Thanks a Million

In honour of my one-month anniversary of coming home, I am listing the million—well let’s see how far I get—things I either loved about Ireland, I got in trouble or nearly in trouble for saying in Ireland or in the States, or I things I thought were hilarious 

1.     Flying 5 thousand miles (8 thousand Km) to live and work with people I have never met—thrilling

2.     Meeting the best Erasmus group that ever existed—words aren’t proficient

3.     Having Moville surprise (not so surprise after the first one or two) birthday parties—brilliant and inventive

4.     Creating new themes for Moville birthday parties that were original and mirrored the personalities of the birthday person—Moville Erasmus 2011 should start their own party planning company

5.     Working with the best Múinteoiri (teachers) that ever existed—again words are not proficient

6.     Using the metric system—hallelujah: finally I could use the system that makes sense.  What do we call ours except confusing (inches divided into 16^ths, 12 inches to the foot, 3 feet to the yard, 5280 ft to the mile…need I have more proof?)

7.     Taking turns cooking and experiencing the foods from other countries—yummy

8.     Irish spellings; colour, honour, centre, travelling, realising, programme etc.—we are such lazy spellers in the States

9.     Saying “haych” for “h” and “zed” for “z”—Love it even though “….x, y, zed, next time won’t you sing with me”  doesn’t really flow, but hey at least it’s not my voice messing up the rhythm and rhyme.

10. Saying half one for half past one and Wednesday week for a week from Wednesday—love confusing people in the states.

11. “Hiya”—took me almost the whole four months to realize that it was like saying “Hi.  How are you?”

12. Saying BalleyferMUHH-sound like a real Balleyfermot-ian

13. Going on holiday with 10 teachers you work with—never imagined I would socialize with people I worked with since that rarely happens in the States—work is usually separated from play.  Why is it almost an unwritten rule in the Sates that coworkers can’t also be friends? 

14. Making fun of the “mythical” Fungie—“meow” (that’s what Damien thought the mechanical Fungie would say instead of the dolphin’s typical “ee” or whatever sound a dolphin makes)

15. Finding out that Fungie was real—priceless—actually the fare…and well deserving tip...for the boat tour since seeing Fungie meant our boat trip was not free

16. Being called Múinteoir Caitlin—still showing respect, yet so informal…love it

17. Writing the date with the days of the week in Gaeilge: An Luan, An Máirt, An Céadaoin, An Déardaoin, An Aoine—In the States I get weird looks when I ask what plans someone has for Aoine.

18. Morning prayer, special intentions, and end of the day prayer—who would of thought I’d become “religious?”

19. Accidently saying “ride” for lift—perhaps something the guys loved to hear, but not so much what you intended to ask for or wanted to thank someone for.

20. Having a girl come up to you in class concerned about a character’s name of Fanny in her book and you reassuring her that it’s fine—so glad I didn’t ask my CT (cooperating teacher) what the big deal was; also glad I didn’t ask the kids to sit down on their fannies—I could probably have seen how fast the Irish equivalent for CPS would arrive.

21. Speaking—well writing—of CPS, saying “Boy did I give out to little Johnny in class today” in the States would definitely bring on an investigation—giving out in Ireland merely means scolding

22.  Now that I’m on the “OH…is that what that means?,” I will never watch Glee with out laughing hysterically when the title comes up before the finger making the “L” finishes the spelling of Glee

23.  Glee brings me to the gleeful—literally “Glee”-ful mornings of the Múinteoiri singing and harmonizing scores from musicals or just random songs in the staff room—wish I was somewhat musically talented so I could have joined in, but (a) I cannot remember lyrics for the life of me and (b) I did not want to clear the room in two seconds flat.

24.  The staff room—more like a spa—what schools in the states have tea and biscuits during their break?

25.  Also what schools in the States have a tea lady making them tea during their break?

26.  And what schools in the States relieve teachers from class for ten minutes for small break and thirty minutes for big break when they have yard duty?—no wonder our teachers are so stressed in the states

27.  Experiencing the pub life—do I need to explain?

28.  Guinness—true Guinness not that garbage they sale in the states

29.  Becoming a fan of Henrietta Game—when they are world famous, I can say that I both worked with them and listened to them in pubs in Ireland when they were just putting out their CD

30.  Using the double-decker buses for transportation—so cool, until people decided to smoke cigarettes or joints in them

31.  Occasionally walking the 7.99 miles from school to home—great exercise and not too scary—although I was told not to linger in certain neighbourhoods for too long

32.  Walking home after listening to Henrietta Game late at night after promising that we would take the bus or a taxi—not scary, but most likely stupid

33.  Staying up until 2am most nights to work on my PACT assignment, college work, and lesson plans and then getting up at 6am to get ready for teaching…also spending about 8 hours on Saturday and Sunday to work—how I did not fall asleep while teaching is a miracle

34.  Playing football with the Erasmus group and having the guys play easy for the girls without appearing to—sweet

35.  Learning slán for goodbye and then slan go foíll for goodbye for now—now I don’t ever just say slán.

36.   Going back to my “home” country—wonderful—okay so it is my ancestor’s home country but erin go bragh says it all.  Even after generations of American-born family, I still feel connected to Ireland

37.  Having the best four months of my life—unforgettable, amazing, full of craic…

38.  Thinking about returning—every second of the day for the past 30 days.

Le gach dea-ghuí,

Caitlin

I met a lot of people in Europe. I even encountered myself. ~James Baldwin

Traveling is my love, my life.  It is what envelops and develops me. I think I have always been destined for lands unknown and for journeys within myself and among foreign places and people. 

When I was a child I was drawn to globes and maps.  There was nothing more beautiful as a depiction of the lands of the world.  I would run my fingers along the concave and convex lines representing the borders of countries and of continents. Spinning our globe slowly at first and then more quickly I would stare until sea and land blurred into one, then with my eyes closed I would place my index finger on the globe to stop it. Opening my eyes I would discover the place I would one day go.  What would it be like to live there, what were the people like, the food, the culture, the weather?  Would I like it?  More times than not, I would open my eyes to find myself in the middle of one of our oceans.  I knew even at a young age that the probability of landing on an ocean was very likely…after all it makes up 70% of Earth.  When I would see sea, my questions change to “would I be on a ship destined to a country nearby or thousands of feet above the water in an airplane?”  Which country would I be headed to and which country had I left?

My first trip overseas was in high school with my history class.  My AP history teacher had planned a trip of Italy and France—two countries that he had never been to, but was in love with and new the history of.  I could not wait to go on this week and a half journey throughout Europe.  Mr. Hobbs was both enthusiastic about the trip and full of knowledge.  I was particularly looking forward to seeing Versailles, since I believed Mr. Hobbs knew more about it than the Sun King had himself.  However, this wonderful history-filled trip was not meant to be.  Mr. Hobbs’ cancer had returned and this time the cancer would win.  I knew Mr. Hobbs would not want us to cancel the trip, so we found another teacher to take us.  The trip changed from an educational point with an exuberant history-loving teacher to just being a high school trip.  I was sick with the flu the whole time and I felt like the trip was “see Italy and France in 9 seconds” rather than 9 days.  Even with all the downfalls, I knew that I loved traveling—but the next time I would not do a tour; I would stay for an extended amount of time and would go alone.

My next two trips overseas, I did go alone and I did stay for extended amount of times.  I moved to Ansbach, Germany twice.  Once for four months and a second time for three.  There, I worked with children on a military post through a program called Camp Adventure.  Both times were incredible.  I met new friends and traveled on the weekends.  Still I learned what I would do the next time I traveled overseas.  While the program was great in that it paid for my airfare, gave me college credit, and a weekly living stipend, it was very limiting.  We had curfews, check-ins, the buddy system, a no fly and a no drive restriction.  I lived in Germany, but was confined to the U.S. military post unless other Camp Adventure interns wanted to venture out into the country. 

My fourth time traveling overseas was a charm for me.  Perhaps it was the luck of the Irish. I moved to Dublin after being accepted into the Ireland Exchange Opportunity.  While there, I student taught at an extraordinary primary school, lived with humorous and kind-hearted Erasmus students, and explored Dublin to my heart’s content.  Prior to going to Ireland, one of my aunts bought two Ireland travel books for me because she knew I would want to experience every inch of Ireland while I was there.  The funny thing is that I read through both books on my way to Ireland, yet once in Dublin, I had little desire to leave.  Yes, I wanted to see all of the Emerald Isle, however, first I wanted to discover Dublin.  I spent four months not doing the touristy things, but becoming a Dubliner.  Leisurely enjoying a drink at a café or pub(s), strolling in the city’s many parks like Merrion Square or Stephens Green, shopping on O’Connell Street or window shopping on Grafton Street, and attending my students’ concert at the National Concert Hall.  I found my niche. I enjoyed the unhurried and unstressed air to both the workplace and life itself. 

Traveling envelops me.  It’s like an enormous embrace of culture, novelty, and beauty.  I love how I feel comfortable when in unfamiliar settings.  Traveling breaks down prejudices and makes me see how similar we all are while still learning about and accepting our differences.

Travel develops me.  When I travel alone, I am forced out of my comfort zone.  I can’t take my sweet time getting close to people.  I can’t be shy like I normally am.  I need to become gregarious and willing to get to know others.  Each time I travel I open up a little more.  These people I meet also have never known me, so I can become who I want to be.  I am not changing who I am; I am merely highlighting the parts about my personality that I like.  If I did this with friends I have known for a very long time, they may think I’m being fake or not the real me.  Going to new places and meeting new people, I get to redefine myself.  I can be the jokester, more assertive, more confident, and less shy person that is the real me.

Do you believe in love at first sight?

I started this blog to write about my life, love and travel, yet I have not blogged for a while.  Perhaps this is because I do not believe I am an eloquent writer; a writer who can depict exactly what they are thinking or feeling in words—thanks a lot Blarney Stone, I kissed you upside down for nothing!

Why I decided to actually start a blog beats me.  I have always been the “keep your feelings to yourself” person.  I had a few diaries growing up, but I never wrote in them in case someone read about my secret crush or other things that would have just “killed” me if someone found out.   (I do remember writing about a crush once, but within a week I was sure somebody had read it, so I tore up the pages and then placed them in different trash cans). I still sort of have that mentality of keeping to yourself.  To this day my dearest friends usually don’t even know my crushes or deepest feelings. 

Now I have an On-line journal that describes my thoughts and feelings and I don’t stop there—no I then announce it to my friends on Facebook.  For someone who is extremely shy (some of you may not believe this about me, but it is pretty true) it’s a crazy notion that I now have a blog for anyone to read.

Today’s blog is my thoughts on love.  Perhaps tomorrow I’ll write about life or traveling.

Do you believe in love at first sight?

Ahh..the phenomenon of love at first sight.  Are you a believer in it?  Personally I am not.  That could be because I have never been a victim—if you will—of it.  I do believe that love at first sight is possible (but very rare) for others, but not for me.

Oh yes, I am one to walk by a guy of the street and think that he is adorable, attractive or just down right hot (these are all very different adjectives to describe very different guys).  As quick as these thoughts enter my mind they also leave my mind.  I am not one to be drawn to someone by looks alone.  For me love is something that must grow and evolve.  I am much more attracted to personalities than a connection based on a first glimpse.  Hey, looks are a definite bonus but not essential (good teeth are essential and I will not compromise on that, however).  I am someone who likes to know a person, although,  I never go into a friendship thinking, “I hope this goes further than ‘friendship status.’”  No, I love the normal friendship.  I love the craic (fun), inside jokes, stories, honesty and non-judgment that is shared between good friends.  Then weeks, months, or even years (hopefully not too many years) later you find that your connection is more than mere friendship.  I write “mere friendship” as if friendship is a lesser status, however, it is not.  If I thought this, then I would not be insistent as having it as a foundation.

This way of thinking/believing that true love happens only after becoming dear friends does have its downfalls…many downfalls.  He may find who he thinks is his one as you discover you believe he is the one for you.  He may move away; you may move away.  You may not fall in love with each other at the same time or you are too terrified that showing your true feelings can and will ruin your friendship.

Heck, maybe my wanting friendship first is just because I’m terrified of getting myself too deep too fast then feeling either suffocated or getting hurt.  Yeah, maybe that’s it.  If so, I just wasted a heck of a lot of time writing the initial part of this blog.

One thing I know for sure, though.  A love that lasts must also have friendship, honesty and humor.  Perhaps the order in which these come does not matter as long as you accomplish and maintain all of them.

Help—I have an obsessive-compulsive mind and I’m stuck with a scattered brain!

Much to my parents’ disagreement, I love order in my life.  I could be the psychologist and bore you with incidents and experiences growing up that make me want certain things in a certain order or tasks done a certain way, but they would probably just be excuses for my craziness.  We’ll just say that I am meticulous about some things because it is something that I have total control over.  Life may be unpredictable, but at least my books will be in perfect order.  The paperbacks (fiction) are alphabetical, and then the hardcover (fiction) books are alphabetical.  The non-fiction is organized into the topics—no I do not go as far as the Dewey Decimal System (I don’t have a big enough collection for that).  My “library”—as I call it—is in the guest room of my parents’ house…aka my dad’s office.  My dad often places his stuff on one of my library shelves, which is a big no no.  I not only take his “stuff” off the shelf, I then have to go the hundreds of books to make sure that nothing else invaded or messed up the order of the books.

A few other quirks I have:

My closet has to be organized so that there are the pants part (denim on one side, dress pants on the other), a top part (tee-shirts on one side, blouses on the other), a coat part (casual coats on one side, dress coats in the middle, winter coats on the other side) a dress part (formal dresses on one side, summer dresses on the other), and a baseball jersey part like every all-American girl’s closet should have.

Colored pencils and crayons need to be organized like a rainbow in their boxes (when you are looking for a certain hue of blue, it is a lot easier to find if the blues are together) and pencils, pens, and highlighters need to be kept in their separate piles, and all need to be facing the same way—it does not matter that they are in a drawer that no one will see.

The kitchen is a big stressor for me. The fridge should only have magnets that a) match b) have meaning or c) a and b.  Photos or a few important notes can be on the fridge, but none of these should overlap because then it is too much of an overload for my mind.  I collect magnets from places I visit, so that my fridge when I move out has just meaningful magnets with meaningful pictures underneath them.  The organization of the contents in the fridge is also very important.  Things like orange juice or pickles cannot be next to the milk, nor can they be next to each other.  I think about (the impossibility) of them mixing and it turns my stomach.  I also don’t like raw meat anywhere near anything.  AND mayonnaise does not belong in the fridge; it belongs in the trash!  Cutting boards in the kitchen—there should be one for raw meat and however many for anything else.  Dirty dishes should be cleaned, but if I am lazy (which, unfortunately, I often am) they should be rinsed and in the sink (by this time, it’s easier just to finish washing them, dry them, and put them away).  At no time (unless doing the dishes that minute) can there be water in the sink. The sink in the kitchen should be turned on and off with your wrist.

My toiletries also have certain places.  My floss, toothbrush, toothpaste and any other teeth-related objects cannot be in the same drawer as anything else.  My extra towels and cleaning supplies are under the sink, but they cannot touch one another. 

My special quirks don’t stop at my house.  No I have freak-out sessions away from the house.  After filling up my car with gas, I have to use hand-sanitizer on my hands, the steering wheel, the door handle, the keys, the radio and anything else I may have touched.  I have been told that hand-sanitizer doesn’t really kill anything and that it may even just kill the good germs, but it is a psychological thing I must do.  Door handles in bathrooms must never be touched.  I love when they put the trash bin next to the door. When they don’t, I have to use my shirt as a protection barrier between my hand and the door handle.  I hate to break this to you, but there has not been days that I do not see someone just walk out of a bathroom without washing their hands.  Just thinking about that makes me want my hand-sanitizer.

So there you have it—I am very obsessive compulsive.  I am also very scatterbrained.  In other words I describe myself as having an obsessive-compulsive brain without the capability to uphold it.  I often find my closet in disarray, the orange juice next to the milk, dirty dishes in the sink and when I start my “who put the...” tantrum, my mom informs me that it was me—and it often is me who did it.  I like things done a certain way, but I rarely put them in that way.

This is the reoccurring theme in my life:  I spend a good week or nine organizing and reorganizing my room, the kitchen, my bathroom and my library.  It stays organized for a time.  Sometimes it’s a month and other times it’s an hour or two.  Slowly—or quickly—entropy takes place and everything becomes out of sorts.  I deal with this until it drives me absolutely berserk and then I spend a week or nine putting everything back in order.

Funny side note:  in one of my need to be organized frenzies, I took everything out of the kitchen and out then put it back in a way that made sense to me—at the time.  “At the time” is the key thing here because after a year and a half of it being organized this way, I still have no idea where anything is. 

Today is exactly two-weeks since I have been away from Dublin and organizing my life back home is keeping me sane—or insane depending on how you want to look at it.  I have literally cleaned out my room five times and organized the library twice.  I haven’t gotten to my bathroom, the kitchen, or the laundry room yet, but in time I’ll get there.  I strive for perfection in my life especially when I don’t know where it is headed.  I need order to anchor me and so I organize.