goings on

I had my last class today... tomorrow is a study day... thursday is my exam... friday my parents arrive... saturday my parents leave for italy and i leave for amsterdam...

more goings on.

it's funny though. It seems like so much is happening at home and I'm missing it. I'm supposed to be having the crazy adventures out here... I'm supposed to have the stories to tell. But apparently all this stuff is going on at bennington that I don't have a clue about. my stories are just out here on the periphery.

but my vlog appeared on the front of freevlog.org. that's pretty cool right? I do feel like I need to get more involved in the community... maybe this will help.

and then there's how I'm feeling pretty ambivilant about going back. I know it must be done. I'm so excited to see my family, my bro, my cat, my sis (hopefully soon)... excited to drive, to have warm weather, to eat mexican food, to go swimming, to see the stars...

i'm not so excited about going back to school. the senioritis that set in at the end of freshman year is going into overdrive.

no new story there.

so it goes. and goes. and goes. and that's what I love about. :)

grand plan

have you heard? have you heard of my plan?

I plan to own a cafe. I'm sure you think I'm crazy... especially if you're related to me, but this makes sense, I promise.

I know it's a lot of work to start your own business; you need lots of capital, lots of drive, a "vision", and probably a backup plan too. I think that it is possible... and if it's possible for anyone, it's possible for me.

This place will be cozy... relaxed. It will supply coffee, tea, select baked goods including my growing-famous chocolate spiced cake... good music always playing, friendly employees... as green as possible too.

I plan on having an area in the back for a stage... a small one. The whole place will hold 100 people at max... smaller I think. I can barely even tell how many 100 is... seems like a lot. A small stage for small acts, acoustic please.

There will be a back porch and garden. It will be open in the summer when I expand the menu to summer fruit and appetizers... the singer-songwriter, folkie, smooth, jazzy, musicians can play there too...

Perhaps I'll live upstairs in the second level with my cat, my music, my kitchen, my bed, and my white airy curtains.

It will be a place where people can stop by on their way to work to pick up the great, rich coffee that we make, by my dad's recipe. People can come by during their lunch hour to read the newspaper or chat or stare out the window. People can come by at night to read, and study, and talk, and listen to music, and meet, and make magic...

it will be a home that I can make for others. give people a place.

I'm crazy I know... 21 and getting all domestic. You know the rambler is still alive in me... I've got lots of impatience and impulsiveness in here too... I just really like to nurture the homebody in me. It has needed nurturing lately.

You're all welcome in my future cafe... bring your friends, bring your books, bring your guitars, bring your songs... bring some love and homeyness...

ahh jeez... I sound like some nostalgic flower child... can a cafe change the world? it may change mine...

just dreaming away my last weeks in Dublin...

things I cannot show

some things I've been up to that I cannot video...

I've been listening to a lot of podcasts lately. It makes my 4 hours of commuting each day go by much more quickly and also gives me a more comfortable way of staying up to date. Newspapers never really hooked me, especially newspapers online. NYT is my homepage and I glance at the largest headlines every day (to see something crazy like Cheney shooting someone) but I don't get much further. NPR has some fantastic shows and they do their journalism well... they can make the news relevant to me and my life. And I like the conversation.

I subscribe to quite a few, ranging from Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac (did you know where the Easter Bunny tradition came from? I found out today. Interesting stuff.), to On the Media, to KCRW's Politics of Culture, to NPR's All Songs Considered.

I was listening to the environmental news show Living on Earth this evening as I made dinner. They have a regular segment called Early Signs: Reports from a Warming Planet, today covering the Republic of Kiribati (pro. Kirabas), between Hawaii and Australia. The people living there are not concerned, taking the Bible as proof that God promised Noah to never allow another flood. The leaders, national and local, are trying their best to get the people concerned about global climate change, decreasing fresh water, and erosion of plants... they speculate on 50 years... 50 years left for the existence of Kiribati...

I've also gotten a hold of lots of new musical artists, mostly through the NPR podcasts. A few of my favorites are Jolie Holland, an ex-member of the Be Good Tanyas, and Sarah Harmer, half rocker, half bluegrass ballad singer. Been enjoying it... a lot...

Also thinking lots about art. I'm taking this Arts in Ireland survey course right now, a third music, a third theatre, and a third visual arts. The visual arts has been fantastic, visiting a different Dublin museum every week. Combined with my talks with Michelle, my internship supervisor, and her recommendations of artists she knows and follows, I've been inundated by ideas and purposes.

I've been interested in art since I was little, with my first recognitions of Picasso and Van Gogh. I've always been crafty and creative. Now, I can look at art much more objectively (and subjectively as well) and get to understanding the purpose, the skill, the inspiration... sometimes the lack there of. We shall see if I can channel all this in the coming year.

Speaking of the coming year... I cannot believe I'm on to my final year in college. In school... at least for the time being. I'm constantly trying to decide if I've focused too much or not enough. If I've gotten to a certain level of knowledge in my chosen subjects. Whether or not I have, I'm on my way to graduate and I'm not going to stop now. I hope that this coming year I can construct my cumulative work to be a rubric for how much I've soaked up in the former three years.

Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself. I have thirteen days left in Ireland. I have fourteen days traveling Europe. Then a long, extended summer in Ringwood, New Jersey.

I cannot stop thinking... the internet is an amazing thing.

cleaning up.

I am coming to the end of my time in Dublin, I suppose. Less than 18 days.

We could say it''s been up and down for me... a big step forward into "becoming an adult." We could say that I've experienced the last straw in terms of living in a city. We could say that I'm better equipped to cope with a variety of situations... I'm getting to know myself in a more intimate way which allows me to better decipher the world around me.

Sure. What went wrong? I had a rough start with my internship with Comhaltas. I have been working with a ceramic artist named Michelle for the past week and a half and been feeling much better. So that was solved.

The weather was rough on my morale, but believe me... when it's sunny here... it's like a new world.

The city was rough on my feet... the ones that prefer grass to cement... the city was rough on my eyes... after a while I began to see past the cute little pub facades and just see gray... a very gray city.

The people were rough on my individual... sometimes I even would have preferred bennington people. It was a different pond of fish... sometimes it got to be a little much.

I've found lots of stuff in myself though. I've always been rather critical of myself... but I've gotten around to fixing the things I can fix... resigning myself to the things I can't... even better than resigning in some cases... I accepted them.

I have realized that I'm not very articulate... in writing and in speech. I come across lost, unpassionate, and unmotivated... sometimes even dull... I'm none of those things. I think one of the reasons I'm not very articulate is because my opinions are half-baked, unresearched, and unsupported. Also because I don't think writing essays or speaking in debates is really my cup of tea. I need to work on finding a better outlet.

this isn't much of an opinionated post, I suppose. Opinionated about myself, maybe. I doubt it's very interesting. I felt I needed to post something in writing, but I didn't have anything to say... so I talk about myself. Maybe that makes sense.

I'm very excited for my time here to be over. The "rough" spots I found above have worn on me. I do not think that being home is going to fix me up. But I do think it will allow me some space to patch up as best I can before returning to bennington to finish up there.

as usual, I look forward to change. My life has been blocked in semesters and in years as long as I can remember and I'm acheing for a time when I can't see the end of in front of me... call me crazy. I've found by talking with people about to graduate from college... or those who have recently graduated... most are very nervous because from graduation on... life isn't blocked out in those nice man-made chunks. After graduation... it's terrifying because you can't just wait for life to pass.

I can't wait have life poised in front of me like that. I can't wait until I'm forced to take it by the horns.

I can't wait for a clean slate.