Post-mortem

Okay, I know I only asked for a few days but you know how things are when I get home! I go into a characteristically Ashley hiatus. BUT I'm back and I'm ready to talk about the biggest changes of this semester.

I think what I needed above all else was some time away from everyone to really figure myself out and Ireland was the best place to do that.

I had to bond with an entirely new set of people and I love everyone I became friends with. They're all spectacular people and each of them is totally unique and I would have never been able to grow so close to them if I didn't put my anxieties aside and just put myself out there.

One of my main problems is dealing with awkward or embarrassing situations, and this semester had many, many of those. I used to avoid trying new things because I was scared of failing them and being humiliated but seriously, everything was a new experience this semester! If I let that get in the way I would have never had any fun! While I'm still not great at dealing with them, I'm doing a lot better (I even went ice skating).

While I had made a lot of new friends, it was a little while before I could really confide in them. That left me in the rather difficult (but as it turns out, incredibly fortunate) position of having to deal with my problems on my own. This semester was sort of make or break for me and, thankfully, I met the challenge.

Speaking of challenges...
I'm finally assertive enough to stand up for myself when a stranger (or more accurately a crude male) makes me feel uncomfortable. Unfortunately, that WILL have to change now that I'm back in Trinidad because we all know what will happen if I make the mistake of responding aggressively here...
Also, I won't lie and say that I've started standing up for myself in a friendship but at least I've figured out that it's something I need to do!

Okay, that's all I'm really comfortable disclosing right now but that's quite a lot so be happy!
I really hope that when I return to ND next semester things won't go back to what they used to be like.
What's the point of life if we don't make some sort of progress?

Home at last

Okay loves, please cut me some slack over the next few days. I just returned home and am completely exhausted. I have a lot of small stuff to deal with over the next few days (including calling the people in Customs and giving them one hell of a cuss out).

So, give me a few days to catch myself and then I'll try to do a post mortem of my semester abroad. It will, hopefully, be worth reading.

For those of you in Trinidad - if you don't hear from me soon please don't be offended, I don't even have any phone numbers right now. Just give me a call and we'll arrange a lime.

Italiana? Spangola? Americana? Inglese?

Ohhh Italy! Home to gelato, pasta, pizza and creepers.

After extensive "research" I have decided that I don't really like Italy.
Rome is great for many reasons but most of them have to do with food and churches.

Florence, I am sad to say, I seriously don't like. Really. Everyone I know loves it there but I was hugely disappointed by it and spent 90% of the time annoyed/creeped out by some of the italian men you come in to contact with. All you can do is ignore them while the try to figure out where you're from (Italiana? Spangola? Americana? Inglese?) and run as far away as you possibly can when you're on the same street as four guys and one actually tries to put his arm around you when you're ignoring him. I mean really? Creepy enough???

Italy is all of Trinidad's worst qualities rolled into one giant mess of loud arguments and fights for no good reason, overly loud sirens and incessantly blaring car horns.

Cinque Terre, however, is fabolous. Great people, great sights and I'm sporting a new sunburn thanks to it. Definitely one of the most worthwhile day trips in Europe.

K. Off to bed to catch an early flight over to my favourite major European city, London.

super quick update

Okay, change of plans.

Most of you know that I should be in Rome by now but my Sunday flight was canceled due to volcanic ash. The next available flight to Rome was Friday so we did the next best thing and booked a flight to Pisa for Wednesday night (tonight).
So we're leaving Dublin in a few hours, camping out in the airport at Pisa for about six hours until we can take the first train out to Cinque Terre. We'll spend one day there and then make a mad dash back to Pisa where we grab a connecting train to Florence.
After 3 days in Florence we will somehow find ourselves in Rome where we'll eventually catch a flight over to London, spend a few days there and FINALLY head home.

I hope this sounds as crazy as it actually is. I'm pulling an all-nighter in an Italian airport so tonzees can get some sleep (because someone has to watch the bags) then getting an hour of sleep on a train and hiking all day. Still, I'm sure in retrospect these stories will be awesome.

Sadly, Venice had to be dropped from our itinerary because we lost so many days.

Can't wait to be home!

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine.

If you've never read my blog/watched my videos this is the only one I beg you to pay attention to because this one is to all of you...

Also, apologies for tearing up a little in there.

The "I should be studying now" post.

Well, this is me running out of ways to procrastinate. I really mean that. Today I should have studied (and after this post I swear I will do enough studying to make up for all the lost time earlier today).
Today I woke up at 6:30am to start studying and now know for certain that I am incapable of being productive for long periods of time until the clock hits midnight. So instead I will now study by staying up until 6:30 and sleeping til noon. Being nocturnal suits me well.

Anyway, I thought I'd amuse (or in my parents case - annoy) you with some of the better methods I found for procrastinating today. Advanced warning, some make me sound quite loony.

• I taught my roommate chemistry a few hours before her final exam (yes I remember chem).
  
• I learnt over 60 synonyms for the word "procrastinate" (my personal favourite is "boondoggle").
• I cooked three meals but only actually ate a bowl of soup and many many bowls of Rice Krispies.
• I spilled a handful of said Rice Krispies and counted them 3 times and found the average of those three times (123).
• I played every new game on addictinggames.com
• I cut the margins of the paper I was using for study notes so they would be "more presentable" when I eventually took notes on them.
• I googled myself.
• I looked my birthday up on wikipedia and realised that,apart from Catherine Zeta-Jones and Will Smith, I share it with William Faulkner and Eric Williams (my first prime minister and one of the most respected historians in the field of slavery).
  
• I caused a heated debate between two Irish people about the partition between them and N. Ireland.
• I had a personal revelation while watching an episode of In Plain Sight
• I read "The Little Black Book of Beer"
• I staged an impromptu ballet in my bedroom.
• I blasted the Jedward version of Under Pressure just because it's THAT BAD. I also decided that Vanilla Ice is WAYYYYY hotter now that he's older. Jedward are decidedly not hot, like make-me-bang-my-head-into-the-wall-not-hot.
  

Okay those are the best ones I've got for you for now.
I am actually going to get to work...Oh Chaucer. *sigh*

Love you all ;)

Paris: Take Two

So I FINALLY made it to la Ville-Lumière!!!We had just one short weekend but we managed to do so much in that time. It was really exciting and I'm now a lot more confident in my ability to navigate a big city, handle myself when creepy gypsy mobs want to kidnap me and what little French I had left was sufficient to help us through the whole trip.
We saw the majority of major tourist sights in Paris, ate at Rue de la Huchette at least four times, had a "piquenique" under the Eiffel Tower at night, saw the vast majority of the Louvre and still had the stamina to do the Musée d'Orsay. Talk about draining. Here's a picture with me and a painting from my favourite artist, Elizabeth Vigee-LeBrun.
I'm a particularly huge fan of her self portraits and this is the second one of hers that I've been able to see in Europe. My very favourite painting of the moment is one of her self-portraits and I got to see it in London.

We even made it across to Pigalles, the Moulin Rouge and found the Cafe des Deux Moulins used in Amelie.

Actually, as most of you know, my absolute favourite saint is St. Therese of Lisieux and by some weird chance her relics were on display for a few weeks at Sacre Coeur. So I walked in there to the sight of hundreds of roses and people kneeling in prayer. I was so excited I nearly cried. That alone was worth not going to Paris a few weeks ago.

Also, as I mentioned a few posts ago, each of our trips has a few theme songs that either apply to the place we're in or just happen to be stuck in our head.

This trip also had three songs -
Sky - Joshua Radin - what can I say...the song is absolutely beautiful and so fun to sing when waiting at the metro.
Aux Champs Elysees - Joe Dassin - this one is just obvious. Plus it's SO HAPPY.

The third song was a bit complicated. See, it was stuck in our heads ALLLLL weekend but it was soo not what you want to be singing out loud in Paris. I'd keep catching myself singing the first line and slapping my hand over my mouth to shut myself up. I think I'll leave this one a surprise for those of you who made it this far reading. Here you go - SONG NUMBER THREE

Okay people...off to either bed or studying. (Wow, as I typed that I almost felt like I was being given Cromwell's orders of "to hell or connaught" - talk about between a rock and a hard place).