Chicago

So it has been about a month now since I journeyed to Chicago for the Midwest Economic Conference (MEA sponsored). The whole thing was rather last minute for me. A good portion of the students who went had been signed up for months and the reason I didn't from the beginning was because of the potential cost of the trip. As it turned out, three students dropped out last minute due to workloads, and by last minute I mean I had a 48 hour notice. The Political Economy Club was able to reduce the price to $0, so regardless of wanting rest and time to just do work, I decided this opportunity was way too good to pass up.

I honestly feel that traveling to places I've never been with complete strangers is one of the most thrilling things I do. Some people like skydiving, others prefer driving 90 mph, I however love travel and new acquaintances.

I met the group in a parking lot on campus and we piled into two University owned vans, guys in one and girls in the other, very Irish I might add. Anyway we left around 4:45 pm and arrived in Chicago around 1:00 am Chicago time. The conference itself was actually in Evanston, which is just north of Chicago. The hotel was extremely nice. The conference was interesting because all of the presentations on Friday were way over my head. I sat through an Ivy League session and realized how much I really don't know. That night we went out for some Chicago deep dish pizza with Dr. Trejos and Dr. Barbozza which was great fun. We had a super long table and once again sat guys on one end and girls on the other. The guys had deep economical discussions with Dr. Barbozza, while us girls enjoyed talking to Dr. Trejos about balancing a family life with work among other things.

Saturday I attended all of the Undergrad Sessions which were still over my head at certain points but I did understand a good portion of what was going on. I want to submit some of my research to present next year, hopefully that all works out. Saturday night we drove into Chicago for a night out in the city. None of us had brought substantial winter coats as it had been in the 70's Thursday and Friday but Saturday it was snowing and we all just about froze to death. But we ate at a super cool authentic Chicago restaurant and walked around the city so it was well worth it.

Sunday morning we got up early to make the long journey home. I made some new friends and I gained the secretary position in Political Economy Club for the upcoming school year. I can't wait for St. Louis next year!

Maryland

Saturday, 6th March, 2010 Casey and I talked to girl scouts about studying abroad in Ireland. For the most part the parents were more interested than the girls but we had a few who were entertained. One of the girls asked if there was a pub called The Hog's Head. At first Casey and I didn't know what to say other than the fact that there wasn't, just The Brazen Head and Turk's Head. I then realized it was a Harry Potter reference which was beyond cute and hilarious. Another little girl said she knew the Irish word for girl...lassie. Overall it was a good experience and it was nice to talk about our experiences.

Afterwards we went back to her house to hang out for a bit until Patrick could acquire his father's car. After getting his non-existant voicemail, I texted him so we could make plans. He called and gave us directions to Hoffman's ice cream shop in between trying to kill things on a video game which was quite funny, eventually we got him to focus enough to get what we needed so we could meet him. Once in Casey's vehicle we put on Sondre Lerche and headed for Westminster. Patrick called us on our way to see if we wanted to have dinner before ice cream, so we met him at Applebee's. We had great fun catching up, talking about Dublin, and of course arguing a bit but it was all in good fun. I've missed them both a ton. Afterwards we ended up at Hoffman's. On the way there we put Patrick on speaker phone in case something failed in our following him there. He was blaring something ridiculous on the radio so we pumped I Gotta Feeling through our speakers and sang at the top of our lungs just to annoy him, it was grand.

We sat and talked in the parking lot of Hoffman's after getting our ice cream for about two hours before deciding we needed restrooms. McDonald's was our choice so we headed there. Afterwards we stumbled around Wal-mart where Patrick found a deal on a plaid shirt and then we sat in their parking lot for another two hours and talked even more. We reminisced about Ireland. Patrick pitched his plan for a two week trip across the States for this summer. If all goes according to plan it's going to involve friends we met in Dublin and it's going to be called The Rolling Reunion, which is quite fitting. He also talked about biking across Europe in a few years, I'd love to go but I think I'd prefer a train. (Please note that he is looking at something in the one picture. It was Wal-mart's sad excuse for a bike selection.) Soon it was time to part ways and Casey managed to somewhat document the proper goodbye between Patrick and me that we didn't get in Dublin.

Sunday Casey and Mrs. Wheltle took me to breakfast before dropping me off at the BWI Amtrak station. I got my ticket from the Quik-Trak machine and wandered out to sit on my platform for about 45 minutes. It was such a lovely day that I sat in the sun and read Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson. I thought about my future and the past weekend. I have made some pretty amazing friends who share the same ambitions I do and they understand me. I am extremely blessed. So even though they are an 1 1/2 hour car ride + 8 hour train ride away or just a plan 5 1/2 hour drive away, I thank God that they are in my life. Seeing and talking to them made me feel a bit more confident about what I want as they were able to validate last fall and give me hope for future expeditions. I hope to see them again soon. To quote Patrick on the topic of hope, "It's what we always have."

District of Columbia

Friday, 5th March, 2010 I woke up at 2:20 am in order to ready myself for a drive to the Amtrak station in Pittsburgh where I boarded a train headed for Washington, D.C. The train was supposed to depart at 5:20 am but was late in arriving so we pulled out at 6:05. I tried to sleep on the way there but I was just in and out for most of the trip. I made a playlist of The Script and The Swell Season to give the ride a soundtrack. Casey texted me around lunch time asking me if I wanted to go to a Sondre Lerche concert that night at the Rock & Roll Hotel in D.C. and I told her to go ahead and get tickets.

When the train finally arrived at Union Station I walked along the platform and up the stairs into the station. Once inside I started to grab my phone out of my pocket but Casey came forward out of the crowd and hugged me. Patrick was nowhere in sight so I called and texted him, turned out he couldn't get transport Friday so we'd be seeing him Saturday. We then went downstairs and she got a piece of pizza. I had eaten on the train so we reminisced about Dublin and commented on how surreal it was to be meeting up and hanging out in the States as we had met in Ireland.

We soon headed outside to walk around D.C. I snapped a few shots but not many as I had been there before. The weather was absolutely gorgeous so it was nice to be out and about. We spent a couple of hours in the National Museum of American History. I had been there before but I didn't remember everything and some of the exhibits were new. Long story short we saw Dorothy's ruby red slippers, Abe Lincoln's hat, and Julia Child's kitchen among other things. When the museum closed at 5:30 we set out on a search for a restaurant to eat dinner at. We found a place that was like a cross between Q-doba's and Panera.

Soon it was time to head to the concert so we went to the metro station in order to get to Union Station so we could catch a cab. We were quite glad we had as the roads were under construction and the area that the Rock & Roll Hotel was in was quite sketchy. The venue itself was completely fine which I was thankful for. I got to meet Casey's friend Evan and one of his friends from work. We stood toward the front for the concert. JBM opened and he was awesome. I've been on a singer/songwriter kick lately so this concert was perfect. Sondre was absolutely amazing. I had heard of him before but I didn't realize who he was exactly. He did the music for the Dan In Real Life soundtrack which is where I had recognized his name from. I had a great time but by the end of it I was quite tired. Evan gave us a ride home and by the time I crashed on Casey's couch I had been up for about 24 hours on three hours of sleep.

Study, Ireland, Lecture, Ireland, Everywhere, Ireland

I learned about Giffen goods in Microeconomics today. They are goods that people buy more of when the price goes up and less of when the price goes down. There is only one recorded Giffen good in recent history. According to Dr. Sohng, it was the potato during the Irish potato famine. I know it's not a reliable source but, Wikipedia says otherwise:

Great Famine in Ireland

Potatoes during the Irish Great Famine were long believed to be the only example of a Giffen good. But this theory was debunked by Gerald P. Dwyer and Cotton M. Lindsey in their 1984 article Robert Giffen and the Irish Potato[3][4], where they showed the contradicting nature of the Giffen "legend" with respect to historical evidence.

The Giffen nature of the Irish potato was also later discredited by Sherwin Rosen of the University of Chicago in his 1999 paper Potato Paradoxes[5]. Rosen showed that the phenomenon could be explained by a normal demand model.

I still was slightly taken off guard by the whole thing and as usual had that overwhelming "I can't believe some other reference to Ireland came up this week" moment.

While studying copious amounts of material that I will never remember for Comparative Economics, I came across a reference to politics and Labour Parties. We discussed the fact, and I've noted, that in the UK and Ireland Labour Parties are considered actual political parties.

I keep coming across various headlines in The Economist that deal with Ireland, also ads for Innovation in Ireland.

I presented at Study Abroad Club this week. My audience was small, but it did me good to talk about it. I talked to a friend after about how it went and when I hung with him a mixture of stress relief from being done with it, exhaustion, and longing hit me in a small bout of tears. I'm just wondering how long this is going to go on for. The only thing I can really equate it to is heartbreak, but with a country, it's people, culture, customs, way of life, etc., instead of with a person.

One of the hardest things for me to come to grips with is the alienation part of reverse culture shock. Sure I felt super alienated when I first arrived in Ireland, but after a couple of weeks I stopped clinging to everything American and started to accept everything Irish. Part of the appeal of being overseas was the anonymity of it all. I was ok with feeling alone because no one knew me, there was no expectation, quite a bit of independence. Now that I'm home I find myself expecting more of people than I should which is frustrating. I missed out on things while I was gone and having had the experiences I did alienates me further as not many people can relate. When I find someone who has studied abroad, the conversation is like a rare gem. I want to hold onto it for safe keeping but I know I have to spread my fingers and let it fall through eventually because life stops for no one, especially college students with exams.

I'm getting antsy to go somewhere, anywhere. I wish I could afford to go back to Dublin, live there, go to other places in Europe on holiday. The only thing is I have family and friends I care about here. I'm having trouble defining what is important. Also while studying for Comparative I came across Skinner. We discussed him in class and his idea that we aren't free, we are influenced by the media, people, and the environment. They tell us what we want, we don't decide, we follow a trend.

You only get one life to live. So what do you do with it? Do you surround yourself with family and friends in your native country? Do you go to a foreign country and thrive on learning about a new culture and how people live life there?

When I was in Ireland I was so sure of what I wanted out of life. Now I'm not so sure and that scares me a bit.

Irish Google

My Google page thinks I'm still in Ireland. It comes up as www.google.ie and offers to switch to Gaeilge. Also I can search the web or pages from Ireland. This is grand.

"Not many people can do what you did. Don't take yourself for granted." -Dr. Trejos

You're Only Lonely

Despite my attempts to take steps forward back into life in America, this week has set me back quite a bit, probably by kilometers. I can't stop thinking about Ireland, everywhere I turn something reminds me of it. Even little things like Clarion changing our email over to Windows Live, which is the same email service I had at DBS. This week I've been missing various things. It probably all started with Google's Superbowl commercial deals with a student searching study abroad programs in Paris, France and ends with him falling in love with a French girl and moving there. I've also been working on my presentation for study abroad club this Monday, which brings all kind of memories flooding back. I made tea for the first time this week since break and all I could think was how good some 39 cent custard creams from Dunnes would taste with it. The piles of snow we received this week reminded me of how Ireland doesn't get snow.

Wednesday night I was doing just fine and then out of nowhere I was hit with an overwhelming feeling of loss and the impossibility of being able to go to Ireland at that exact moment. I'm quite fine when I'm distracted by school work or the cleaning of my apartment, but as soon as I stop it hits me. From that point I just had a hard time picking myself up again (something I have actually gotten quite good at). I think it would help if I had someone to help pick me up every now and then, but that just isn't in the cards right now. It would also help if I had some of my friends from Dublin close, but the closest are about 5 hours away. Sometimes it's difficult to believe it all ever happened without the validation of others. I have pictures, stories, and memories but it's difficult when no one really appreciates them.

Last night was even lower than Wednesday. It's like I fell and I just could stand up again. Every time I stopped crying, the tears decided to make another entrance. After a brief late night call to my mum, I decided I need to be home for the weekend. I was blaming part of my hysterics on a lack of sleep, but even with a full 8 hours plus last night, I still feel just as emotionally ridiculous.

Today I rode the bus for about 20-25 minutes back to my apartment, mainly because it circled downtown Clarion and campus. It is no where near as crowded as Dublin Bus, there are no stairs to an upper saloon, no one who rides it has an Irish accent, and it requires absolutely no skill to maneuver. Most students get on and at the most are on their mobile phone or listening to their ipod, maybe studying for a test. I am probably the only one who busts out a book or sudoku, which makes me feel like a seasoned traveler. Seasoned traveler's don't waste much time while on modes of transportation, they are emailing on their blackberry, reading the latest headlines in today's paper, reading a book on the NY Times Bestseller list, among various other activities to fill the time during a commute. I feel like a whole other breed completely.

According to this site, http://www.studentsabroad.com/reentrycultureshock.html, I'm in stage 3 of reverse culture shock.

"This is often one of the transitions to Stage 3. You may experience feelings of frustration, anger, alienation, loneliness, disorientation, and helplessness and not understand exactly why. You might quickly become irritated or critical of others and of U.S. culture. Depression, feeling like a stranger at home, and the longing to go back abroad are also not uncommon reactions. You may also feel less independent than you were while abroad."

I'm not necessarily angry, but everything else I definitely am. I just want someone to relate to. Some sense of familiarity with the life I lived abroad. Patrick is quite optimisic about going back, which gives me hope. I also heard from Mary, my host mum, which is helpful. It's good to know I have contacts in Ireland, and I quote "I don't know how many people were asking for you - Triona, Judith, Ruth, Aoife. They all really enjoyed your lovely gentle presence. I hope that all is well with you back at College and that your family are well." I miss Mary and her friends and family very much, they're my Irish family. I miss the American friends I made there too, I felt like they understood me. They all had this sense of adventure and the want to travel and explore. In a way they were my Irish family too, Americans acclimatized to Irish life. Well as my mum is going to be here momentarily, I best be signing off. Hopefully optimism will strike me before I post next.

Carcassonne, France

It's been over two months ago since I went to France, but here is the blog post better late than never:

December 4, 2009 I got on the earliest bus out of Harold's Cross that was headed to the airport so I could meet Casey and Abby so we could head to Carcassonne, France. The airport we flew into was quite small and none of us had bothered to look up how we would get transportation from the airport into the town. When we stepped outside it was raining and luckily there was a bus right outside waiting. For €5 each we were able to take the 10 minute bus ride in. The bus driver informed us that he would be stopping at the train station and he would then take those of us staying to respective hotels. Abby, Casey and I were in the back of the bus so when we got to the station they nominated me, as I had the guesthouse information, to go up and tell him the address. Coincidentally there was a woman from Ireland who was taking a weekend holiday as well and she was staying in the Millet Guesthouse too. The bus driver pointed us in the right direction and we got off and wandered down some pretty deserted streets. A bit of wandering and trying to figure out the numbering on the doors led us to the right place.

Mei and Richard greeted us when we rang the doorbell and then ushered us up to the second floor. We entered the dining area and they seated us around a table to finalize our payments. It was then that we learned our friend's name, Angie. John and Mae also gave us maps of the area along with suggestions for things to do. After dropping off our bags and freshening up a bit we decided to start our short trek toward the castle. Being a small out of the way town, not a whole lot was going on even though it was a Friday night. We would find a lot more people in the area Sunday who made day trips to visit. We checked out some shops and settled for a small French pub within the castle walls for dinner that night. Casey and Abby both had French Onion Soup, which Abby let me try and it was delicious. I had a ham and cheese baguette which was really good too. We celebrated our girls night with sangria and stories for about 5 hours. We finished the night off with cake and a hefty tip for our waiter for having one of his tables occupied the entire night. We did make sure periodically that we weren't holding anyone up but there were always free tables. The walk back was a bit rainy but we had fun with it, dancing and whatnot which made it go a lot faster than the walk up to the castle.

Saturday we got on a train to Montpellier. It was really nice to see some of the French countryside and a train was the best way to do it. We obviously stuck out because a couple of French girls about our age asked us where we were from and what in the world were we doing in that part of France. We just laughed and told them we were traveling and exploring, I'm sure they thought we were crazy. It's really no different from when I ask people why they have come to Franklin or Clarion, but we tend to take the places we live in and know for granted whereas those visiting are able to see it through brand new eyes. There was a Christmas market going on in town so we perused the stands before going to the Musée Fabre. They had a fantastic exhibit of work done by Jean Raoux, a Montpellier artist who influenced the history of French art in the XVIIIth century. I was able to gather most of what I needed from the explanations in French that were posted on the wall. The language barrier in and of itself made me really wish that our language programs in elementary and secondary school were better or even existent for that matter. If I can manage it, I'm definitely picking up a language, probably Spanish, while I'm still in school. After the museum we grabbed sandwiches on baguettes and I even got a delicious raspberry tart. We explored the city a bit more before catching our train back to Carcassonne.

Sunday we decided to head back up to the castle. We spent the day perusing shops and dodging other tourists. There was a band that walked around to different areas of the castle and they seriously played all day. They must have been exhausted, but they had quite a following audience. Alongside them were a couple of men on stilts and a couple of other men puppeteering giant sized puppets. That evening we ate at a restaurant which wasn’t very busy and the owner spoke very little English. What he did say to us dealt a lot with American movie stars which was quite an entertaining way to have someone relate to us. After dinner we were exhausted so we turned in for an early night. At that point I was itching to just get back to Dublin. I was quite excited on Monday when we headed for the airport with Angie. The flight was just over two hours but it felt like forever. When we touched down at Dublin Airport I got this overwhelming feeling that I was home. I was so excited I could barely contain myself. I waited for the 16A bus back into Harold’s Cross and I revelled in the fact that I could call this country, that had been foreign a mere three months before, home.

Every word you say I think I should write down

I'm in a very Irish mood today. I wrapped myself up in my wool Irish scarf for class, which I do every day but that is beside the point, I bought the film Once for $6.99 today in the campus bookstore, and I've been listening to The Script like no one's business. If I had my Irish blanket I would wrap up in it for my Friday afternoon nap, but alas it is at home on my desk chair so my fleece blanket will have to suffice for now. It's days like these that it would be best if I just locked myself in my room and didn't come out. The only acceptable reason to emerge is if someone Irish was in town or if one of my American acclimatized Irish friends came to visit. For now I have to settle for what I have and pick myself up like always. There is no sense in lying down and missing what is going on around me, but I do like to take a few hours every now and then to think of the city I lived in for a semester.

So it's about 10 hours since I left this. Quite a bit of snow has fallen and I've just returned from seeing Dear John with a couple of good friends. I can't say that I was impressed with the movie. I read the book two years ago but I don't remember the plot line whatsoever. I can say that the only time I cried was at a father-son moment and not even in the chicky romance parts. Also Schuyler Fisk strikes this blog a second time as her duet with Joshua Radin called Paperweight was played more than once during the film and then again at the beginning of the credits. It is now on repeat on my itunes as I sit in the dark in my pajamas in the kitchen with the blinds open so I can see the snow falling against the glow of the street light. I don't exactly know what to say aside from that other than the fact is what I want out of life changes daily and I'm not sure how to cope with it. My uncertainty is the only sure thing for me right now.

Movies always make me super contemplative, unless it's The Hangover. In a round about way I'm going to blame my parents for this, and by blame I should really say credit them. They taught me when I was younger, and I heard it time and time again, that you should be nice to everyone. Sounds like a simple concept, but over the years it has become quite complex. Being nice is not only an act to someone's face but also the thoughts you have in your mind once walking away from them. Everyone judges, I do my fair share, but I have been trying to give people the benefit of the doubt. For real we know very few people well in our lives, and even those that we know well are holding vaults of information inside of them that we may never have access to.

This brings me to a time in Dublin when I was standing in front of the entrance to St. Stephen's Green with a friend and we were just watching tons of people go by. He looked at me and said, "Isn't it crazy to think that all of these people, their lives are just as real to them as our's are to us? We will never know them they won't matter in our lives, to us they're just passing by on the street." I think it's important to consider this and take it into account when actually encountering people. Their life may mean nothing to you, but it means everything to them. A three second or three minute encounter may be all you get in this lifetime but life is made up with many of those. I guess at this point I just wish I had more people in my life that I could be close to instead of just catching up on occasion. I'm in the process of finding myself and what I want, but sometimes it gets a bit lonely and I get quite bored of myself to be honest. I rather enjoy hearing about someone's day or week and looking beyond myself. I like to think that reading about the rest of the world does that, but print on paper only goes so far. This all goes back to what I wrote the other day; I need to focus on the people in my life more than I have been lately. I may not always show it, but they do mean the world to me, they are my world and I love them.

Work In Progress

So I've been thinking about a lot lately and meaning to write it all down but I just never have the motivation at the end of the day, so perhaps if I have a blog I can have more drive to keep it updated. I should probably start off by saying that the title for this blog comes from a song sung by Schuyler Fisk called From Where I'm Standing. You should probably just look her up, she's absolutely amazing and she's my favorite.

Next is my motivation to do anything beyond school work or cleaning my apartment. After spending a semester in Ireland I was a bit concerned about my productivity coming back, but I've been quite fine with it. The problem with my motivation comes in when trying to invest myself back into relationships with my friends and family. I'm trying to keep a running list of people I need to contact or see. Hopefully I'll have it down to an art soon, but right now it's kind of a mess. These things take time and emotional investment, which is why throwing myself into work is just so much easier at the moment. Work has become my distraction from the fact that I'm no longer in Dublin, no longer a stone's throw from mainland Europe, no longer across the pond. What I really need to do is take the piece of my heart that I left over there, get it back, and give it to those around me. I returned a phone call from four days ago today and I arranged lunch with another friend who has been trying to hang out with me for a week and a half now. For now consider it a work in progress.

A lot has been going on lately and in the midst of it all my Economic Development class sticks out the most. I just can't help but think about the rest of the world and how blessed I am to be where I am. People try to justify the reason for why we have life so good and others don't, I really feel like it's just luck of the draw. I've decided that no one gets what they deserve in life. No one deserves to be born into a developed country. No one deserves to be born into an underdeveloped country, but most of the world is. I feel like it's part of my duty to do something to help those out who are less fortunate. I've briefly, and I mean briefly, looked into the Peace Corps, not sure about it yet but I feel like it could be a viable option post graduation. Until then I'll just have to keep reading The Economist and focus a lot of energy on my project for Econ Dev which will focus on how the increase of enrolment in primary education in Sub-Saharan Africa would better their lives. Hopefully it'll turn out well and I'll be able to present it at the Economic Conference at Grove City College in June.

Well it's time to bake some cookies, finish laundry, and go to bed. Today was the one unproductive work day I've had since coming back, but I made some calls and sent some texts so I'm considering it productive in other ways.