Saturday, November 8, 2008
Post Election Reflections and Quarter Life Crises
Today is the day after Election Day, and I stayed up all night to watch the historic moment. Barack Obama’s achievement is not only historic in terms of being the first African American president, but is historic in its potential for how much change the entire world will undergo socially, economically, militarily, almost every aspect that possibly could be changed I feel will be changed. Not only because of Barack Obama, but because the general populace wants something different in the world and Obama just happens to symbolize that. That very thought has made my head reel in terms of my own personal history and placement in society. You would think that the moment Obama spoke in front of thousands to accept his nomination as the 44th President I would be able to magically know exactly what I want life to be like in that optimistic future Obama proposes. Which brings me here, to Dublin, to my current state of self-awareness. There are a few things that I was not expecting out of this trip. I came here to find myself in a lot of ways, but all I’m finding out is how confused I am about life: my current priorities, my future, even things as simple as what I truly enjoy doing is a total bafflement to me. In this era of economic crisis, social change, and burst of involvement within the public sphere, I feel like I should do something different and important. Since my surroundings are new and familiar, I expected a switch to go on, a flame to burst, to have this grand epiphany of my life’s calling. What I expected within the first few weeks here was to get a call on my mobile from a deity saying something on the lines of “Hi Caitlin, I just thought you should know that you’re good at juggling, you like circuses, therefore you should be a clown.” Instead I feel so stuck in the mud in a lot of ways. I feel this inability to feel like I have a certain place in this big city and big world, and that task of finding myself seems so daunting that I keep pushing off any major changes to my way of thinking and how I perceive the world. I so wish I could tell everyone that I am changing for the better, that I’m more self aware, but today I feel as lost as ever, as definitionless as I could be, even on one of the most historic days of the short 21 years of my life.
Assimilation
I now have been a Dubliner for a month. Everyone reading my blog from home probably assumes “A month is enough time to acquire a full blown accent” or “She MUST have a lover by now” or “She probably can drink more than I can!” or “She knows Dublin like the back of her hand by now.” Surprisingly (or not surprisingly), none of those are true.
Looking back at myself a month ago and today there are a few things that I will admit are more Irish. I am used to not having mixed taps now, paying 2 Euro for a cup of tea, I don’t laugh when I see the Tayto brand of crisps (for whatever reason I thought that was the funniest thing in the world), Irish accents are a little less exotic, I’m used to giant class sizes, I don’t get tipsy off of just one pint of beer, and I feel like I can walk the entire day without the arches of my feet cramping up. My roommates and I even got called regulars at a pub a couple weeks ago. Except that I’m known as the girl who doesn’t have an indoor voice, which may not be the best reputation to have in the world.
Despite the appearance that I might be getting the grasp of Irishness truly is and blending in, it still takes me by surprise that cars drive on the left side of the road. My head’s instinct is to look to my left first, not my right, and if I haven’t broken that instinct by now I don’t know if I ever will. The other night my flatmate Lucy had to pull me back more than once from me walking out into incoming traffic, which normally I am very cautious. I suppose I am getting ballsier in terms of crossing the street (I used to be the idiot who would sprint across the road), but it doesn’t help when you forget which side cars drive on.
I cannot figure out the public transportation system for the life of me still. Buses are frustrating because you pretty much have to know exactly where you get off and where you are going; the bus driver never calls out what street intersection people are on. They are also really unreliable, the other night we wanted to do some shopping at Tesco in Sandymount, but we waited a good 30 minutes both going there and coming back in the freezing cold. We did some shopping the other day on the other side of town, and we knew what bus we needed to get on to get back to our apartment, but it almost seemed easier to walk back for whatever reason even with the rain pounding against our fragile shopping bags that inevitably split open. I almost reached my apartment when a middle aged man made eye contact with me and started laughing. I probably looked absolutely crazy; my hair was drenched, I was carrying a bundle of clothes and food, my jeans were soaked up to the knee, and I probably looked ready to kill someone.
There’s also so little of Dublin I feel like I have actually seen. I’ve been stuck in my own Dublin 4 bubble, in this little nook of town. There is a surprising amount I have yet to explore, such as Phoenix Park, the biggest urban park in Europe. You are probably wondering, “What has this girl been doing with her time if she hasn’t been to something like that?” The answer would be not knowing how to budget my time. I spend so much time staring off into space, or facebooking, or watching Living on the Edge (British version of The Hills) or attempting to play the tin whistle that I acquired in Galway last weekend. I will explore my own backyard soon, once I feel like I have some sort of organization in my life. For now everything is so up in the air that my response is to do nothing at all.
I may be getting used to separated hot and cold taps, but something as simple as figuring out what direction cars drive or how a public transportation system works goes to show I have a long way to go before full assimilation. Speak to me after I actually can impersonate an Irish accent and when I actually explore the rolling green hills I see everyday out the window beyond the frantic city.
Looking back at myself a month ago and today there are a few things that I will admit are more Irish. I am used to not having mixed taps now, paying 2 Euro for a cup of tea, I don’t laugh when I see the Tayto brand of crisps (for whatever reason I thought that was the funniest thing in the world), Irish accents are a little less exotic, I’m used to giant class sizes, I don’t get tipsy off of just one pint of beer, and I feel like I can walk the entire day without the arches of my feet cramping up. My roommates and I even got called regulars at a pub a couple weeks ago. Except that I’m known as the girl who doesn’t have an indoor voice, which may not be the best reputation to have in the world.
Despite the appearance that I might be getting the grasp of Irishness truly is and blending in, it still takes me by surprise that cars drive on the left side of the road. My head’s instinct is to look to my left first, not my right, and if I haven’t broken that instinct by now I don’t know if I ever will. The other night my flatmate Lucy had to pull me back more than once from me walking out into incoming traffic, which normally I am very cautious. I suppose I am getting ballsier in terms of crossing the street (I used to be the idiot who would sprint across the road), but it doesn’t help when you forget which side cars drive on.
I cannot figure out the public transportation system for the life of me still. Buses are frustrating because you pretty much have to know exactly where you get off and where you are going; the bus driver never calls out what street intersection people are on. They are also really unreliable, the other night we wanted to do some shopping at Tesco in Sandymount, but we waited a good 30 minutes both going there and coming back in the freezing cold. We did some shopping the other day on the other side of town, and we knew what bus we needed to get on to get back to our apartment, but it almost seemed easier to walk back for whatever reason even with the rain pounding against our fragile shopping bags that inevitably split open. I almost reached my apartment when a middle aged man made eye contact with me and started laughing. I probably looked absolutely crazy; my hair was drenched, I was carrying a bundle of clothes and food, my jeans were soaked up to the knee, and I probably looked ready to kill someone.
There’s also so little of Dublin I feel like I have actually seen. I’ve been stuck in my own Dublin 4 bubble, in this little nook of town. There is a surprising amount I have yet to explore, such as Phoenix Park, the biggest urban park in Europe. You are probably wondering, “What has this girl been doing with her time if she hasn’t been to something like that?” The answer would be not knowing how to budget my time. I spend so much time staring off into space, or facebooking, or watching Living on the Edge (British version of The Hills) or attempting to play the tin whistle that I acquired in Galway last weekend. I will explore my own backyard soon, once I feel like I have some sort of organization in my life. For now everything is so up in the air that my response is to do nothing at all.
I may be getting used to separated hot and cold taps, but something as simple as figuring out what direction cars drive or how a public transportation system works goes to show I have a long way to go before full assimilation. Speak to me after I actually can impersonate an Irish accent and when I actually explore the rolling green hills I see everyday out the window beyond the frantic city.
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