sit down son

But we'll get to the question bit later.

I have officially finished classes, and depending on various different things, I might be done with structured classes for...well. Ever. At least ones that I'm taking. I don't know. I'm supposed to be writing a paper, but instead I'm having Epiphanies. Big shocking revelations about my life and what I want to do with it.

Actually, not that shocking if you really know me.

I've been talking for a while about staying on here, doing my PhD here. I have decided that I don't want to do this. The only reason I DID was because I was getting attached to people and I was comfortable here.

Well you know what? I don't do "comfortable." I've got wanderlust, man. It's time for something new. Plus Trinity, for as fun as it is, is a bit old-fashioned for my tastes and I don't think that's quite how I want to spend my researchin' years. It's been a great experience, eye-opening in many cases, but it's almost time to mosey on. Have to finish properly first, of course. But after that.

So I'm going home. Well, not home, because when I get back, home will be sold and gone (still a very weird thing to hear about, trust me). But back to the states. I'm probably going to stay with my parents for a while in North Carolina. Get a job. Re-take my GRE's, figure out what I really want to research, do some prelim work on said research, draft a few proposals, etc. Basically Not Be In School. I've been in school since I was 5 years old with no breaks. So many people take gap years, I've just been charging on ahead and I am TIRED. So I'm hitting the pause button. Taking a break. Going to find a nice library or something to work in. Take some pastry classes (and mom just told me they have a bartending school as well. Sounds good!) You know. FIND MYSELF or whatever.

Not that I don't know where I am. I'm in Dublin. With the wanderlust beast chasing me around trying to bite me.

So once I've done that, there is the Question.

Where should I go?

And I'm asking for suggestions here! What places sound cool? Know of any cool school with good departments for literary research with interesting areas of specialty? Etc, etc, so on and so forth. I've been glancing at Wales. Before I got obsessed with Ireland it was my area of choice in These Isles. Thinking about looking for something there, perhaps! One of the Unis has a specialty in Robin Hood, which amuses me. Serious, Robin Hood? Just throw me random ideas! Anything you like! Hey, I might make one of them work. How do you think I ended up here? A random idea, presented originally by an internet friend, that I got to thinking about and Made Work.

Tim Gunn would love me. MAKIN' IT WORK!

PS: New AIM name running on pidgin because it is chat compatible but for all other things, I prefer digsby, which isn't. So, MM folks, as I am rejoining TODAY, any chat invites you might be inclined to toss my way? Please aim them at themegaloooo. With four o's. Someone had yoinked my sn. >(

PPS: I'm getting piiiizza. *_* Dominos is so, so tasty.

I have managed not to die. Yet. I barely slept the past two night while running in frantic circles to write an essay (which was really quite good, actually!), the madness of which can be be explained by the fact that my works cited was two pages long while the essay itself was 13.

I picked up and deposited my refund check today as well, that should go through in the next few days and then I'll pay my rent and have MONEY and can like....buy things. Which will be nice. *_* Though I should probably apply for a laser card because buying everything in cash is getting a bit ridiculous.

Uuuuhm. I am working on applying to stay here for three more years. On the PhD program. It is a bit stressful because they gave me ONE WEEK, NO MORE THAN THAT! to get it all together. Thankfully "all" of it is my updated CV, a research outline and two references. Really, picking the topic and getting the refs are the tricky bits. I'm a bit torn. But I shall get it done!! And...hopefully get it. Then Oana and I can go apartment hunting and life will be good.

Danny might be moving into my flat. That would also make life very, very good as I would not feel so UTTERLY ALONE when I'm in the midst of those crazy literary sprees because no one here gets it. It is depressing. But that's life, I suppose. Not everyone can fling themselves into that sort of chaos and gleefully muddle about in it until it makes sense. Or gets half as irate as I do when poets I like are underappreciated.

Speaking of! Several Irish writers who are NOT, in fact, that underappreciated, but are in fact very very cool are going to be very very much in Dublin tomorrow to give a series of readings for Amnesty International.

Guh. Want. to. go. And it's free! I just need to be like....caught up with my shit. Which is easier said than done. :(

Also happy belated birthday, Denise! I kept meaning to post it on the day but that is when my brain sorta....died. :( Hope it was awesome!!

TO DO LIST!
- Read ch 9 and 9 of Joyce's Ulysses.
- Update CV
- Chose topic to spend life researching (pearsepearsepearse?)
- Make that into a coherent research proposal
- Acquire those references. Which is easier said than done when one won't email me back. ahhhhhh!
- Read a pile of Heaney poems (omg he is one of the people for tomorrow BTW)
- Read Eureka Street
- Read ch 10 and 11 of Ulysses
- Get bank draft and pay rent
- Sleeeeep!

Things I would LIKE to do
- Finish re-watching Merlin
- Catch up on, oh, ALL MY MANGA. I am WEEKS behind, guys.
- Watch Robin Hood
- Bake things
- Have more time to sleep

As for now, shower and then study session. I WILL MAKE IT, I WILL.

[Poll #1303528]

You have until 8pm GMT tomorrow to give me your answers, otherwise it will be TOO LATE.

Yes, it really exists.

What the hell! Now I know why I never bothered with the anon memes before. You people are nuts when you get to be anon. It doesn't honestly bug me that much because, well. I know myself better than a bunch of people out in cyberspace that don't see my actually expressions and clearly can't tell that I'm very rarely serious about anything ever and that I play things up for humor like crazy. But really, if I annoy you so badly, go ahead and defriend, it won't hurt my feelings.

IN OTHER NEWS as I had a nap and woke up to that madness, today was the Long Day on campus with the four hour break between classes. There is absolutely no purpose in coming back to halls in between because it takes a good 45 minutes sometimes and you can't predict when it'll take that long or less time so might as well just stay and save yourself the walking or the bus/luas fare. The past two Thursdays I've gotten 4 hours of Terrence Brown for class, which is sort of an overdose on Terrence Brown, really! He's an interesting prof but 7 hours with him in a week is a bit much!! We move on to our next Major Authors prof on Tuesday, who is also teaching Yeats. Two more weeks of courses, holy crap! Then exam week and I write another paper and then HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS! WHERE IT'S WARM!!! I am looking forward to being WARM for once in my life, hahaha!

Quiet night tonight! Just sort of chilling by myself in my room. Going to turn on "Definitely, Maybe" and eat a few chocolate bars with air bubbles and drink tea and just be a girl girl girl. We were originally supposed to jam tonight, but then the boys were going to play football, but then the pitch was double booked by the badminton team and then we all just went "fuck it." But I think the band or whatever it is might actually get a gig together, which would be insanely fun. And has been insanely fun just in the jamming, though I found I had forgotten all the words to My Immortal yesterday, whoops. Had to look those up! Also working on 9 Crimes and Everything Burns. Why is there a disposition towards DEPRESSING MUSIC? Pretty, though.

Speaking of music, have you guys heard the song "Galway Girl?" I'll assume yes, I think it's in P.S. I Love You. Point is that there are three main types of places to go drinking: Pubs, which are quiet and mostly for talking, Clubs, which are pretty much a meat market, and this weird combination which is my favorite. It's a brighter atmosphere with loud music and dancing, but it definitely doesn't fall under "club" or "pub." They're good fun, though and there are two I rather like- Rody Boland's and Flannery's (though Flannery's VERGES on club-- there is no cover and it's pretty bright, despite generally being packed-- the packed being the verging bit). At BOTH of these almost EVERY time I go to EITHER of them, they play Galway Girl. It's a song I think I'm going to associate with this year for the rest of my life just based on how often I hear it! Good memories already. :D

MOVIE TIME!!

I forgot to update for like, a million years.

Well, not so much FORGOT as just had no idea how to form everything into one entry because there was just SO MUCH over the course of one week that it just wasn't POSSIBLE to sit down and churn out a quick entry detailing a few days. Yeah. Halloween was fucking insaaaaane and awesome and awkward (occasionally) and hilarious and, well, rather intoxicated on the whole. And lasted more than just the one night for some reason.

Mom, I know you're reading this. Halloween definitely existed.

Okay, that aside! We're in what, like week 6 now? Considering there's only 9 in total that's sort of like. Crazy. I only have a few weeks left, then the exam week during which I get to write an essay on Yeats. I'm actually CURRENTLY doing an essay on Edgeworth but one can only research for so long before one's head explodes! So I'm taking my break and at least attempting to write a coherent blogly update.

*PSA*: if you don't read copperbadge but do read shoebox_project, note that it has been hacked. Do not click the link. Bad things supposedly happen. Keyloggers that can steal your password and erase your journal! Bad things. Go look at copperbadge and read comments for how to avoid these things. Hopefully it'll all be sorted soon enough.

So let's see! I've talked to a few people in IM about the soap-opera-ness of my life as of late so I don't think I'll rehash that, really. If you can catch me, you're welcome to ask and I might perhaps fill you in a bit. Depends on my mood! But all that seems to have calmed down and ceased to be an awkward mess of "what am I supposed to do" and has left me with some really great friends, being the butt of a good number of jokes from various other friends and just generally a grand time of things. It works, that's the important part.

And speaking of good friends! Me and a few of mine have worked out the perfect way to feed ourselves. Dinner rotation! We have four people (myself, Shannon, Oana and George) and we trade off nights of cooking a full meal. Someone who didn't cook does the dishes, we rotate between kitchens, etc. It works out really well because it means we get four GOOD meals a week (as we all can apparently cook!), three of which we don't do anything for and four nights of good company while we sit around cooking/eating/chatting. It's really great fun. The plan is to go to Belfast this weekend as well. We're renting a car and hitting the road! Time to explore the country! Excitement! We've been talking a bit about the possibility of using one of the real next term to go snowboarding. Possibly in Austria if we can work out the logistics, which I really hope we can! Shannon is also determined that we need to invade George's country and teach me to swim. Because apparently being in Crete will force me to actually learn. I call it an excuse, not that I'm complaining. Basically I have an awesome close-knit group of friends now. As opposed to just knowing everyone a little. Which I still do, of course, but hey. You get the idea.

Classes really are going pretty well, still. The prof that taught Edgeworth wasn't particularly interesting though, which made me sad. I genuinely like Edgeworth and she was making me want to fall asleep. Day two of it was better because we...didn't let her talk much. It got into a lot of discussion--much more entertaining. One of the classes was cancelled and we'll have it on Monday. Sort of amusing how they reschedule things at random times! Thing is, they know when all our classes are as we don't get to choose them, really. The set curriculum really can't be deviated from all that much except for picking which of the two options you want to take. I was saying in comments to ruriruri earlier that it DOES mean that I can't have 3597235 things set to be due at once, which is handy! I have this essay due Monday, then one Dec 12, then the option course essay on Jan 19 for this term. We get all of Christmas for the last one and all of exam week for the Yeats one! Not bad, I say! Similar going for Hillary term after Christmas. (This term is called Michaelmas, btw! We also have Trinity Term, which is a series of lectures, apparently? And meant for us to work on our dissertations.)

I've taken to watching House as of late in addition to my Grey's Anatomy and Bones. Of course, this means I actually had to catch up. I'm finished with all of season 1 and the first disc of season 2. The random episodes I caught on TV before make much more sense now in context of the storyline. Shannon with her enormous collection of DVDs has been my favorite thing ever in this venture!

I've sort of picked RPing a little as well. Not NEARLLLLY to the extent I was this summer, but I at least am sort of paying attention and commenting. Funny thing is that even though it feels like I've been here no time at all, as soon as I started typing IC again, I realized how much the speech patterns here have affected me. It wasn't all that obvious when I was just speaking or talking in my own voice, but trying to slide back into a voice I'd set and distinguished as a CHARACTER'S voice was really, really strange. I kept catching myself and thinking "This is not how I would have phrased this before!" So I think Dino's speech is turning a bit Irish. If you even notice it, forgive me! But I think it's just more of something that *I* notice. Quirks of speech and all. Bah.

Annnnnyhow. I've almost entirely stopped drinking soda except for on rare occasions. That actually started back in the first few weeks when it was just expensive and not readily available--which hasn't changed, honestly. But I still drank it because I needed the caffeine and wasn't getting it from anywhere else. It's a strange and terrible addiction, but one I've had for years and years and years. However! At this point, it has been replaced. With tea! Which...I hated before I got here. Have I mentioned how much I love Irish tea in here yet? Because I really, really do. Just the crappy cheap stuff (according to the tea connoisseurs in my acquaintance), also known as Barry's Gold Blend. But from this new obsession I have discovered a device that I never realized how much I needed. Because I'd never had one. This magical invention is the ELECTRIC TEA KETTLE. Boiling water in minutes! Beyond the use of MAKING TEA, it can also be used in cooking! A brilliant invention! No waiting for the burner on the stove to heat the pot to heat the water to boil! MINUTES! And the lovely sound of water as it heats and boils in MINUTES!

....You get the idea, I'm sure. Electric tea kettle. A+. $15 at Walmart. I looked. (CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT NOW.)

One of the things my sister (birdythenerdy) was most concerned about in regards to me Going Off On My Own was that I have a brilliant hair cut, but she feared that I would never actually style it. I have noticed something rather hilarious in this regard. My hair cut, as it should be styled, involves simply using a blow dryer and a round brush to curl it under. This country, as a general rule, has a lot of rain. However, MOST days I do NOT in fact get rained on for whatever stroke of luck. BUT. Any day on which I take the effort to DRY and curl my hair under, I inevitably get rained on. AS SUCH. I style my hair with a combination of bobby pins, hair spray and a bit of dexterity. Which everyone seems to think is difficult and fancy, but in reality only takes me about five minutes. Do disregard the bathrobe, it is warm and comfy and actually just thrown on over my sweater and jeans. I think it works well enough. It also keeps my hair out of my FACE with the giant gusts of wind. You can also see a few of my collection of books that litter the window sill and shelf behind my bed. They're everywhere, quite literally. Some are bought, some are from home, many are from the TCD Library where they have 4.5 Million books and at least one copy of basically anything published in these isles since about 1960 when they figured that they possibly should just expand the library as opposed to pawning off sacks of books at random people like hospitals and soldiers just because they lacked space. Rather defeats the purpose of being a copyright library and entitled to a copy of All Things Printed, don't you think?

....How off topic did THAT paragraph get! Perhaps I should stop. I'm in your interwebs, cloggin up your flist. >D

Or something. I am moving on from DAILY UPDATES OF RANDOM THINGS.

Okay, actually? I just couldn't top the whole Shower Thing. Man, those raping curtains, they are untoppable. Unsurprising, really. Can't be helped!!

I have just acquired a new roommate within the past five minutes or so. I heard voices from my little world of manga and went "THAT IS A VOICE I DO NOT KNOW, WHO IS HERE?!" Lo and behold! New roommate. I have no idea who he is, yet. But he got the room across from mine? IDEK! Moving on.

Yesterday I actually went out and STAYED out most of the day! I woke up, attempted to avoid curtain-rape (failed, failed and failed. woe is me!), talked to my mom on skype while eating a quick mean and then his the road! I went up to city centre, signed the lot of us up for a tour and...walked around for 5 1/2 hours.

This is not an exaggeration! It was cold, it was wet, cobblestones hurt my feet but I PERSEVERED! I was accosted by people in the Fresher's Week stalls, I opened a bank account, I found the Oscar Wilde Center (which is surrounded by SCIENCE BUILDINGS. Wilde would not approve. Complete defeats the concepts of Aestheticism. ART! ART FOR ARTS SAKE! And I will be surrounded by biochemistry. The only reason this makes sense is because the center is his actual home. Which is sorta cool. It's on Westland Row, but you have to get to it via the Hamilton Buildings which is seriously like an INDOOR STREET with access to all the back doors. it's sorta freaking cool. *_*

I was rained on multiple times and near blown away by sudden strong gusts of wind, but I survived the day until 5:30 when I met up with folks and 6:00 at which point the tour started.

There was, however, a difficulty with the tour. Clearly some wires got crossed along the lines and there was a BAND (and not a very good one, even if they were quite loud) playing in the front square, where our merry tour started. Thus, it was quite difficult to hear and I only have vague ideas about what all those front and very pretty buildings are for. OH WELL. The tour continued. We eventually got away from Mr. Off-Key and Loud and I could hear again. My toes froze. My feet were abused by large quantities of cobblestones. It was excellent fun! We ended at the Post-Grad Common Room (which is, in fact, very *_* and the couches are to die for) with free wine and cheese and the like. After which we decided we weren't nearly drunk enough and went out.

I returned somewhat-early on account of the "being-rained-on-many-times" bit and a strong desire to be DRY! DRY IS GOOD.Never have I been so happy to crawl into my PJs. it was heavenly. diktat made enormous fun of me for being intoxicated. ;_; I then went to sleep and all was well.

And today I'm lazy and just read NGE Gakuen Datenroku. UH. YES. PLS. MORE. WHY MONTHLY. ;_; I am very sad about this! And very late to the party. And minorly obsessed all over again, blast!

I have a meeting for my program at noon tomorrow and classes start monday, which means I can finally establish a SCHEDULE.

Time for some lunch!

Oh PS- Did you know that the Jedi Hall from Star Wars is a rip off of one of the Trinity Libraries? Like, a perfect replica but with jedi masters instead of literary figures as the busts?

Yeah me either. But it's pretty LOL-worthy!

So, I have it! At last! There was a moment, though, where I was staring at my functional firefox and non-functional everything-else and blinking in utter confusion.

The cause of my frustration was this: PROXIES.

So thunderbird, aim and yahoo refused to function for me and I gave up. Pidgin users, I have joined your ranks against my will. I miss my cute little lobsters already. ;_; BUT I'M ONLINE. I'M NOT COMPLAINING TOO MUCH.

Not how I wanted to be spending my hangover hours though.

Because yes, I was hungover this morning.

We seriously got MOST OF THE HOUSE out at the pub last night. It was so funny though because we walked in and the place was almost empty for its size--it's the closest one to the Halls but all the undergrads had this rave thing they were at so it was JUST THE POSTGRADS. And the locals. Who are super sweet and fun to talk to as well. But we like, took over one corner of the pub and just drank and talked until well after 2 am. It was great fun! And then I passed out. And slept until ALMOST TEN. I was impressed with myself, since I've been up by seven every day since I've been here. I CONQUERED SLEEP! With the assistance of one required Guinness as I HADN'T HAD ONE YET and two Beamishes as they were cheaper.

Bartender 1: Pint or a glass?
Me: Always a pint.

Me: I have the HICCUPS.
Bartender 2: My dad always told me to think of the mass. You spend so much time trying to remember the mass you forget to hiccup.
Me: *spends the rest of the night attempting to remember the beginning of mass and hiccuping*

Those hiccups were killer.

I HUNG UP EVERYTHING! Before drinking myself stupid, of course. I spent a while talking to a few postgrads who are ACTUALLY FROM Ireland, which was an interesting change! Great conversations. Oh, and my "yall" is finally being noted and laughed at.

Er, think that's about it for now. Time to talk to mom via the now-functional-skype!

Accommodation is stressing me out now.

APPARENTLY they require rent/utilities/etc for the first portion before moving in and APPARENTLY that does not come out of my loans and fun stuff automatically.

Yeah. So the score is this: I have to give them SOMETHING up front according to the Warden's office and according to the Fees Office, it should be fine if I give it ALL to them on Friday. A week from today. And I'm to send them to her if there's a problem.

Which is hard to communicate over phone when I'm not sure he can even understand what I'm saying. CLEARLY I need to either go down there and look very sad or. I dunno. Abuse my credit card for part of it. ;_; I have money to LIVE on, not pay enormous amounts of money as a downpayment to something I've already paid the deposit for and will have the funds for in ONE WEEK.

So. Stress. Displeased Meg here. This means I get to hike all the way across town again for another 3.50 euro. I guess I'll bring SOME of my stuff down with me since I'm due to move in today? IDK. I have a room here for another night and I don't feel like dealing with purchasing sheets and pillows and blankets until I've seen what I'm covering, yanno?

BUT YOU KNOW WHAT. IT'S NICE TO HAVE CLOTHES AND LOOK LIKE ME AGAIN. Instead of slob with a beat-up hoodie. :D :D :D Fitted jeans and snazzy shoes and a badass jacket are much more me. *_* AND I DON'T STICK OUT NEARLY SO BAD.

Oh and I've found that pepsi tastes a lot more like coke than coke does.

Have fun with these daily updates. They exist in these early hours when I've little else to do.

EDIT: Annoying money issues: PWN'D. Amazing what turning up at first the Accommodation office and then returning to the Fees Office can accomplish! I swear, they must be getting sick of my face at the Fees Office, three times in two days! And twice to the Accommodation office too! THOUGH APPARENTLY I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE WITH THIS ISSUE! That makes me feel better. :D

Other things: MY LEGS HURT. I hope I'm not climbing six flights of steps to and from my dorm too.

I finally broke out my camera at Trinity today. I have...all of 4 pictures. I've been more concerned with money and registration and crap that pictures, OKAY?!

Time to go move my smaller shit across town. I'm taking the Big Bag From Budapest with me in a taxi tomorrow morning when I check out. XD

So I'm here.

Without any of my clothes. They lost the bag that had my CLOTHES. ;_; It should be here in a few days but STILL.

I'M HEEEEERE!!! And safe. In the hotel at the moment considering a NAP cause oh god.

FOR THE RECORD: I can't sleep when I get hyped up. I try to sleep, but end up staring at the ceiling. This is what happened monday night. So I get on the plane at right about 24 hours running, doze a LITTLE on the first flight and then was in JFK for like, 4 hours with NOTHING TO DOOOO.

I caved and bought one of those neck pillows and conked out for a while in front of the gate. Conked out for a while on the flight too. But I have no had REAL sleep, aka, lying on my back sleep, since Sunday night.

@_@!!!!

BUT DUBLIN IS LOVELY.

Also have phone. Yay!

SO THAT MEME. Why not.


01. Take a picture of yourself right now.
02. Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair
03. Post that picture with NO editing.
04. Post these instructions with your picture.

( pic under cut! )

Tuesday is THE DAY, guys. I have one full day left. We're leaving here at like, 6 am Tuesday because LAST time I flew overseas I managed to MISS MY FLIGHT due to the horrors of security.

I did finally get my course handbook too, which means I got to read ALL ABOUT the hard work I'll be doing for the next year, which is a lot. but I am le crazy and am mostly EXCITED about it!! Mom took me shopping yesterday and I got all sorts of new clothes that fit REALLY well because everything in the petite section of Anne Taylor Loft is like, perfect. She also bought me new underwear and bras. One of the pairs of underwear says "CALL YOUR MOTHER" on it. My mom is silly and awesome.

Wanted to RP yesterday, but was way, way too braindead to do so. MAYBE TODAY! And then...tomorrow I hiatus. Eep.

♥!