panic attack about the phenomenology of faith or whatever ridiculously self-indulgent topic the philosopher kings at Trinity set us off on. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Side note: Somebody in the library is wearing a vintage Chicago Blackhawks shirt - what are the chances that he’s actually a fan, and didn’t purchase the shirt at some ridiculously marked up price because its got that soft, worn, vintage thing going on? Sadly, slim to none. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Then again, I’ve never seen a Chicago Blackhawks game in my life, so who am I to judge. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Anyway, point is - In the library, too jacked up on coffee to even start to contemplate the differences between Rawls and Cohen’s theories of justice. At some point I’ll start the slow process of slipping into my self-induced coma of academia and saturate myself with this nonsense, but there is no forcing it. Therefore, I’ll write up my weekend. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I decided a week or two ago that I needed to get out of Dublin, and have some girl time with my cousin Patsy, my sister in this world, because, and I’m not exaggerating when I say this - besides my wonderful roommate Julia, all my friends in Dublin are men. This is not that different from my life in the States, but it is almost without exception here. Given the ratio at SLC, I have way more than my fair share of male friends, but I also have an amazing group of ladies that I just could not live without . </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For some reason, and this has been true for my entire life, I just find it much easier to become friends with men than with women. I’ll spare anybody reading this an attempt to delve into the psychology of such a pattern, but suffice it to say that the friendships I have with my women friends have been the product of years of intense community in small high school environments and the X-chromosome ridden campus of SLC. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Trinity is the opposite of such an environment, being the sprawling, socially diluted experience that I have found it to be - Thus, all my friends are guys. Which I have never had a problem with, but when it is to such extreme levels as it is here, I found myself craving time to just bitch about life and embarrassments and bowel movements. And so it was had!</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I flew Ryanair (a hellish experience that every student in Europe is bound to have at some point, involving a cornucopia of elbows and smells and big jackets and luggage restrictions and hair that isn’t yours - also the feeling that you are flying in a coffin to your premature death) to Edinburgh. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This being my third trip to visit my cousin at St. Andrew’s, and having yet to really spend any time in Edinburgh, when my flight arrived at 7:30 AM I was determined to stick out the day in the city visiting castles and little pubs and shops. But, it was raining, and I had gotten up at 3:30 that morning and seriously, what is there to do in a city at 8AM besides drink too much coffee and hate yourself for being awake - so I accepted my personal failures and fell asleep on the train out to Leuchars (LOOH-CHers, I’ve learned). </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The big event for the semester at St. Andrews is the FS:X Charity Fashion Show. It’s completely student-run, with student models and student designers in addition to the fairly big name labels that they get to sponsor the event. Coming from SLC, I was complete bowled over by the lavishness of the thing. The venue was this old paper mill warehouse that was scheduled to be demolished the next week, so the whole thing had a very edgy/we’re-freezing-to-death-in-a-warehouse-for-fashion-feel to it. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I’m having trouble deciding how to accurately represent the sheer ridiculously lavish nature of this event. For a staggeringly high price-per-head, a group of friends could secure a table decked out with “free” champagne, vodka, red bull and vitamin water, and gift-bags filled with free D+G perfume and designer condoms. Suffice it to say, I was completely out of my element. My crippling five-inch heels weren’t helping, but I found that whiskey helped dull the intensity of the situation a bit. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>When I was thinking about the guests of the event on my way home, I just thought “trollops”. I have no idea what that word means in any specific way, but that’s exactly the kind of girls that were stumbling around me. For having obviously put a lot of effort into their attire and general look, these girls just looked, well, messy. Their profanely-expensive dresses sliding off their malnourished shoulders, they were a gaggle of tottering trollops. Tottering trollops. I don’t really understand this trend of looking like you are hanging onto life by shoestrings. It’s not just the skinniness, that’s been around for forever, and not worth commenting on. It’s this look of morning-after chic. All my cousin’s friends looked classy and beautiful, put-together and having a great time, without looking like they were falling apart at their thousand-dollar seams. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I guess the word I am looking for here is reckless. This has nothing to do with the liquor or drugs that were being consumed with urgency throughout the night by everyone and their Mom (literally. Fifty and having a 20-year-old help you vomit in a portapotty is not a good look), it had more to do with the money being almost quite literally thrown around. There was an auction in the middle of the event that had students dropping money that rivaled in quantity the amount I paid to go to Trinity this semester. Guys were buying champagne for 35 pounds a bottle, and popping it in the middle of the show, spraying everybody within 30 feet (thanks to Jay-Z, or whoever that was, for making “poppin’ champagne” a symbol of status). </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>One of the most hilarious moments of the night came, when we were standing next to probably the most insane looking woman I’ve ever seen in real life. She was a caricature of one of the assistants in that movie The Devil Wears Prada. She was wearing this long black cape/jacket thing, with elbow length gloves, and the most severe, blonde bangs I’d ever experienced. She had this reporters notebook that she was writing in with this pencil that was just slightly overly sized. She turned to my cousin, who was wearing this fabulous black and white blazer, and asked her “who she was wearing”. My cousin answered her, and then she went back to watching the show like she was analyzing the incoming stock prices from the Japan Market or something. The tone she used to ask who made my cousins blazer was pretty much the same tone somebody would use to ask, “what are you doing for the Haitian children”? </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Despite the incredibly self-indulgent nature of the scene, I had a great time just getting rowdy and dancing to electronica . It was fun to, if not be a part of, but experience that kind of lavish social scene without having any concern for my own place in it. </span></div>Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-52323598036368479682010-02-11T06:50:00.000-08:002010-02-11T06:50:34.960-08:00Philosopher Kings<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Last Tuesday, I finally got around to attending a lecture with the Metaphysical Society (The Metafizz). I don’t know quite what I was expecting, having been in Dublin too long to expect anything stodgy, but it turned out to be quite the drunken socratic dialogue.<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The professor giving the talk is the newly appointed head of the School of Philosophy and Sociology at University College Cork. He had just moved back to Europe after 40 years teaching in the US, and was more than excited to tell us what he experienced. Actually, I think the verb he used was “weathered”. I believe that was the first time in my stay in Ireland that I was actually slightly offended by somebody’s views of America. Almost everyone else I have talked to about the US has been quick to seperate their views of our government and their views of Americans, or at least emphasize how much they love Chicago. But this man was relentless in his generalizations of the American public. Apparently we are ignorant by choice because we can’t handle reality. And I get it. 60% of the American public still believe that Sadaam Hussein was linked to the Taliban. But, sweeping generalizations about millons peoples motivations for being undereducated is just slightly offensive to me. Breathe!<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So, the great thing about the Metafizz is, usually the person presenting is using the Society as a means for a dry-run of some material they plan to use elsewhere, be it in their thesis, or in this case the inaugural lecture of his post in Cork - So, he read from some notes, paused to ask us whether this bit or that bit would be better here or there. And the topic was interesting enough - “How Philosophy Can Save the Earth”. It was not so much a lecture for us as a workshop for him. <br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So, to get on with it, the moment this professor walked into the room, he was offered a glass of wine, which he gladly accepted. I characterized this later as a sort of “verbal handshake” in Ireland - the offering and accepting of a drink. The drinking did not let up for a good five and half hours later when we were all at the pub down the street having a laugh about tonic wine made by Benedictine Monks (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/world/europe/04scotland.html). <br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The scene in that pub was probably what many people fantasize about when they come to study at Trinity, or really any big University in Europe - sitting around with a group of classmates and professors, letting your true opinions about democracy come to the fore after your third pint of Guinness (let it be noted that the Professor in question was pacing us kids). It reminded me of Sarah Lawrence, in that your professors don’t treat you so much as a student, but rather a kind of co-pilot on this academic adventure. There is a real joy when a professor forty years your senior gets into an argument with you about the nature of democracy, and he actually puts an effort into the discussion. It's a sign that they believe you to be a worthy adversary. <br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Now that we were at the pub, as the professor noted, he could reveal his true opinions in this more congenial setting (I think what he meant was if it backfired or offended, he could maintain it was all for a laugh). In lieu of democracy, he advocates the crowning of a Philosopher King, and by the way he nominates himself. Now, it could be assumed (although riskily) that he was joking about the second part, but let it be know that this well-respected Professor of Philsophy advocates a mandatory test for all people who wish to vote. <br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This is a prime example of the ego of academia, and one of the main reasons, besides not having the brain for it, that I will, at some point, jump the ship from this philosophical undergraduate journey and get a real job.Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-50179421823013827972010-02-01T12:55:00.000-08:002010-02-01T12:55:49.337-08:00Galway ( Or In Favor of Slow Travel)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRcBsTCAYDviT_OYaAiB8kf4uMAo58vDWrxeI5m4NHeQHFw9zuuRxr3QDyzaxAHV8jZZCUgJ3Jbvkq57OTxM0nrW_QS3eU95g76RpK_qtNsaVohJiz2qPTtubqi1464dQFKeoMX0thT2o/s1600-h/image020.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRcBsTCAYDviT_OYaAiB8kf4uMAo58vDWrxeI5m4NHeQHFw9zuuRxr3QDyzaxAHV8jZZCUgJ3Jbvkq57OTxM0nrW_QS3eU95g76RpK_qtNsaVohJiz2qPTtubqi1464dQFKeoMX0thT2o/s320/image020.jpeg" /></a></div><div>Yesterday, I got home from a four day leg in Galway and the Connemara Mountains. Exhausted from sensory overload and living out of my backpack, I put off any writing or processing of the experience. Today, as I was feigning alertness in my Ancient Philosophy lecture (who has time to read the Theatetus when there are still pubs to check off the list?), I started to experience a quite distinct feeling of panicky nervousness, seemingly without cause. I soon realized that this didn't have anything to do with the course work I had yet to complete, but rather was solely caused by a fear of losing the experience I had just had if I didn't write it down, if I didn't transfer it somehow into something tangible, pocketable. It was almost as if I felt if I didn't somehow capture the experience in a reliable medium, it would somehow become diluted over time.</div><div> </div><div>However, I soon realized, like I always do when I get this feeling about travel experiences, that one of the main reasons the past weekend had been so full an experience was my complete lack of motivation to document it. My camera wasn't charged when I left fo the bus, so I left it behind. Without a camera, I was free to absorb the city and mountains at my own pace, without being able to hide behind the security of a camera. When I have had a camera on trips, I feel it has almost acted as a security blanket of sorts. I have found myself thinking, I have taken a photograph of it, I have processed it, I have captured this experience, now I am free to move on to the next sight. Its sort of an automatic way to say you have experienced something. But if you are without camera, as I was, it is much more of a process to experience a sight. A much more rewarding one, too. </div><div> </div><div>For the leg of the trip that we spent in the Connemara mountains, we traveled with the Galway Tour Company out to our hostel on one of their tours of the Connemara mountains, and then they picked us up the next day and we got to see the rest of the tour. It was a great deal, and also let us see some of the sights, while getting in our hiking time. However, it is tours like these that make the camera-experienced-travel so necessary. In one day, this company shuttles you to maybe ten or twelve various sights of interest, with maybe a ten minute stop at most, and because you dont' want to run around the whole place for ten minutes and attempt to panickily process it, one falls back on their camera to experience the Abbey or old Fairy Fort, and can go back on the bus and look at their pictures while the Connemara Mountains pass by on all sides.</div><div> </div><div>This isn't some sort of unforgiving commentary on the modern tourist. If I were on one of those day-tours I would be inclined to do the exact same thing, because it would be impossible to process all that beauty and history in such a short period of time. When we went on a hike through the hills, I found myself tripping every few minutes because I wouldn't let myself look at the path as I walked because I was so eager to absorb the scenery. It truly was so beautiful that I could not look away without feeling like a wastrel. Needless to say my boots were covered in their fair share of sheep shit by the time we got back to our hostel.</div><div> </div><div>Galway City in itself also really caters to this kind of slow-fermenting travel. The Galway city "sights" themselves only take up maybe half a day or less, while the real magic of that city is the streetlife. The buskers, trad music, pubs and walking to be done - those are the real attractions of the city. </div><div> </div><div>A more specific run-down of my trip will come later, as I steal pictures from friends to supplement the various scrapes we entered into over the four days. Just had to rant a bit.</div><div> </div><div>So, Post-Grad plans are: I'm really going to learn to play the banjo, just so I can go back to Galway and busk with the best of 'em.</div><div><br />
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</div>Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-73344412357254463662010-01-15T22:05:00.000-08:002010-01-15T22:05:29.475-08:00My roommate is snoring and doesn't know I'm here yet. Precipice!My flight arrived in Dublin at 4:35 this morning, an hour early than I had thought it would. Five thirty is a decent time for a human to be awake. Awaking at five thirty when you are twenty-one means you are productive, albeit freakishly so. Being awake at four-thirty at any age just means you have insomnia.<br />
Dublin is raining, of course. But I love it. This place makes me feel more observant than is natural. In the past five minutes I have noticed the drapes, a fox and some poor soul leaving the apartment above mine (where I am convinced about twelve different people live) for work.<br />
I was supposed to miss snow, but truth be told, I could seriously give a flying fart. I try to rep the midwest and all that goodness, but let’s get serious, shall we? Chicago is like a girl with no self-esteem, except replace jerkfaces with epic low-pressure systems. What a lame metaphor, but I’m pretty sure my loyal fan base will forgive me. Hi, Mom. <br />
I may have a limited social life, a sick addiction to phenomenology and no umbrella, but I just love the observant calm here. It sets me straight. Nothin’ beats raindrops on your head and foxes in your parking lot.Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-1393256684173688182010-01-02T15:07:00.000-08:002010-01-02T15:07:35.803-08:00New Year, New You!<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So, it should be quite obvious what one of my New Year’s Resolutions is - to be consistent with this whole blogging thing! I wish I could say that I just was too busy living to blog about it, but in truth, the last couple of months in Ireland were filled with a lot of work, and very little play.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Therefore, with the handy freshness our society has afforded the people at this time of year, I declare myself without fears. I am going back to Dublin, and I’m going to jump into life, instead of trying to understand it, or keep it in check.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I spent New Years 2010 with a hoard of buddies from Door County, WI, one of my favorite places on Earth. When I arrived we realized that we were going to make Camp David (http://www.fishstockmusic.com) our home for another summer. That news made me so excited that I couldn’t stop smiling the entire night. I realized that, in some ways, I was more excited for my summer at Camp D than I was for another semester in Dublin. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that my life in Dublin is ruled by my fears, not by my goals or my passions. I’m too shy to audition for a play and get involved in the theatre. I’m too insecure about my writing to submit a piece to the paper. Meanwhile, I read the paper every week and fiercely critique everything about it!<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Although we will always find it impossible to describe that amazing quality that makes us come back to DC year after year, I think part of it resides in the fearless nature of its residents. Living at Camp D, and calling DC home, has taught me that being an active individual is the road to a fulfilled life, or at least a fulfilled day. And I don’t mean active in merely the sense of getting off your butt and biking to work instead of driving (although I did learn that lesson, too), but active in the sense of choosing to do the things you know you want to do, in spite of fears and insecurities holding you back. And that’s another thing. Never, not once, did I feel judged by the people I met there. And that is a fierce feeling. I suspect that that is the heaviest thing most of us carry around with us - our judgements of our selves.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So, in 2010, I’m going to be, I am, done with all that nonsense of self-doubt and anxiety. I mean, I think I’m really awesome - I’m just too freaked out to do anything about it!<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Here I go. Resolutions, baby. Yes, everyone does it, and nobody keeps them. But I’m too young to be that jaded, so here’s to false hope!<br />
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Take that writing class at the Irish Writer’s Centre.<br />
Go to Yoga and Boxing (or just sweat at least once a week).<br />
Submit an article to Trinity Publications.<br />
Do something new in Dublin every week! Every day.<br />
Go on trips to the country to hike (Erin Tiernen, are you reading this?!)<br />
Follow through with Dispatches From the Folk (Patsy, are you reading this?!)<br />
No judgments.<br />
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New Year’s is also a great time to take a pause, and think of all the people that helped you get through the last year. Here’s a big jug o’ champagne to my Chi-Town Gang, my SLC Lovers, and my Camp D Loves. Sometimes I wonder how its possible that one person is allowed to have this many beautiful people in their lives.<br />
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Okay, enough of the sap! I rang in New Year’s with the Blues: http://www.cashboxkings.com/Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-70327175425094856252009-11-29T10:11:00.000-08:002009-11-29T10:11:51.475-08:00Dublin Flea Market Yummy Baubles and Waffles<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6FIxnjv-J9D4GKgMaNUH7upITbI3y5KOkRhsgYWDkk2mYiTDA1KmiOxN2vYIHkEjQBLL0O2clHMkjupa8XEGmgu8wf78qjrDQeji1OVfW0BFCiAC_imS65cW5cqZPooEGxFtAI3mndlk/s1600/June.09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6FIxnjv-J9D4GKgMaNUH7upITbI3y5KOkRhsgYWDkk2mYiTDA1KmiOxN2vYIHkEjQBLL0O2clHMkjupa8XEGmgu8wf78qjrDQeji1OVfW0BFCiAC_imS65cW5cqZPooEGxFtAI3mndlk/s320/June.09.jpg" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Just got back to my flat from visiting the Dublin Flea Market. The scene in the market proves that the co-op is an excuse to bring all brands of hipster together on a monthly basis, although a quite great excuse if you ask me. There were about thirty or forty stalls crammed into the Hall that usually holds the Dublin Food Co-op, which offers falafel, waffles and mulled wine for about the same price as a vintage skirt at the Flea. </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Flea is one of those experiences that is exactly what you expect - knickknacks and cheap riffraff galore, in all a manner of colors and mostly too-small sizes (those fifties girls were masochistic most definitely). I don’t usually fare so well at these types of shopping venues because I tend to come home with tons of cheap, well, crap. But this time proved different - when I say the Flea is cheap, I mean dirt cheap. I bought a fifties vintage skirt, a necklace, a poster and a sweater-shirt, none of which cost me upwards of five dollars. Like all vintage shopping experiences, quality suffered a bit, but that’s the fun of it. You’ve got to have your vintage shopping wits about you, or you’ll come home and realize you have bought a skirt that doesn’t have a zipper where one is supposed to be (oops). </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The rest of the Flea was your typical cluster**** of hipster goodness. Read: Organic, sustainable, veggie-heavy food, ridiculous clothing choices and a steady stream of skinny, dirty boys playing their guitars on a makeshift stage. </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Although I recognize the shear self-indulgence of such a gathering, I can’t help but love it. I like the veggie-heavy fare, I bought just enough useless items of clothing and goddamnit those boys are a-dorable. </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And there if just something ridiculously victorious about being able to say, “Yes, those are Mayan dolls on my skirt, and it was only three Euros”. </span><br />
</div>Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-19364806148674620852009-10-30T14:04:00.000-07:002009-10-30T14:04:21.777-07:00Domestic Bliss - Read: Existential CrisisI feel so peacefully domestic. Almost uncomfortably so. Surrounded by the stuff of a day well spent without traveling more than three blocks from home. <br />
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There are those days that I wake up and am a domestic goddess, or rather a domestic squirrel - darting here and there doing all those little household tasks we all put off for weeks. This is all supremely out of character. Emptied recycling, also emptied incredibly small bathroom wastebasket that is always more of a goal than an actual destination for various debris. <br />
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The most reliable symptom of this mood is the rearranging of the living space. When I still lived at home, I would rearrange my room into bizarre layouts maybe three, four times a year. Always bizarre, because there is only so much you can do with a tenxten room with one window. <br />
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And let's face it; when you are in the midst of the somehow simultaneously monotonous and terrifying days of high school, moving your twin to the exact center of the room can give you a new lease on life.<br />
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I always tend to exaggerate the horrifying experience that was high school to a stereotypical degree. I actually had quite a good time, despite the inevitable heartbreak and embarrassment. I think I just don't want to admit that I still like moving furniture around for no good reason. It has nothing to do with feng shui - although my boy Guo Pu might disagree - It makes me feel like I have something new to look forward to - a new spot. <br />
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And what is a new spot really but a new perspective on life? No - literally - you see things from new angles. Seriously! You are seeing sides of things you've never seen before!<br />
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No, but for real - just keeps things fresh. And it makes you question your daily routine. If you have to plunk your butt down in a new corner of the room to watch those five episodes of Glee in a row, you might think twice and pick up a book. <br />
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My new spot is much more conducive to reading. Without no effort, I read for close to three hours instead of using the internet - something I've found difficult to do once I discovered how to use Megavideo. <br />
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This move I cultivated the perfect spot for me and my butt. With two roommates, there seems to be a natural claiming of spots. I put my computer on the seat. Primal, maybe, but come on - who's going to sit on a computer?<br />
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That kind of thinking has lost me about four to five expensive pieces of electronics in the past two years. <br />
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So, for now I'm camping out. Window sill to my left, fireplace to my right. Book on chest. <br />
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Jesus, I even bought flowers!<br />
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It's me, God. Marga-- FUCK. Who am I?!<br />
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Next stop: candles and a throw rug (vintage?)<br />
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Ch- ch- ch- ch- ch- ch- check it out: <a href="http://www.dublinflea.blogspot.com/">Dublin Flea Market</a>Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-40225072816659400902009-10-20T06:39:00.000-07:002009-10-20T06:39:46.276-07:00The Felice BrothersThis past Sunday, my friend Chris used a family connection to score a spot for himself +1 on the guest list of the Felice Brothers show in Dublin. The venue was a club called Whelans that has no real philosophy in terms of booking bands as far as I can tell, seeing that the last time we went there we danced to an electro-pop DJ. I had never heard of the band before Chris started insisting that these dudes were the next Dylan, and had been for months. From my observation, it seems that the person or persons Chris deems as the "Next Dylan" seem to fluctuate rather frequently. Therefore it seemed it meant something that he had been holding this conviction for a couple of months. <br />
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I started by listening just to their recently released album "Yonder is the Clock", and to be honest, I wasn't bowled over in excitement. It was great music to be sure, but it didn't hit me in the aural sweet spot. <br />
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Their gig at Whelans this past Sunday is ranked in my top three favorite concerts I've ever been to in my life. The community that the Felice Brothers managed to create in that venue within two hours was awesome. The main singer (although most "brothers" had one song that they sang) Ian Felice is almost painfully serious about the lyrics he sings - this is a band meant to be seen live. <br />
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Maybe it was the spirit of Dublin that was permeating the air and making everyone giddy, but I for one couldn't keep the smile off my face. I even stood in five-inch-heels for the whole concert and followed when Farley Felice (the washboard and fiddle player) pulled some people up on the stage. This is from someone who pooped out half-way through Lollapalooza last year, and went home with a friend to take a nap and watch television. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFeFqFKDDq3AOJosUuX-VWUH6H_4ogN0Dr0Q3j7DSnXfRTst4L0QAbJJqJTxlMsHqXXLquP_7NnHv9YwOkTDixgBAMogYAWH_7WHE5-sKQyeSoHXxJXkukG05RYjJFT_wJmUDqloLB5Xo/s1600-h/felice_brothers_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFeFqFKDDq3AOJosUuX-VWUH6H_4ogN0Dr0Q3j7DSnXfRTst4L0QAbJJqJTxlMsHqXXLquP_7NnHv9YwOkTDixgBAMogYAWH_7WHE5-sKQyeSoHXxJXkukG05RYjJFT_wJmUDqloLB5Xo/s320/felice_brothers_3.jpg" /></a><br />
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There is something extremely adorable about the group that the Felice Brothers have created. Although only two of them are actually brothers (there used to be three, but the drummer brother moved on to other projects), each band member has adopted the stage name of his own last name plus the surname Felice. I just can't get over how adorable it was to watch a group of brothers getting silly and playing music together with such fierce energy and love. <br />
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In conclusion, I wish I could play the Harmonica. <br />
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http://www.myspace.com/thefelicebrothers<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHkZ0n-_rG86Trs0ibpuwsorywSXHDyizxZ5_WIW3rGDdakb67v6s12nmtlkJX3Kk8PiBQqvx0K4BFZfpUCk_owUQ3UKMGx3Dl5JCbyfOTcZdLVWevbfL92vCuxTag5CKQj6pNQ74uNmA/s1600-h/felice_bros.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHkZ0n-_rG86Trs0ibpuwsorywSXHDyizxZ5_WIW3rGDdakb67v6s12nmtlkJX3Kk8PiBQqvx0K4BFZfpUCk_owUQ3UKMGx3Dl5JCbyfOTcZdLVWevbfL92vCuxTag5CKQj6pNQ74uNmA/s320/felice_bros.jpg" /></a><br />
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P.S. Check out Farley Felice on the far left. The night we saw them at Whelans he was wearing a New York Yankees fitted, a bandana and a white tee. His favorite artist is Jay-Z, and he is the Felice Brothers resident rapper and hype man. But most of the time he plays the fiddle and washboard. Uh. Swoon much?Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-60959133715592016372009-10-20T06:08:00.000-07:002009-10-20T06:08:30.030-07:00Egads, le cough.Everyone I know is sick, and it makes me nervous. Extremely nervous. I am of the sort that will feel absolutely peachy, but as soon as someone in my general vicinity starts to feel sick, I start feeling my glands. I also tend to "test-cough", i.e. cough to see if it feels like you're sick. <br />
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My roommate Erin has the kind of illness that, as she put it, "makes you feel like you are wading through water at all times". So, basically debilitating H1N1. <br />
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We're all going to die.<br />
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In other news, I'm heading off this weekend to the beautiful country of Scotland. It's just a short, (more expensive than I thought it would be) flight across the pond, but I am super psyched because everytime I visit my cousin, wherever she happens to be at the time, it tends to be a throw-down of epic proportions. In other words, I am spending the morning of my arrival in Edinburgh, before departing for her University in St. Andrews, otherwise I won't get any sightseeing done whatsoever. <br />
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Unless you are like my cousin and I, who classify touring a city's great pubs and clubs in the same species as visiting the great monuments. <br />
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Okay, maybe not. But it's damn good fun. <br />
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Also, some great dude once said that the only way to get to know a civilization is to live among them for a time, i.e. adopt their social habits. Basically, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. <br />
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Blogging is great procrastination. And with that, I away.Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-42311588398655485602009-10-18T11:04:00.000-07:002009-10-18T11:04:25.868-07:00This ain't history yet.<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I could get away with saying that I am a well-traveled person. Through the long-lasting generosity of my aunt, I have been able to travel through much of Europe, as well as visiting Australia, Mexico, and many destinations in the United States. </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This past weekend changed all that. I spent two days in the Northern Ireland city of Belfast with a delegation of about a hundred students studying various places in Ireland. Now I feel as if I haven’t experienced anything except this place. </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The first night we arrived in Belfast, the only organized activity consisted of a dinner at the hostel. Needless to say, everyone had pretty much the same goal after the bland meal: find pub, buy pint. </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A large group of us went to the first place we saw; a bar across the street from the Belfast International Hostel, called the Royal. As we walked in, we noticed a confederate flag flying alongside other flags, some of which we recognized and others we didn’t. We decided that they probably didn’t know what it meant, or put it up for less nasty reasons than we would generally assume. The American students had soon overrun the bar, but the publican seemed to be enjoying the influx of tourists on a slow night. </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Events of the night included: </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-Backstreet Boys being played back-to-back for about half an hour. This was accompanied by the typical girl-bopping, and predictable old-man-ogling. </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-A very drunken fellow around the age of forty-five, repeated two things to me about fifteen times; that he was from <i>Northern</i> Ireland, and that his son was fighting in Afghanistan for the British. And then he kissed my nose. </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-The Publican of the bar allowed not one, but four American boys to go behind the bar and pull their own pints of Guinness. </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-One very enthusiastic man showed us how he could put his leg behind his head and then stand up. We clapped. </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>When we pulled back into the Hostel after a day of hiking the Giant’s Causeway, our guides advised us to patron the pubs that would have people our own age, The Bot and The Eg adjacent to Queen’s University Belfast. We were told to stay clear of the Royal, as it was a bit of a dodgy establishment. At first I thought our guides were just being too protective of a group of young people for which they were responsible, but then the stories began to pile in. </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>That night, a smaller group of Americans went back to the Royal while the rest of us decided to check out the student bars. A couple of pints in, one of the boys asked the Barman why they flew the confederate flag outside their bar, to which he made it clear, using racist, but yet matter-of-fact language, that this was a bar that favored white supremacy. The kid looked confused, so the man elaborated, “Do you see any of them here?”</span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It wasn’t until the next day when I was being told this story, that I looked out the window of the bus as we passed the Royal and noticed the body of a doll hanging from the lamp post outside the front door, an obvious lynching reference. </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Now, all this was disturbing enough. I felt ignorant and dirty thinking that I had given money to the establishment and not even noticed what was obviously going on around me. But what made our experience in Belfast that weekend so disturbing wasn’t the fact that we mistakenly patroned the wrong bar, but my peers responses to the experience the morning after. </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This was the majority of the reponses: </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-Laughter</span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-Incredulessness. </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-Fascination. </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And the kickers: “But they were soooo nice to us!” or “Oh my god, it was so fun though.”</span><br />
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</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">To which I responded, quite loudly: “Yeah, because you are white, dumbasses!”</span><br />
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</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Talk about a situation that reveals character and morals. I had one guy say to me that he was glad that he went because the bartender was really nice to him, they had a great conversation, and that “they” are people too. </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Seriously?! This is the reaction we are having to have mistakenly walked into a white-supremicist bar, that also happened to hold the meetings of the Ulster Defence League in its uptairs room?</span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Yes, most of us have never encountered such blatant racism in our lives, but a scary amount of my peers were talking about the situation as if it was funny, or something they had seen in an exhibit at the Natural History Museum, not a real life experience that should be quite spiritually disturbing. </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Perhaps it sank in a bit more as the day went on, during which we toured the Falls and Shankill areas of Belfast, the Catholic and Protestant communities respectively, which are seperated by a concrete and steel-enforced wall. Our tour guide described the wall as similar to the Berlin Wall, except for that fact that it isn’t coming down any time soon. </span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We toured the area of Shankill to take a look at the hundreds of murals painted by the Loyalists. Their history and significance is too intricate to get into at the moment, but let it be said that one mural we saw commemorated the life of a young Loyalist Militia Commander who had been murdered in 2000. This is just barely history. It isn’t the noted and archived history which we learn about in school, but rather something still breathing in the daily life of the residents. </span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This mural is about a block and half away from our hostel. <br />
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<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>On that same block a little girl came running out of her house, giving us the finger as her parents smiled and laughed. </span><br />
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</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I would like to say however, that this hasn’t been my experience in Dublin whatsoever, nor have any other students I’ve talked to reported such blatant, or even subtler racism in the counties they are studying in throughout the Republic. However, this could be due to the fact that there just isn’t a lot of diversity to begin with, so it might just not be as obvious. Or we could just not notice, given our horrible blindness we displayed over the weekend. </span><br />
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</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>These events won’t be leaving my mind any time soon, and for that I am grateful because they deserve a great deal of thought from all of us. </span><br />
</div>Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5065041169632607421.post-57765063805670167502009-09-25T01:47:00.000-07:002009-09-25T01:47:30.126-07:00 <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> At this moment, Dublin is highly in touch with its collective consciousness. If you went out of your flat yesterday, you couldn't help getting into at least three conversations about each of the following. </span></span><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
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<span style="color: #747474; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><ol style="list-style-type: decimal;"><li style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">The Lisbon Vote</span></span></span></li>
</ol><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">From what I can gather (my main sources have been outspoken men in pubs, so bear that in mind), the importance of the Lisbon vote is not in the details of the Treaty, but rather what a ratification would mean for the Republic symbolically. </span></span></span></span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">In general, and this is in no ways a defining statement, those who are rallying for a No vote are of the Old Guard. Ex-, or current, IRA members, sympathizers and those over a certain age are campaigning against the Lisbon Treaty because they see it as forfeiting Ireland’s power in Europe and undermining the Constitution of the Republic. On this side of the debate, it seems to me that the motivation is stemming from a dire will to be an independent state. While this might seem like an outdated fear to some, it is actually quite understandable given the history of the past century in Ireland. </span></span></span></span><br />
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</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">The campaign to ratify Lisbon is helmed by the Youth and student voices. Any bar that you walk into within a reasonable distance from Trinity, someone will undoubtably strike up a conversation with you by pointing a finger at your heart and threatening, “what are you voting on Lisbon?” Now, this is all in good-natured slagging really, but if you say you are leaning towards a No vote, things could get quite serious quite quickly. We found this out the hard way when several of my peers were convinced they would vote No by the many signs posted on streetlamps across the country - which were then later discovered to basically be propaganda. </span></span></span></span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">There was a certain desire within us to be in support of that old Irish Rebel Cause - the fiery desire to be independent of Britain. This is the romanticized Irish Politics we see as radical. However, in reality, that brand of politics is now quite a stick in the mud. The reality is, Ireland IS an independent state - now the problem is the problem that every other European country has: how do the European states work together while maintaining their own individual National identity and pride?</span></span></span></span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAlou-d005YWO9j0L0BBtpXwk7ncRSD1Mwe0gu8BV3OQTZRXLbp8f4G_-YBybnLt84CbnmNiasT4FwJJ5AxCFlhNx9c7Jg4F_ZK95FFMMAyfu2-pM2QM_sjZ1FdxLMxWS0-XSNPcM87Kw/s1600-h/rich_content_arthurs_day.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAlou-d005YWO9j0L0BBtpXwk7ncRSD1Mwe0gu8BV3OQTZRXLbp8f4G_-YBybnLt84CbnmNiasT4FwJJ5AxCFlhNx9c7Jg4F_ZK95FFMMAyfu2-pM2QM_sjZ1FdxLMxWS0-XSNPcM87Kw/s320/rich_content_arthurs_day.jpg" /></a><br />
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</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br />
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</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"> 2.</span></span></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"> Yesterday was National Arthur’s Day. </span></span></span></span><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
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</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"> I walked through a street in the city centre where I was caught in the middle of a hundred plus people group toast to Arthur Guiness and his brew. However, not all Irishmen were proud to celebrate the man - one local pub patron was quite adamant that we were celebrating the drink and not the man because Arthur Guiness persecuted the catholics, to which another patron replied, “Yes, but didn’t they all?”</span></span></span></span><br />
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</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">Slaînte!</span></span></span></span><br />
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</div></div>Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02720911438132734193noreply@blogger.com0