I’ve been having a rather tough day today - actually, it’s been a rather tough couple of days. Travelling in a foreign country will do that to a person, but my main concern over the past few days has been the rest of the semester here at Trinity.

I learned last night that I would be unable to take advanced coursework in history, because I am only here for one semester, and most, if not all, advanced history classes (think 3xxx-level course at the U of M) at Trinity are taught for the year. This has, to put it mildly, disappointed me. Infuriated may be a more apt word. The whole reason I chose this program was because it offered me more or less complete control over my coursework, and now they’ve taken that away from me. It is also insulting. I haven’t taken an introductory history course ever in college, and now my only options in history are freshmen and sophomore courses. Frankly, it would’ve been a better use of my time (and money) to stay at the U of M and get a few grad seminars under my belt, which I’ve been actively encouraged to do by faculty. So I’m a little put out.

Actually, it would probably be more worthwhile for me to work on my senior thesis than sit through freshmen courses here. I could do it, too - they have all of the internet resources that every other school does these days, albeit much more Byzantine. I’ve even come up with a good Irish figure to study and maybe write a research article on: William Bernard Hickie, who was a British general during World War I who later threw in his lot with the Irish Free State. It’d be interesting to get a read on his motivations throughout his life.

To add to that stressor, I’m supposed to give a presentation with a partner before class tomorrow, and she and I are not on speaking terms. The reason is simple - I am highly-strung, prone to emotional outbursts, and I typically expect a certain amount of deference from my work partners unless they are personally known to me - not a good trait to have (in fact, there’s a bit of self-improvement I need to work on), but there you have it. She, on the other hand, is quite simply a bitch, and that is not only my opinion. The problem is that she is on the IES program, too, and rooming with all the other IES girls. None of them particularly like me anyway, and now this exacerbates matters. In addition, we (meaning the IES Trinity students) have social events together (last Thursday was taco night or something, my memory escapes me), so this is not good. I’ve been feeling more alienated than ever from the other students, and these past few days have not been helping matters. I don’t want to walk away from this trip friendless, but more and more I’ve come to realize that’s a distinct possibility. Even the girl who was cordial to me and with whom I’ve had several conversations has become noticeably colder…

So there’s my social anxiety. Sorry, dear reader, to burden you with it, but this blog has really become more of a diary for me than anything else, so all I can say is, you don’t have to read my ramblings! Hopefully I can come up with something worthwhile, though. On another, less personal note, I’ve decided not to visit my ancestral homeland. I had made a vow to myself (and my mother, who is extremely interested in genealogy) to go see Tipperary Town in County Tipperary, which is where my great-great-great-great grandfather (I’m not exactly sure the proper number of greats) was born. Well, he was actually born about three or four miles to the west of the town, but it’s basically the same location. Anyway, I had a day trip all planned out for Tipperary (although thankfully I hadn’t bought the bus ticket yet) when I was informed that Tipperary Town is generally considered to be the worst town in Ireland. It’s violent, it’s dirty, and it’s overrun by Travellers, those vagabonds that everybody here seems to complain about (and quite unrelated to the Roma and Sinti, despite often being called gypsies). Just last March, a group of young toughs beat the shit out of some American tourist on St. Paddy’s Day and gouged out one of his eyes. Hmmm… I think I’ll steer clear. Plus, it’s also the poorest town in Ireland, too - apparently, the Celtic Tiger bypassed that part of the country.

I suddenly find myself craving a martini. It’s a good thing booze is so expensive around here (roughly $7.50 for a cocktail, $6.50 for a beer or a shot, and about $37 for a fifth of cheap gin), otherwise I’d probably be having a drink a night. Already spend $3 (roughly) on a sandwich and a Pepsi for lunch… This place is fucking EXPENSIVE. On the other hand, it’s not significantly worse than London, Paris, New York, and even Chicago. I guess the really cheap place on the island is in Northern Ireland. I’ve even heard stories of people making booze runs north of the border to get cheaper deals. I might just have to look into that - if a bus fare to NI is 5 or 10 euros one-way, 10 or 20 euros round trip (meaning roughly $20-30), it might actually BE cheaper to buy in bulk up that way - their groceries and other goods are cheaper, too. In fact, it might be a good way to pool roommate money…

Well, I've been a little behind on these blog entries, and for that, dear reader, I most humbly beg your forgiveness. I am writing this at a very awkward moment for me - I'm on campus at the moment, having only just now activated my wireless account, and the only place I could plug in to charge up my laptop is the next to the womens' toilet. Needless to say, I am a little embarrassed.

It's been a busy time for me, a rollercoaster emotionally, intellectually, and physically. This weekend, against my better judgment, I went to Galway with some of the other Americans. It actually wasn't too bad of a time, but there were some things that just plain went wrong. For starters, I realized that I don't necessarily like my roommates all that much. It's not that I hate them, necessarily, but I just don't have a whole lot of common ground with them. One of them is a "player" from Miami who will always be hitting on cute girls (much to my chagrin, I can't compete with him on that - to be fair, he is an exceedingly likable guy who has an extensive knowledge of pop music), and another is a fraternity brother who always takes pains to say that if he was at the U of M, he prolly wouldn't be in a frat. Fair enough, but he strikes me as having a more or less similar outlook to frat guys, except that he's much, much smarter. Anyway, I was a lot more comfortable hanging out with the locals than I was with the Yanks (it didn't help that at dinner on Friday night, I was seated with a group that started talking about their sex lives and, in an interesting twist, bashing Irish women for not being hot). I played darts with a couple of Galway blokes in a pub, had a Guinness or two, and basically just shot the shit. It was great craic, as they say over here. And it turns out that one of their best friends was from Saint Paul.

On Saturday we (meaning the Americans) visited the Aran Islands, a remarkably scenic place which was once the most desolate location in Ireland but is now home to a thriving tourist trade. Splendid isolation is still available to those who seek it, though, and upon arriving on the island, I promptly rented a bicycle and went out on the back trails of the island. The particular rock I was on, Inish Mor, has a prominent ridge cutting it in two, and it was there that I went biking. I wish I could get my pics to load online (and I wish my camera didn't have a smudge on the lens which is detectable in every photograph) so that people could get an idea of what I'm talking about (and you'd get to see me in some truly terrible posed photographs - I don't photograph well). Anyway, on these bike trails you'd not see another human soul for hours - it was as if I was the only person in the world. And here is where things get interesting (and weird). All the talk of sexual conquest the night before had, I suppose, rattled me, and I couldn't help but notice the large number of attractive German and Italian tourists who were on the island. There were so many secluded glens that were surrounded by stone walls and therefore invisible from the already underutilised footpaths... So I began to concoct in my head a fantasy about making love to a beautiful stranger in the clearing, knowing that we would never see each other again, but we would have, for the rest of our lives, memories of that wonderful afternoon. Pretty turgid stuff, right? Well, it wouldn't have been worth mentioning at all except for the fact that while I was preoccupied spinning my webs, my phone fell out of my pocket, and I didn't notice it until I was off of the island! And there is no chance of recovering it, either, not if it fell out on those back trails.

And so today I couldn't even find my wallet. I'm hoping that it's in my room (I really think it is) and that I just left it under a pile of clothes. At least I still have my passport.

And thank God, classes (real classes) start in two weeks! The Semester Start-Up Programme is good, but I'm at the point now where enough is enough. More to follow!

I’ve been pondering my first impressions of Trinity College, and I’ve decided to try and reserve judgement on their system here until I’ve seen it further in action. Nonetheless, it seems a lot more clunky than the University of Minnesota (and, presumably, most American universities). I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I am technically not in class as of yet - I’m attending lectures as part of a start-up program for visiting Americans, which is EXTREMELY helpful, as otherwise I’d be completely adrift when the actual semester starts on the 28th of September.

I say the system is clunky because TCD (Trinity College, Dublin - a handy acronym) has not embraced technology to the extent that American schools have. Course registration is done in person, not online. Connecting to the Trinity wireless network is Byzantine. The library, while impressive, is difficult to navigate, and most of their books are stored off-campus at an archive near the airport. To be honest, I think that the Minnesota library is probably superior in its collection, but, on the other hand, the Trinity libraries are vastly superior in terms of study space. The newest library building, the Ussher, was built in 2003 and greatly resembles the Minneapolis Public Library, right down to its atrium. I am, as a matter of fact, writing this very entry while sitting in the Ussher’s spacious study area, sitting across from two cute Irish girls who I can only hope are whispering about me (wishful thinking, probably).

One of the greatest disappointments has been the buildings in which our classes are held. The history department is housed in the arts building, a concrete monstrosity dating from the late 1970s that wouldn’t look out of place on the U of M’s West Bank. Apparently, there was quite a controversy when the Arts Block, as it is called, was established, as many Trinity professors thought that the building compromised the architectural integrity of the school. They may have been right, but in all fairness, the old buildings from the 1790s were totally inadequate to meet the needs of the expanding university. The old main library, for example, was gigantic for its day (around 1800) and was used by undergraduates as late as 1960, but became unsuited for modern challenges and is now more or less a museum. It’s a damn shame, because it looks like something out of the movies - one of our professors, an Englishman, said that for sheer visual appeal, the old Trinity library beats out Cambridge and Oxford’s branches. I haven’t had a chance to look at it myself, but I intend to at some point.

I suppose I’ve rambled on about the college long enough, and I’ve made a personal vow to keep these posts under a thousand words (probably won’t be as long after the novelty wears off) but I should say a thing or two about Dublin proper. It is a city that is in many senses similar to major cities in the United States, but it is much more accessible by foot, and by way of comparison much more crowded than Minneapolis/St. Paul, although it is not much larger. The buildings are generally older, but not uniformly so (unlike Paris). I would be surprised, though, if most of the homes in Ranelagh and Rathmines (two residential neighbourhoods) were less than 80 years old.
As I’ve said, I’ve found the Americans to be a rather unimpressive lot, as these things go, or at least a group of people with whom I have very little in common. I excused myself from conversation last night after one of my flatmates went on a half hour soliloquy on the joys of marijuana to the general approbation of the others. More power to them, but I didn’t want to talk about that for a half an hour. And then, I’m afraid, I may have come off a bit rude to a girl from U Penn after it was revealed that she was from Manhattan and went to a private school. I’ve also been a bit… unnerved by the use of the term JAP-py among the prep school brigade - JAP is an acronym for Jewish-American Princess, but as someone who is even obliquely familiar with the Pacific War will tell you, Jap is not perhaps a term we should throw around so casually.
Well, I suppose that about does it for today, but I do have one or two more thoughts on Trinity College and modernization. It seems to me that they are walking along a bit of a tightrope.

Trinity is one of the oldest colleges in the world, or at least the English-speaking world, and remained astonishingly insular until the 1970s. They were, as a matter of fact, closer to being an English college in Ireland than an Irish university. As it stands now, their student population has grown from around 3,000 forty years ago to around 16,000 today - a mediocre size by Minnesota standards, but still a colossal growth rate. Add that to other challenges of modernization, and you begin to see some problems. I will say this, however - so far, I haven’t seen the same signs of blatant corporatization that seem to infect most American schools. Faculty and provosts still have enormous power, and while our university president is a businessman, Trinity College’s president is Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and UN commissioner for human rights.

P.S. Sorry about the length of this post, but this is a backlog from the past 2 days because I've been having some problems accessing the Internet here.

I’d thought I’d have a blog about my experiences in Ireland for some of my close friends. I stole the idea from my cousin, who is now currently rafting down the Mississippi to St. Louis with some of her friends.
So here's how I know I'm NOT an alcoholic - my flatmates (I guess I have to use that term now) are going out to get piss drunk at 9:45 on a MONDAY. Hmmm... Even in my weakest moments, I never got drunk two nights in a row. I also found out that two of them are frat brothers (although they both assured me that the frats are much more respectable at private schools and that I should refer to them as fraternities) - one of them already dislikes me because he thinks that I let his pizza burn or some shit like that. The Americans here are very cliquey - it feels a lot like freshman orientation, and I’m a little out of my element because they are all serious binge drinkers and party sluts - I could quite possibly be the only virgin on the program. Another factor is that the overwhelming majority of them are going to private schools, usually the same ones. Three of my flatmates are from Washington University, there’s a bunch of Americans from Holyoke in Massachusetts, and they all know each other already - I’m kinda the odd man out. If I really, really made an effort, maybe I could ingratiate myself into one of their cliques, but it’d be difficult, and I really don’t have that kind of stamina. The others may be comfortable going out and drinking every night and getting two or three hours of sleep, but I need more sleep than that. I also tend to think that my Asperger’s traits are getting in the way of socialization - I get the impression that some of these people think I’m a little odd, just in conversation. The tone and body language of a lot of the American women, at least, seems to be… cold. I dunno, we’ll see how this develops… I was kind of afraid this would happen - I’m not sure that Ireland has attracted the most serious students to its shores. On the plus side, any sort of inferiority complex about my intellectual abilities has gone by the wayside - if this is the best that Holyoke, U Penn (except for one guy who seems pretty on the ball), and Washington can offer, than I can say that private colleges are essentially expensive baby-sitters.

On the plus side, the coursework appears to be phenomenal. The college is undergoing a prolonged period of modernization, and it’s very interesting to see the contrast between this system and the public universities in America. I’d say that our facilities are generally better - I had a look at their science labs, and they definitely seemed more dilapidated than the labs in Minnesota, and to be honest I was rather unimpressed with their library. Most of the other students were disappointed that the buildings weren’t open for 24 hours, but that didn’t bother me, as the U of M libraries aren’t open all hours, either. What did surprise me was the restrictive lending policies that their library system has in place: only some books can be checked out, and they can only be checked out for a week at a time, with 8 possible renewals, and only four books can be checked out at a time by undergraduates. This comes as quite a contrast from my experience, where I’ll have up to 30 books checked out at any given time, some of them quite possibly for years. I also wonder really how extensive their collection is - Wilson may not be QUITE as big as their three main humanities and social sciences libraries, but it comes pretty damn close, and I’ve seen all of the stuff that the U of M has down in its stacks. I gather they have off-site archives, but I don’t know how large they are.

The faculty and staff I’ve interacted with have been nothing short of fabulous. Perhaps the most personable people I’ve met.

Well, I think that’ll do it for this blog post - I’m sure I’ll have other topics to write on (and probably other complaints, too), but I’m open to suggestions. What else do you want to hear about?