Not Real

I kind of wonder when it's going to hit me. When I'm going to realize that I'm actually actually going to a foreign country, and that I'm really really going to live there for four hopefully spectacular months. Because it hasn't yet, even though I leave in less than three days. I mean, rationally I know I'm going to Ireland. I know that mid-Monday, I'll be crossing Sagamore Bridge on my way to the airport. I know that by early Tuesday morning, I'll be in Ireland. But it doesn't feel like that. I feel like I'm still living my life as usual on Cape Cod, and that when I leave it, I'll just be on my way to Vermont, of course, because that's how it goes.

When I first started college, I didn't think I'd study abroad. I wanted to, but I didn't think I'd be able to because of the cost, so I didn't much think about it at all. But when I found out that my college had a teeny campus in Ireland, and that it costs exactly what it does to go to normal Champlain, that sounded doable. So, I applied. But even then, I didn't really think I'd get in. I figured that probably everyone was applying, and since there's technically limited spaces, there was no chance I'd get in, ever. I figured only really awesome people actually got to study abroad. People to whom life comes as easily as a smile. Not me. I was almost amazed when I actually did get in, even though, as far as I know, everyone who applied was accepted. All of that was ages ago, but it-- the fact that Ireland's actually happening-- still feels like a fairy tale. Like I'll wake up to find that all of this was just a dream. I mean, I know that's cliche, but I think some cliches are only cliches because they're true so often.

Anyway, before I bore all of you with my basically incoherent ramblings, here's what I'm leaving:

West Dennis Beach. Not the Cape's prettiest beach, but it has a little board walk that's perfect when you don't want to get your boots all sandy. Beaches are best without shoes, but it's not quite bare feet weather. You know, though, in May, when I get back, it will be.

So Close So Close So Close So

A few days ago, my dad promised me a kitten if I don't come home from Ireland pregnant. Well, actually, he said, "if I don't come home with a baby," which, since I'm only going to be there for four months, would really be impossible unless I smuggled some random person's infant under my coat, and even then I don't think that would work. I'm pretty sure I would get stopped at security or something. So, I could technically come back from Ireland slightly pregnant and still be owed a kitten. Guess he didn't think that one through.

It's really funny, though. My parents honestly almost seem worried that I'll get pregnant. I'm not sure what it says about them (or me, though I'm pretty sure it has more to do with them) that they're so concerned, but I just find it ridiculously entertaining. And I can't complain about getting a kitten out of it. It'll be one thing to look forward to when I have to leave in May.

One time in high school, my dad asked me if I was pregnant. Really. I can't remember why-- I think I was being moody or something, so he looked me in the eyes and asked me if I was pregnant. I giggled. There was no other way to respond to that question.

I think if he ever asks me again whether or not I'm pregnant, I'll tell him that I am, just to see whether he believes me. Except not, because I'm the worst liar in the world when it comes to things like that. I'd just ruin it by laughing. But I might try, anyway. Liven things up a bit.

(PS.. only four and a half days to go. Yes, I still freak out about the plane ride when I think of it. Watching LOST last year was a very bad idea. And, I still need to pack. Even though I'm not bringing much, it's pretty daunting. I'm usually pretty good about remembering most everything, but I can just see myself forgetting something totally vital. I have my fingers crossed. Hopefully, that'll be enough, but just in case, I've also knocked on wood.)

15 days

I leave for Ireland in 15 days, counting today,

Really. It's wicked crazy. I don't even know how to express the craziness of it. But, I'm wicked excited. And I haven't posted in ages because I'm lazy and sleep too much. But not really, because there's no such thing as sleeping too much.

I'm still not too stoked about the plane ride. I'm worried that I'll magically get on the wrong flight and then end up in Portugal or Oregon or Antarctica. Well, not really. Or sort of. But, no. Really, I'm worried that just something will go wrong and everything will suck, even if only for a while. Rationally, people fly on planes all the time without anything going wrong. But there's always the thought that, what if I get on the wrong flight? And there's no way I can get on another one for ages. And then my luggage gets stolen. And then the plane blows up. Okay. I'm exaggerating, a little. A lot. But, what if? Honestly, it would just be so much more amazing if I could just avoid the whole plane process, and just, somehow... get there.

Someone should work on that. Inventing magic. Or something.

Anyway, I got a camera for Christmas! So, I can actually take pictures. I'm not going to have my phone in Ireland, so it'll be pretty nifty.

Honestly, I can't wait.

Next

Tomorrow's my last full day on Campus until next fall.

In three weeks, I'll be finishing up all the last minute things for Ireland

A couple days later, I'll be in Ireland. A foreign country in a different continent where everyone has an awesome accent. Everyone who's been there keeps telling me how wicked incredible it is, how they're definitely going back as soon as they can, and they can't wait for that day. It's fantastic and as close to perfect as possible.

But, what if it isn't, for me? Not that I think it won't be amazing, but life is weird. Like, this semester I'm finishing up. I can't even explain it. It's been confusing and dazed and almost lost. It's been hard to put words together, or anything. And for no reason at all, really. Honestly, I don't even know how to explain it.

I'm kind of counting on Ireland to change that, and make everything as amazing as life should be. But what if it doesn't?

I think that's my biggest fear.

Two Homes

Living in college is a weird thing, especially when that college is so far away from your other home, the place where you grew up. You live in one place for a couple months, and then another, and then you go back to the first. It's strange, and it feels strange each time you come and go. You never even entirely know whether you actually want to leave.

And then, when you get to wherever you were going to, it feels as if you've never left it, until you remember that really you've been living hundreds of miles away for months.

Pretty much all of you already know this, of course, but I'm from Cape Cod and go to school in Vermont. Burlington. I adore both. They're both crazy amazing and crazy beautiful. They both have the things that can seem hard to live without.

Burlington is living with your friends and going out every weekend. Cape Cod is family and seeing friends only when cars and schedules can make peace with each other. Burlington is city and walking everywhere. The Cape is nature, but nearly always needing to use a car. Burlington has its brick, Victorian houses. The Cape has its white, centuries old farm and captain's houses. Burlington has the waterfront, with layers of pristine mountains shadowing behind it. The Cape has the ocean and never ending clouds. Burlington has trees with leaves that turn so gold, you can see their color glowing even against the navy night sky. Cape Cod has pine needles the color of rust. They're impossible to rake, so they stay strewn across most everyone's lawns, poking through the light snows, until spring. They make good additions to magic potions when you're little.

Sometimes, it seems like if these two different homes were able to blend into one, they would make something almost perfect.

I wonder how it'll be when I go to Ireland. I'll have three homes, then. Three different kinds of fantastic not-quite-perfection.

(Except, I'm sure, Ireland really will be perfect.)

(This is coming out to be a really muddled post, but it's kind of a muddled thought, too, I think.)

Can I go to Ireland... Today?

I. Am. Excited.

We had our first official meeting about Dublin last night, and I want to go now. Just run to the nearest airport and hop on the nearest plane. Go to Ireland and stay there forever. Except, I'd also go to other places in Europe basically all the time. And I'd come back to the US every, you know, once in a while. Just to visit people and stuff. And then I'd come back to the land of the pretty accents, and everything would be fucking fantastic.

I can't believe I have to wait basically two months. On the other hand, though, I can't believe I will be in Ireland in just under two months. It barely seems possible.

I feel like I did back in fifth grade, when the big, exciting field trip was to go to the National Seashore for a week. We would stay there in a big, centuries old house and do nature stuff away from our parents. We were all, "Yay, we're gonna get to eat ice cream all day and never go to bed and sleep in bunk beds and do stuff that we think is awesome but probably isn't because we're ten!!!" I remember the day we got there, we were kind of all in awe. The Seashore (never mind the fact that we were all little Cape Codders, and so pretty used to the beaches. We were away from our parents, dammit, and that made it special) was just this thing was so talked about, so mythologized, that it didn't feel real.

I think it will be kind of like that when I get to Ireland. I'll be in shock, practically, and at first it won't seem possible that I'm actually in this fairy tale place where everyone speaks in the most fantastic accent ever. But then it will. And I can't wait, for either of those stages.

Oh, but unlike the Seashore, which ended up being kind of lame, Ireland is going to live up to every one of my expectations, and more. I totally expect the day I come back to be the most depressing day of my life.

Oh, Hey

I'm even more officially going to Ireland! Plane tickets equal bought. Now, I just hope that the plane doesn't crash. And that we don't get any turbulence, because if that happened, I know I'd freak out really pathetically. People would point and laugh. It would be terrible.

I kind of wish I could skip the plane ride all together, though. Or, take a boat. That would be pretty badass, actually. I could be all, "I'm on a boat," and then everybody'd be all, "aw shit!" and get wicked jealous. And since I was a pirate for Halloween, I could totally wear my costume on the boat or something. Like, the whole time. Which would definitely be the best thing ever. Basically.

I'm really tired. I promise I'll have a real blog post soon, though!

Dreams and Sleep and Stuff and also I really hope I'm not pyschic

I mostly don't sleep like a normal person. Most people go to sleep, stay asleep, and finally wake up with their alarm clock. I wake up about 80 times, usually. Which I don't mind. It makes my nights of spacing out under warm covers last longer.

The other night, though, I didn't wake up at all until 11:00, with the screaming of my alarm clock. And I was really confused. For a good minute, I just sat on my bed, light pouring in through the window shades and my alarm clock still blaring (luckily, the roommates weren't there), trying to figure out where I was (I didn't recognize my own bedroom? Yeah, I don't know, either) and what was going on. It was sketch, dood.

Then, last night, I dreamt that I was in an airport, about to go to Ireland, and I was totally positive that the plane was going to crash and we were all going to die*. I was kind of freaking out. I even thought about tossing away my plane ticket and hopping a boat to Europe. After a little while of just worrying and worrying and panicking and panicking, I finally just asked this dude who worked at the airport how common plane crashes were, hoping that he'd say something about them never ever happening ever. Well, that wasn't what happened. Nope, he was all like, "yeah, actually, we had one yesterday. Their bodies are still on the runway! lol!" And I was like, "what the fuck, dream?!"

*Actually, it was my second, "oh holy shit the plane to Ireland is totally gonna blow up or something and I'm gonna die," dream in a month. It's awkward.

Update/ I Can't Think of a Clever or Interesting Title

I have been a really bad blogger lately. I got back home way earlier in the month, and since then I've been making up for all of the sleep that I didn't have last semester. And looking for jobs. (I'll probably end up at the Christmas Tree Shop again, though hopefully in the front this time. I'm five feet tall, so I'm just not really meant for unloading trucks. And I kinda hate it. I really have no idea why I ended up doing that so much last year; it wasn't fun. Anyway, I might end up actually getting two jobs, so that I can pay for going abroad).

So, yeah, I'm going to Ireland spring semester! I'm beyond excited. I just can't wait. I've always wanted to travel, but the thing about Cape Codders is that we practically never leave the Cape. Until college, my family would only leave it a couple times a year, and usually that would either be to somewhere else in Mass (or barely off the bridge, but I'm not counting those times) or to Vermont because of family. So, besides New England, I've been to Florida once when I was a kid, California once when I was a baby, and to Montreal. I mean, Montreal is wicked cool and everything, but it's still pretty close. I can't wait to go to Europe. I can't wait to go to Ireland. This is probably maybe bad to admit, but one of the reasons (one of the main reasons) that I want to go to Ireland is the accents. The amazing fantastic accents. I want to go there and find a hot Irish boy friend and then stay there forever and make Irish babies. Sound good? And then I want to travel everywhere else in Europe. And then the world. I want to go to all of the other amazingly accented English speaking countries and be all like, hey. And then I want to go to the non English speaking countries, and suddenly be able to speak all of their languages. (Every single language. Including the dead ones. Yay for impossible/ blatantly ridiculous goals).

So, yeah, I'm stoked. I mean, I'm still not really sure about any of the details, and I haven't even been on a plane since I was a little kid, but it'll all work out in the end. At least, it better.

Oh, and I promise promise promise that my next update won't take another month to happen! And I should have some actual writing, too.