Dear Diary: Time To Make A Plan

I came in to the campus just to write a Financial Accounting test today. And I sat it, and finished it, taking about 98 minutes out of what would have been an available 120 I think, although that may have been stretched out from 90.

I walked away from the testing hall with a bit of niggling frustration over trying to remember whether it was IAS 37, 38 or 39 which dealt with events after the reporting period. I've never been good at remembering arbitrary numbers and codes like that. I let it fade gently from my mind, and my thoughts settle on something else.

I need to stop not having a plan.

This morning I told my dear Stars that over the past few days, I've come to the conclusion that it's important I come around to admitting that coming to Ireland was a mistake. "And so I've said it," I told them. And so I have. It was a mistake to come here. It may have been a mistake I needed to make, in the situation I was in, needed to make and then learn from. But it was a mistake. Which is the English human shorthand way to say, I suppose...

I need to stop trying to justify this and figure out how to recover. Write it off, sell it for what scrap I can get for it.

What now?

It's strange how much difference that makes to my perspective, when none of my options have really changed.

Well... If I'm not assuming I have to stay, I need to have a plan to go. Plane tickets, dates, an address of someone who'll let me stay with them for a while when I arrive back in Canada, either for rent or otherwise. All of it flexible, ideally, so that if I do manage to get a paid internship here with a company that'll put me through my next year and offer me a place with them, I can pivot to that.
Huh. Using the word pivot that way on a personal blog makes me sound like a corporate dickhead. Well, not pivot, then. Switch to it. Adjust to land there.

So. Refundable plane tickets. Those exist, I'm pretty sure. How much time do I want to give myself? Couple months? If I don't have an internship set up by mid-June, I don't think I'm likely to get one, so let's say late June maybe. April, exams are in May, June. Alright. I can work with that.

Today while I was walking to the campus, I listened to some episodes of the ACCA student podcast, including one episode on Clever Job Hunting which I listened to more carefully than the others. One of the things it says is about networking - that it's important to build relationships up before bringing up jobs at all.

Well, there's the kick, isn't it? Don't look desperate, ever, especially when you feel desperate. Don't ask people for awkward things. Smile. Shake hands. Talk small. Make friends.

I've never been good at that. I hate feeling like I'm confined to safe, inoffensive subjects. And I'm quick to get annoyed with people's bad habits. I have to admit, though, I get it. Swooping in and expecting the attention of people who don't know what makes me great looks pretentious, entitled. Because it is. I fly around the world, leaving places and people behind me, looking for a break... And then who's there to help me or vouch for me?

Anyway. Book a ticket to leave in June, then. Get through the rest of my classes and exams. Shift emphasis away from menial work for the summer - it seems even mushroom harvesting positions are looking for people who intend to stay longer than a year. Keep throwing out applications as I can bear to for internships, try to learn about companies that might be a gateway for me, here or in Canada. Maybe look into the US a bit, but since I've no claim there and no degree so far, don't expend too much effort on it.

Wrap up the story of the tabletop campaign. Does everything just go to hell because the death of Isabet Carol was only the first sign of things going very, very wrong, and the PCs didn't actually investigate enough to stop it? Sounds plausible, and may offer them enough closure to satisfy. It would be nice to have a tabletop story actually end in a way that feels like an ending for once.

Continue the conversation with Fanshawe and maybe other colleges in Canada, look at continued study... Maybe. I'm tired of going to school, though. Look for work in Canada, yes. If it's something that can get me starting to do work that aligns with my strengths and studies, great. If something that aligns with EA, even better.

Alright. Go and set it up, then, Serp.

Group Research Problems

I have gradually developed an utter hatred for group research projects over my time in college. The two things are often shoved together, unfortunately. It seems like four of five assignments we're given in groups involve secondary research: scanning through databases, looking for articles and (occasionally) not being allowed to say anything, even points of common knowledge or what seem to be profoundly obvious extrapolations, without pointing to someone else who said it first and in print.

The work of organizing groups, and trying to get quality work out of other students over whom I ultimately have no power has always been something I dread. When a classmate sends me, two days before a report is due, a piece of writing that I can barely untangle into readable English, that gives a link to a source that contradicts rather than supports it, I as another mere student have to try to find a way to explain that we can't use this, that it's not good enough, in a way that actually gets my teammates to do better rather than starting a fight about why I get to decide what we do and don't use... Or ignore their contribution and rewrite their entire part in whatever time remains and look forward to complaints about my having done so... Or use the nonsense they give me anyway and let the incoherence of the work drag me down with them.

There's a community I really admire called Effective Altruism (shortens to EA). Every time I've seen suggestions in EA articles or discussions promoting research as one of the best ways to do good in the world, I've gotten an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach, like I'll never be able to help as much as other people who can stomach research. It occurred to me recently that this seems a lot like the reflexive rejection many other people have from any subject with a substantial numerical component because they're "bad at math". Maybe if I hadn't become conditioned through college to associate research with the feeling of either herding cats or dragging them around on my back in a sack that occasionally grew claws, I wouldn't think I was "bad at research", or that research was inherently miserable. Maybe I should try to find out what the experience of research is like in a more professional environment as opposed to what college usually turns it into.

Continuing On

"I feel like you imply to me that I'm wasting your time every time I ask a question, in class or outside of it."
"No, it's not that. It's just that we have a lot to cover and very little time to do it all."
"The way you say it upsets me every time."
"Ditto."
"Well, I'm sorry for my side of that."
"Me too. Let's begin again next day."
handshake

-Monday 24th, September

The term is now thoroughly underway, and I have been neglecting my blogging again. I have become acquainted with the chaplain on campus and one of the two counselors, who I am set to meet once a week. I have been feeling busy, with pressure from classes, homework, and financial stability; regular job searching has as usual been discouraging. My several runs of boldly introducing myself and dropping off CVs in person have yielded nothing so far and largely robbed me of the energy to continue making online applications to posted jobs.

I am seeking to break into freelancing, to work on my own terms, and maybe do some tutoring, even in IT Carlow itself. UpWork has rejected my application twice, though, perhaps negating the hearsay I had from a friend of a friend that the application process was pretty much a formality. Having taken ten tests on the site and scored above average on every one and in the top 10% on some, I feel indignant about this, and am wondering whether you have to already be an established freelancer for UpWork to want to support you.

The lecturer I had the above encounter with has been treating me with greater kindness and consideration since. In my Excel-based computer labs, I race ahead. In non-computer lab Management Accounting classes, I have begun to sometimes stop even processing through the problems. Vainly racing the lecturer's Excel with a hand calculator while my mind is crowded with her talking was growing very tiresome, and I feel confident I already get the idea by now. If I could find the time to do more practice on my own it would be great, but my time is mostly spent wondering how I'm ever going to juggle all of the things I need to do.

And then there is archery. It's the one club I've been going to reliably, learning form and stance and hearing encouraging words from the coach, who is acting as a better teacher than any of my lecturers, using effective repetition, class participation and good humour, much like my statistics lecturer back at Fanshawe did, to help us memorise the safety rules and terminology of the bow, adding a little every week. There is also a lot of waiting, since the beginners shoot only 4-6 at a time so that the coaches can observe us and correct mistakes, and the rest queue behind. I have begun to get to know the other left-handed archers; In archery, which hand you fire with depends on the dominance of your eye, not the regular dominance of your hand, and so someone who is a right-handed writer may be a left-handed archer. There are perhaps three right hand archers to each of us lefties, and we share the same line to shoot with a left-handed bow.

I enjoy archery, even though there's a lot of waiting. I have been challenging my social courage to chat to and get to know some of the other lefties. I had an amusing conversation with one young man yesterday who's in the first year of a software course going into cyber security. For the money, he said when I asked, and we talked about different countries and pronunciations, accents and languages. He wondered why out of all the countries in the world I would want to come to Ireland, and expressed a dislike of the Irish accent and disdain for the country in general. He was an interesting conversationalist, although as I said to him myself it seemed in some moments as though we were chatting across from different sides of the D&D alignment table. He laughed.

Between the talking and building my skills and the generally welcoming atmosphere... Well, probably more important than any of that is that when I am at archery club I feel a certain pseudo-obligation to leave school, work and busyness matters mostly aside and just be still for a while, focused almost entirely on other things, and that's just deeply refreshing.

I had an ongoing email conversation with someone who runs the campus's tabletop games club, suggesting some ways he could make his emails and Facebook messages more welcoming and less cynical. We met in person yesterday, and essentially he told me that he wasn't interested in spending the effort to improve his approach for this thing he was volunteering his time toward. I am proud of myself for continuing to speak animatedly but cheerfully with him until we parted ways, although I went away from it feeling stressed and perhaps on a verge of my social anxiety that I am a bit surprised I managed to cling to, and not tumble over. He did thank me for the feedback and admit to some surprise that the way I had rewritten a couple of his messages registered as so much more welcoming even to him.

Also yesterday, a couple of my friends introduced me to A Capella Science, with Entropic Time and Banting's Imparted Years, which has made my Song of the Day list. The single-voice a capella of the latter is a little harsh on the ears at first, but it really grew on me over time, and the arrangements are good.

I had better get moving. It is another school morning and I need to be at school in a little under an hour to book an appointment with the campus doctor to get a renewed prescription of my thyroid medicine. Oh. Also also, I picked up a bottle of apple cider vinegar, which was mentioned in my marketing class, and have begun trying to take a spoon of it every day like a medicine. I don't know how valid are its claims as a health tonic, and I feel a little self-conscious for following a trend like this, but I'll just give it a try, and see if it seems to do me any good.

Techless Time: Three Hours of Inconvenience

This is a verbatim copy of a blog assignment written for school.

When I learned that we were being assigned to spend three hours without using electronics or information systems, my reaction was immediate dread and frustration, and anticipating making time for it brought back similar feelings whenever my mind returned to it. I decided, eventually, to get this done and over with so I would stop having to worry about when I was going to do it, and took my time techless from 8-11 PM on Tuesday the 25th.

This time began as I was nearing home on a walk back from town to drop off a CV and buy groceries, since I was not willing to make this trip without listening to any music or podcasts. With forethought, I set an alarm on my phone to go off in three hours and three minutes, and set it to Do Not Disturb so that it would not make any sound until then. This way, I would know when my time was up. In a way, then, I could not get away from using my phone, since I was passively making use of its time tracking, but I will not apologise for this; My house does not actually have a clock in it, use of devices like mobile phones which also tell time having been so ordinary and constant that no-one bothered to get one. It reminded me of attending classes in room D521, where the wall clock is perpetually stuck at 10:00 and we are not allowed to check our phones, and so by extension are not allowed to check the time.

Throughout the day, even before I started the challenge, I was thinking about angry things to say about being assigned to do this. Among them: It is not very difficult to take time away from connectedness if you want to. For some, it's a very relaxing experience to let go of the need to answer to friends or bosses and be informed of every new thing as it happens. Country retreats away are popular for good reason. However, it's a different matter when you're doing it on someone else's command. Any given person has almost certainly at some point, when they weren't thinking about it, gone three hours at a time without scratching their nose, but it's a part of human nature that if someone tells you that you have to deliberately avoid scratching it for three hours, it's immediately going to start itching.

Perhaps I would not have been so frustrated but for three major factors: First, I have been trying to find a part-time job around town, and feel rather urgently pressed to do so. It's very rare for me to be in a situation where I'd rather be looking through job listings online than what I'm actually doing, but this is one of those situations.
Second, I have always spent the majority of my social life online and my relaxation using a computer; I play computer games or watch YouTube as my primary way to enjoy myself and unwind. This is only more dramatically the case now that I am thousands of miles and many time zones away from all my old friends whose company is familiar and comforting to me, so these three hours will neither be time I can spend looking for work in a way I'm able to at this time of day, nor time I can spend relaxing and enjoying myself in the ways I'm accustomed to.
Finally, the experience of being asked to do this feels political to me. It reminds me of people I have heard dismissing "millenials" as cheap, shallow and so addicted to their phones that they can't stand to put them down for ten minutes, and as a result I feel reflexively defensive and as though I am being judged; Not only that, but judged based on a stereotype rather than for my own behaviour.

Information technology is a stratum on which life today is built; some houses no longer have clocks in them because 'everyone' has a mobile phone. Posters and food wrappers do not write out the full details of their message, but have a URL printed on them where further information can be found because 'everyone' has ready access to the internet. Going without these systems for a few hours or even a few weeks is entirely possible and may not even be particularly hard, but if someone is incapable of using them at all, they will be missing out on major advantages and may not be able to keep up with the standard pace and productivity the modern world expects and demands.

For my three hours of techlessness, I wanted to prioritise doing things that I would not normally use an electronic device to do more efficiently. Although I was thinking about what I would write throughout the day, I did not write anything for this blog; writing with paper and pen is slower for me than typing, and I would have needed to type it all out afterwards anyway. Instead, I tidied my bedroom windowsill, did a bit of organising in my room, bathed myself and cooked two different kinds of food: soup and spaghetti. Aside from tidying my windowsill, these were things I might well have done anyway on some other day, but the primary difference is that on another day, I would be listening to something on either my phone or my mp3 player. This might be music, or it might be a podcast of some kind, depending on what I felt like at the time. I care a great deal for the ability to listen to music of my own tastes whenever I want. It adds levity and fun to menial work, and also allows me to drown out things I do not want to be listening to, like a housemate's private phone conversation with a loved one or a barking dog in the neighborhood. Today, I spent three hours with a recurring earworm I wasn't allowed to scratch.

On the other hand, deliberately avoiding the use of electronics and information systems reminded me about a short piece of speculative fiction I want to write, about a disconnect from technology far more integrated and habitual, and vastly more devastating, than this one.

IT Carlow: Week Two

I am easily embarrassed and may take over an hour to really get over the embarrassment from merely being told my questions are too frequent, or perhaps too insignificant by her measure, by a lecturer. Time really seems to be flying. I had not noticed we had so little time left in the lecture. This must be a good thing. I will try to figure out other ways to approach this lecturer with my questions

-Monday 17th, September

I enjoyed sleeping this morning and clung to it. I arrived late to my first class and unfed. In the second I was continually distracted and annoyed by the man next to me who checked his phone under the desk, wobbled the bench and jostled against me with his arm. In the hallway I wrestled with the anxiety-forbidden temptation to call out to everyone not to block the hallways, in case someone needed to get through. I bought myself a breakfast in the upstairs caf, which helped fuel me through the rest of my classes.

-Tuesday 18th, September

The clubs sign-up was loud with music over a boombox in one corner. I signed up for archery, tabletop and Irish dance. I met some of Rachel's friends for the second time. I gave out 3 CVs with a cheerfulness that surprised me. I slept before midnight and soundly rested until 9 the next day.

-Wednesday 19th, September

Yesterday I found an organising toy, lifeRPG, for goal setting and tracking, with EXP gained for completed tasks. I woke to find a rejection from UpWork and a bunch of forms to fill out for my new clubs, plus obligations to further support Tabletop. It was a bad first impression. Missed counselling appointment, and didn't realize it until 9 at night.

-Thursday 20th, September

I had a sluggish morning. I helped Rachel practice categorising costs for Management Accounting and felt that I had neglected my need for leisure, so once I got home I watched a bunch of old shows of sfdebris and bought and enjoyed a game that was on sale on GOG. But I dropped off four more CVs on the way.

-Friday 21st, September

Saturday was a day of job searching work. I made a particularly strong and hopeful application to a health food store looking for a weekend shop assistant. I improved some of the phrasing on my CV and made a new version which I hope will be relevant to waitress work. I handed out four more CVs, including one to an actual bar. The approach was intimidating, as I have never felt comfortable in bars, but having overcome my mounting fear to come in and talk to two friendly counter staff was one small victory. I visited another and heard that the manager to speak to would be in on weekdays, but was not at that time. At the end of the day, I reviewed my progress and found that of all the CVs I had dropped off, positions I had applied to online and employment inquiry emails I had sent, one entire third of them had been over the last four days: Wednesday to Saturday.

Tuesday I had gotten an email from the school office reminding me of the urgency of my job search: appointments for the immigration meeting at which I would need to show evidence of 3,000 euro in a bank account to stay were beginning. Over the few days that followed, I gathered my friends and spoke seriously about the choice between returning to Canada and forfeiting the deposit my father was generous enough to let me talk him into paying for me... or staying on, although if I became financially unable to stay through the end of the year and finish the courses, I would be out by thousands more. Still, the real need of finding work is a challenge that my past self knowingly threw my present self into, determined that I should grow to meet it. Incidentally, this fits well with a new determination song shown to me by a new friend: "I'm now becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy!"

Sunday I woke up feeling utterly done with job searching. I spent the day lazy and played Theme Hospital for most of it. Chatted with Iris, and stayed up almost all night. It set me up to wake to my alarm so hazily that I thought I had multiple alarms keyed to different states, and go back to sleep after turning it off, feeling confident another one would ring. I slept in and missed my first class, but only the first one. I was in attendance for the second.

Dear Memory: Panic Attack

I have continued to be largely passive, skipping a fair few of my classes, playing video games with most of my time. I feel some pressure about school responsibilities, and more pressure about dealing with the applications to Irish colleges, but it is rarely enough to move me to action.

On the other hand, yesterday I had a visit with my counsellor. It cheered me up quite a bit at the time, just being listened to as I discussed some of the issues in my past that I had been unpacking with a new friend as well, who I have come to call Stars. I also did quite a bit of talking with my landlord about the matter of my roommates semi-regularly bringing people into the house late at night and talking loudly without any forewarning.

Then I played Don't Starve Together with a friend of mine, and watched GrimithR streaming Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion. I participated quite a bit in chat and enjoyed the stream. I experienced waves of fatigue several times, but at the end of the stream, I nevertheless spent another bunch of hours gaming on my own before I slept.

I slept long and through the morning, through my morning class and my early afternoon volunteering hour, although I woke up for brief minutes twice when someone slammed the door coming or going. I woke just as one of my one-hour classes would have been starting. I did not elect to rush to attend it. I prepared some soup. I went to my last class of the day, and participated somewhat in discussions, trying to keep up and catch up with information I had missed from previous classes. Sometimes my questions had a fairly obvious answer. I shrink in my seat, I rub my arms frequently, once I make a soft whining noise without meaning to. I feel intensely self-conscious and uncomfortable. I feel myself come close to hyperventilating a little, but I think unless someone was staring at me instead of the lesson, they probably would not notice.

It is tempting to flee home and into the distraction of video games, and the soothing of familiar voices preventing my brain from doing much with words, and some nice hot soup. I stay for the class, feeling panicky and feeling as though forcing myself to stay is almost a form of self-flagellation. Yet, at the same time, I am learning, becoming acquainted with some systems of accounting which are worthy of my attention. Pity my attention is scattered and split. Why is my capacity for enduring my classes so decimated lately? What's wrong with me...?

I stay, I follow along with the work. I comprehend what we're talking about, although I am extremely distracted and feel somewhat nauseous. I turn my mind tentatively to the question of Ireland and wonder a little whether I will really make it. I suppose there is room for doubt. It is a component of experience. This does not mean, necessarily, that I will not. I just feel so feeble right now.

Dear Memory: The Man in my Dream

Vivid dreams again last night. They seemed to follow on from the dreams of kissing people a couple of weeks ago. Only, this time... I was thoroughly in a happy courtship with a tall young man with black hair, cuddling close and sharing things I found awesome. He wasn't explicitly attached to your identity in my dream. He wasn't explicitly attached to any cached identity. It was the kind of dream I might have had as a pre-teen and grieved and cursed the fact that I must have woken up from it... Except perhaps that those dreams also usually seemed to involve climbing a tower, and I don't remember any such element to this one.

I reflect on it with soft, confused consideration, and am mostly happy, I think. I got in touch with someone I'd met in Ireland the other day on Facebook after they liked one of my posts. I bound them to secrecy and told them about my plan to return, my thoughts about contacting you once it becomes time to choose between colleges, so you could have your say about whether I should be close by. I found their answer this morning after I woke from the dream. "If you're here, surely he'd wanna be with you?" Again someone on the outside responds as though this were obvious. Someone closer to your side this time. Again it is warming.

I walk about the house, thinking of music in a lively style inspired by the traditional Irish sound of jumping and leaping violin, thinking I would like to compose a song to mark my love of the music and of the place, and the strange fey madness that seems like part of the picture. I feel tired. My sleep has been less than eight hours again, though I woke up naturally. My sleep has also been full of vivid dreams. Perhaps that demands more energy of me. If not to dream, then to process having dreamed.

I had my Finance midterm yesterday. I have my Tax midterm today. I am not particularly worried, although I don't think I'm all that well prepared either. Not being worried may be partly down to the fatigue.

Dear Memory: A Hole in My Foot

Dear memory... Over the past week I have been largely idle, as I mentioned before.

On that Monday, I came into school and was unnerved and confused that the front doors were locked on a Monday morning. I had not remembered the short Family Day holiday; Monday and Tuesday classes were cancelled. The gym was not open either, and I would be unable to work out for my third time that week. I returned home, and slept long and through the day, and at some point, I scratched and pulled at some rough edges of the thick soles of my right foot, and restless, I pulled skin away that tore bloody at the end, and wound up with a patch that was thin and bare and painful to walk on.

I have not been to the gym for the past week, while I was being idle, and part of the reason is that I have been waiting for my foot to heal, and for the slight stiffness in my calf to recover after walking with a limp which puts more stress on different places. It seems to me as though my restless picking may have corresponded to a subconscious need for rest, and winds up working out quite nicely, although the fact that the way it works out involves temporarily hobbling myself is not ideal.

On Friday and Saturday, I turned my sights to work again, as the finished version of an important assignment in my Finance course was coming due. I worked for three and a half hours solid on Saturday morning before 6 AM in that special zen state I get into when I am under pressure to finish a document, in which the hours seem not to matter, as the document forms. Large pieces of writing produced, and then whittled and perfected and formatted step by step; like a drawing, increasing by stages, but not in a particular order. Just switching to adding or refining in some other place where additions or refinement can be made, and then coming back and adding to or refining the part I had just left behind to do so.

It is strange and beautiful and trance-like, and I think I always worry, as a deadline draws near, that I might not manage to fall into that alien and productive state of mind again, it is so different. But then I do. One of my team mates started out working on the wrong part, one that had already been done, and adjustments needed to be made at the last minute. I volunteered to take on part of his work and adapt the project to include the extra work he had done even though it had not been necessary, and it all worked out. I believe so, anyway. Our grades aren't in yet.

I have to say, I have been delighted with my team for this assignment. I think it's fair to say I have done the lion's share of the work on the project, but if so, I have determined lynxes pulling beside me. They show solidarity, they rowl in support and pride when we make a leap forward, and we make that leap together. My teammates have had my back and contributed resources I did not have by conferring with their friends in other sections to figure out segments of the assignment that I did not know how to proceed on. Their written segments showed effort and contained genuinely useful material, despite a few inaccuracies and some poor English. I don't blame them. For two of my groupmates, it is not their first language, and in any case some peoples' skills are not oriented towards writing well.

Mine are, and I spent some of those hazy, focused hours of vaguely happy-ish just-do-it-ive-ness stroking my chin and carefully rephrasing, reducing redundant statements, correcting spelling mistakes and structuring the flow of sentence to sentence.

I also made the report pretty, putting the original phrasing of each assigned question in italics at the beginning of the section that addressed it. It had a pretty header with all of our last names in it and collapsible headings, and I uploaded my current state of progress for my teammates to look at several times. They expressed appreciation for how pretty and comprehensible I had made it.

After the three and a half hours of solid work on the assignment report, I continued on to finish two quizzes for other subjects before sleeping, because they were there to be done and at the time, I didn't mind the expenditure of time in the way I normally do. I scored 100% marks on both, despite being so tired that words occasionally swam before my eyes. I think the difficulty and doubt made me focus and double-check myself more, and the fatigue to the point of feeling uncommon silence and stillness within my mind helped prevent restless distraction or overthinking.

I went back to my games on Sunday, but felt less engaged with them. I think I have had the rest I needed. But, even if this level of strange, zen productiveness were entirely sustainable, I don't think I have a task before me that demands it. Until the next time to crunch on school affairs, I mean.

My foot has healed to a point that the pain is minor and of a different kind. Only the slight pain of touch on scab. It barely hurts to walk. I think I will go to the gym again today.

I listen to another episode of Welcome to Night Vale while walking through the halls, feeling friendly and zazen. The weather comes on, and the gentle, romantic sound of strumming guitar greets my ear, and I experience a strong mental vision of myself laying in a field of swaying yellow grass, half feeling as though you were with me, and half wishing that you were. My heart yearns gently like the satisfying ache of a well-exercised muscle. I pause, and look out of a window, and gently touch the glass as I continue towards my Intermediate Accounting class after the weather is over. I want to go for a long, long walk to nowhere in particular, to be walking. The temptation is extremely appealing. I decide that to do so would neglect my duties at this time, and I continue on to class.

The class is review. I do not focus on it. I sit and write this blog, and listen to the gentle, comfortably familiar sound of my professor going through example problems in the background. I occasionally look up and acknowledge the subject matter. I occasionally hear the input of one of my classmates, and once or twice there is a little chuckle of laughter across the class. I am not focused on the lesson, but I am happy and feel a gentle, abstracted affection for my classmates and my professor and the community that we are together, in the context in which we operate together. Various things seem vaguely and peacefully right about the world around me. This may be partly attributable to my having consumed a Monster energy drink this morning. Those things don't just make me alert; even when I remain sleepy and tired, they tend to make me bizarrely happy.

And I continue to miss you. This, too, seems vaguely and peacefully right. I miss you, Eoin. I love you. Cecil's deep, pleasant voice during part of this episode of Welcome to Night Vale had said... You are never the same twice. You are different at every moment. Continue to do what is important to the you that you are now, until you are not that person anymore. I smiled. I appreciated that part. I feel it is very much what I am doing, and a vital part of the perspective that has been what I am doing since the original light of determined decision in November. This is what is important to me now, and it is true to myself to act upon it. What happens later will wait for later. My priorities will someday be different. I doubt I will regret this, though. How could I regret taking calm, gradual strides toward being as I wish to be? Being where I wish to be. Being with someone I wish to see again.

Dear Memory: Night Vale and Daytime Dreams

Dear memory...

I have been bingeing on Welcome to Night Vale, as well as the Sims, lately, as I have shifted into a state of rest and reluctance to apply myself to anything. However, and perhaps unusually, I am mostly enjoying the rest, and the opportunity to let my mind and body be comparatively still. Perhaps, I have been overextending myself recently, and it is important to allow myself a time to pull in on myself.

I think of you often. Night Vale reminds me of you... since, of course, you were the person who originally showed it to me. I am up to episode 74 now, and when I heard the announcement describing the dog park, repeated almost exactly word for word from the pilot, I went back and listened to part of the pilot again to confirm that it actually was almost exactly word for word.

I remembered hanging out in your bedroom. I remembered commenting that the segment featuring advice to parents while bringing their children to play in the scrublands had some very genuinely sensible advice in it. It felt strange to remember so vividly a thing that happened about three quarters of a year ago, but then... My memories of my time with you are vivid. More vivid than usual, and my memories and imaginings are usually... vivid. Emotional intensity, I am sure, has a significant amount to do with memory formation and retention. That which a person feels strongly about, in any way, their brain will register as important, and reinforce.

You have always been important to me.

I think of you much, recently.

I have had strange dreams, the past couple of days (I had four days off of school in a row, and started sleeping during the day again; I have been unable yet to stop sleeping during the day, and this has contributed to my recent retreat into myself). Twice in a row... I think... My dreams involved getting to know a person, and winding up lying with that person and kissing them. The person was not you. The person was different in each dream, and represented a real person that I recognize, and sort of know, and have sort of liked, but not someone at all close to me. A YouTuber I occasionally watch, and a classmate I never really talked to much, but had a slight crush on for a time.

It feels strange to have my dreams repeat themes so strongly like that. I miss kissing you. I miss kissing anyone, really. It's been quite some time since I have. None of the people I know that I would want to kiss and feel comfortable trying to do so are here in London with me. Perhaps the dreams are simply an expression of desiring that kind of physical contact again. And yet, there was something about both of them that seemed as though they were trying to retell the story of my meeting you, and becoming involved with you. In one case, I asked the dream-partner to let me have a moment to process my feelings, after I had somewhat unexpectedly wound up kissing him, and I thought about you. In my dream. And whether I was okay with this, given how much I still miss you.

I have been very passive lately, but aside from a sense of slightly concerned pressure about an assignment which is due in two days, I'm not worried or upset about it. I was working hard for the first few weeks of the term, and we really didn't get much of a winter break at all this year. It's been very tense and active at school since the strike ended three months ago. It seems I am well able to forgive and tolerate myself taking time off to just relax for a while. I believe with some quiet, non-dramatic confidence that I will be able to pick up and start working again, once it becomes necessary for me to do so to keep pace with the course and continue to perform at my high standards for myself.

When I listen to Welcome to Night Vale recently, I snarl and giggle more often and with slightly less care to ensure no-one is close by to notice. I feel fairly peaceful with my own acknowledged, adopted, personally delighted in creepiness. I feel happy about my friends, who know that it is part of me, and love me no less. I have one person in particular who tells me that they really value the fact that when they talk to me, some of the things I say reflect a darker side to the world that they don't notice until I point it out. But he appreciates being able to see it, like a shape on the other side of the water, behind the clearer reflection of his own light, his own experience, his own face. Enlightening, endarkening, as he says.

It is... beautiful... to have contexts available to me in which this tendency of mine; although it arises quite naturally out of my perspective, and simply sharing the way I see the world and what things mean to me; is acknowledged and appreciated as a service.

I miss you. I hope that you are well. I look forward hopefully and with quiet, distant excitement to the time when I can speak to you again.

Dear Memory: Difficult Day in Stride

(after Unsupportive and Dance-X, same day)

I have had a lot to tell today. Yet there is more. It seemed sensible to divide it into these pieces. This piece is for you, Eoin. I feel as though you may have been on my mind a little more this past little while that the previous similarly sized while.

I'm glad to have been going steadily through school, trying to balance homework and classes and fitness and the process of trying to bring myself back to Ireland. I keep thinking back to something my friend Ampersand said, the last time I had him visit me. I was talking about my plans, and something about how I intended to arrange things so that they would work out well for me even if it turns out that you don't want me back. He said, that seems pretty unlikely.

It stuck in my mind. I think he may have been the only person who ventured to assess the chance. It was certainly something I appreciated hearing, and I wonder what this judgement is based on.

I can't say. But although the intensity and inability to control my tendency to think of you has faded over time, I certainly do think of you from time to time, and smile, usually. I want to see you again. I look forward to seeing you again. While I was getting out of the shower today, I thought to myself... Well, it's half-way through February now. March, April, May, June, July, August... September.
It could be as little as six months. It could be as little as six months that I actually see you again.

It's sensible to leave early. One of the college reps suggested I give myself a couple of weeks before school starts in order to have time to find a part-time job. So really, arriving half-way through August is entirely plausible, and if you are amenable to it at that time... it really could be as little as six months. Something about that just strikes as though it's unreal and also more real, both at the same time.

I recently took photos of some of my books, to add to my list of things to try to sell on Kijiji. I delete and replace the sale listings once a week. They get pushed down the list very fast, but there's only so much time I have to spare for it just now. Perhaps after my trial period quiz challenge. I think casually about what things are important enough or difficult enough to replace that I will want to bring them with me. My knife set, probably. My few issues of Transmetropolitan, likely. My cool old-fashioned pepper grinder, maybe. That would be it for kitchen things, though. The rest, better to find new ones as I settle wherever I wind up settling.

It's... exciting. And despite the difficulty today, and the uncomfortable coughing and watery feeling in my stomach and tightness in my calves after Dance-X, I note that I have stuck to my initiative of working out three times a week for three weeks and still counting. This is the most consistent with exercising I've ever been for an extended period. I feel my abdomen and my shoulders with curious, interested fingertips from time to time. I feel as though it's making a difference... and hoping that you will see that difference when you see me again may be almost all the motivation I need to keep it up...

I wonder at my determination, and the way my confidence has held strong. There must, I suppose, be something special about the way I love you, that it makes me stronger like this.

I need to eat, and I need to work on quizzes. But Eoin... I love you. And I am coming. Six months from now... I hope you're ready.

Dance-X

(after Unsupportive, same day)

I had registered in advance to try out a Dance-X class at the gym today. In the state of anger I was still in when I left for it, I had a sense of dread about the whole affair, worrying about the factors that led to my dropping out of the dance club at AIT. I was determined to push through it and give it a good honest try, though, despite feeling that I was in a mood in which I might not be capable of fair judgement.

I left at fifteen to and got to the class on time, introduced myself to one other person who was also new to it and waited, in some nervous excitement, for the class to start. I wasn't sure what to expect. The instructor is a small, bouncy woman who wore a single, long braid and seemed very cheerful. There was no practice at slow speed, she simply set a playlist to going and launched into energetic dance, with a lot of quick cross-stepping and jumping about. The first song and dance on the list was Gangnam Style. That dance takes a hell of a lot of energy. I think I tried too hard. I could feel the roughness in my lungs at the end of it. I sat down, but was encouraged to remain standing even if I was tired.

Songs continued. They were mostly recognizable pop hip-hop, including Timber and Put a Ring on It. I continued. I tried to figure out what the moves were and get in step, but it was extremely difficult to register and try to learn the steps at such a fast pace, and difficult in an entirely different way to perform them even when I did have a sense of them. If I was standing, though, I felt pressured to dance if I were at all capable of it.

25 minutes into the 45 minute class, I left, deciding that I was at my limit and needed to stop. I had leaned on myself up next to the fan and the instructor called out a bit to me asking if I was alright. I said nothing, but walked slowly and unsteadily to the door and quietly let myself out. Tears were leaking out of my eyes as I changed my shoes. The slick of sweat across my shoulders meeting my synthetic jacket felt greater than it had ever been before. Before heading home, I walked across a little hill, still covered in snow, and carefully and intentionally fell over onto my side. I lay there for a minute or two, occasionally coughing somewhat raggedly, feeling the cold and wet seep into the side of my pants, thinking very little.

The main thing I was thinking, and have been thinking, seems a carefully audited stream of thought:

Yes, it was sort of fun. Stopping part-way through is not failure. Showing up and putting effort into it is a success. Perhaps my weight-based workouts will go better the next time I come to the gym for my giving those muscles a little more chance to recover than usual. This definitely counts as having worked out today. It's been a hard couple of days. Perhaps it was time to cry. I should try this again next week, but pace myself more conservatively.

I brought myself home and showered. I brushed away the most recent accumulation of sand and fine gravel which accumulates by the door, and thence gets in my bedroom, and thence into my sheets; and I lay down, and I began writing this.

I am trying to do a set of online quizzes within a trial period again. I might end up trying it for two different classes, one having been activated later than the other. My Information Systems class has simple SAM Cengage labs for learning Access and if I get the chance to access all of them within the trial period, I think I can ace them easily. The more challenging and more serious one is Managerial Accounting. I've already worked ahead, and have finished four of the quizzes. One of them, I didn't actually study for. I had mistaken which one it actually was, but having started it without preparation, I did my best, and my best without studying earned me a tiny fraction over 80%, a little better than a similar quiz I had studied for. I think I'm probably losing some marks on rounding. I find the instructions on which numbers to round obtuse and confusing.

There are six more quizzes. It is currently Thursday evening. I will need to finish them by Saturday evening to complete them during the trial access. I have a class tomorrow, and a project actually due on Saturday evening to contribute work towards. I am not sure I can do it, but I'm certainly going to try.

Unsupportive

This has not been a good day for me so far. I stayed up last night playing The Sims again. I'm kind of worried that I'm not sick of it yet. I have a lot of other things to do, but it remains compelling and distracting.

I was so tired that I slept through my first class. Now I almost wish I had missed my second one as well, because I got so angry. The first tax quiz was exceptionally low-scoring, and a bunch of my classmates were concerned about it, as was I. I felt I had not made the same mistake I did last term, when I also scored low on my first tax quiz. I had checked the slides over, and the textbook, on almost every question. One of my classmates told me he had been sure he should have gotten 100% after studying hard for it, but only got 70%.

This in itself is not such a big deal, although it may feel like one at the time, and a quiz is worth 5% of our final mark in this course. The professor's response in class can make all the difference, and here it definitely did. She went through the questions, quick-firing off references to what specific paragraph the answer was supposedly in for each one, leaving no time for analysis of what the paragraph or the question actually said, and ending by cheerfully telling us we need to read the book.

I spoke up one last time saying I didn't have time to follow her through this supposed explanation and still thought some of the questions were wrong, and was told it didn't matter, she was giving the important point of reading the textbook and that it was all there. I did not speak up for the rest of the class. I quietly did the exercises, and thanked the student next to me for sharing his textbook, but despite having questions to ask and answers to give, and despite the professor's probing comments that the class was quiet today, or that everyone was 'asleep', I stayed quiet and barely even made eye contact. I was fuming, and no longer willing to speak to her.

I have sent an email to my tax professor from last term to ask if there is still room for another student in his classes. I may request to transfer over. I had some concerns and complaints and found some things difficult in his class too, but I don't think he ever insulted us like that. I'm not going to make that choice now. My head is not cool enough for important decisions, and anyway I have other things I need to do.

Dear Memory: Still Working On It

Dear Eoin...

I have been writing less often, and directing my thoughts here toward you less often when I do. I think the period of intense heartbreak and missing you since the last time I heard your voice in October is pretty much done.

However, my peace lies twined with my plans. I have unpacked the things I call my "shrine", symbols and trinkets that I like to keep together and revere as little treasures. The red bull, the antique horn, a musical jewelry box which holds some stones and jewelry... And my skull candle, my oath candle. I have contemplated it with happiness. A few years ago, I burned this candle hollow, so that a pillar's worth of wax ran out and left its eye sockets and nose hollow, just as a skull is meant to be, and stared intently at it for hours as it burned, making a promise to myself, in a desperate and unhappy circumstance, that if I continued to be unhappy where I was, I would move. Put another way, that same promise could be phrased, "follow your dreams".

It gives me peace and happiness to look on it, because I know I have not forgotten the promise. I keep my oath to myself. For my joy, and my health, if I find I am not content with where I am, I will change it.
I think the wax shell is probably too delicate in its hollowness to bring across the sea. I am thinking that before I go, I will seek an opportunity to burn the rest of it in a fire, and re-confirm with the destruction of my oath candle the same promise that made it what it is.

I am still planning to come to you, although you come into my thoughts less often. The intent to go back to Ireland is always close at hand there. I am committed to it so thoroughly that the idea no longer seems at all unusual to me. The processes are perhaps a bit daunting, and of course it will cost me more than studying in Canada, but there is much at Fanshawe to help prepare me. I will probably need to work part-time while studying. It's something I have made a point of avoiding in my studies in Canada, but when it comes to bringing myself to Ireland... If this must be a part of my plan, for it to work out financially, it will be, and that is that.

I was so excited to meet the representatives of Limerick, Sligo, Carlow and Tralee. One of them was named Eoin, too. I must have suppressed a sad smile when I recognised the name and was able to pronounce it at a glance. There is a little workshop next week as well about procedures related to studying at a foreign college.

This morning, I came in to the school library and sat down to read and study my Cost Accounting material. I put on music from TouHou and wrote down many phrases and sentences from the material in my schoolwork related cardcast decks. It was a bit of a distraction, and no doubt slowed my reading. However, the music was so appropriate for background music while focusing that as I was packing up to get some breakfast, it was with some odd surprise that I realized turning off my laptop would require me to stop listening to it (since that is what I had playing the music). It was as though the TouHou tracks had been accepted as just what life sounded like on some level.

From that early morning on to late evening, I have been busily tending to one thing and then another... I was exhausted and barely taking anything in by the time my last class ended (it is the latest in the day of any of my classes). However, there were some fun highlights. The professor makes Google Documents and shares an editing link with the students; we pour in, over a dozen of us, and start building something there. Seeing it come together in several pieces at once like that, some formatting, some writing... It reminds me a bit of ants, in a good way.

If you were to wonder of me, I wish I could tell you that I still love you, and with this strength of mine, I will come to find you. I will be healthy and hearty as I can be.

You never read the Discworld books, I think, but... There's one character in them, a Mr. Carrot who has been in various books corporal, sergeant and eventually I think captain in the nightwatch. He is an immigrant, a human (by blood) who had been raised by dwarves, and his defining characteristic is that he believes so strongly in the good nature of people that they can't bring themselves to disappoint him and act more nobly and honestly than they do around anyone else.

At one point, he and a bunch of the other watchmen are aboard a ship in a storm at sea, chasing after someone who has kidnapped Angua, the woman he loves, also a member of the watch. The others had expected that he would be sick and restless worrying about her, but in the hours before they expected to land, Carrot was soundly sleeping with such determination that even the fierce tossing of the storm could not wake him. Since, as he had said, if he arrived in an exhausted state he'd be useless to actually help the woman he loved.

I feel kind of like that about you. Not that you are in need of rescue of course. Just... I want to be stronger for you and not weaker. I want to be better for every influence you have on me and not worse. You deserve that.

Feeling Small

Perhaps things have come to a head. I do not want to write at this moment. I do not feel as though I want much to do anything, but I will write. So as to reduce the burden on my friends, or any anxiety I feel about their being unavailable, I will write. Because it has been a few days, and because there are a number of things on my checklist that I am leaving fallow, I will write.

Yesterday was some kind of homecoming party. My roommates went out to party around nine or ten and came back around midnight, boisterous and chattering with a party of friends as guests.

I had been excited nearly to trembling to meet the representatives of the Limerick, Sligo, Carlow and Tralee Institutes of Technology. The meeting had come, had been carried out, had passed. I was tired from early evening, but did not expect to be able to sleep while others in my house were preparing to go celebrate. I spent my time watching YouTube, my mind tired and my current goal met, not feeling up to doing much of anything that was not restful.

Come midnight and the return of my roommates, I asked them if they could arrange for everything to be quiet by 2, and left for the college. There was something I could do that would not require much presence of mind; scan textbook pages which had problems for practice.

I came back slightly past 2 to find my roommates and their friends still (or again) around the kitchen table, chatting happily, but asked them immediately to bring it to quiet, and went into my room and came out again a few times in quick succession to repeat myself when they continued talking at a conversational volume.

After twenty minutes or so they had gone and there was quiet. I watched and listened to some more YouTube and played a little bit of Binding of Isaac while I calmed and relaxed toward sleep.

In the morning between 8 and 9, I was woken by my other roommate's car having been started to warm and make ready to leave. Its muffler is cracked and nonfunctional; my room becomes a chamber full of pressure and low-pitched car noise when it is idling out front. I caught the roommate whose car it was on the way out and told her so. After she left and after laying down a while, turning this way and that way, I slept again, until I was woken by talk between some of the first set of roommates again, and went out to tell them that even at the volume they were at, it was enough to wake me when I were already asleep.

Here, I had some comeuppance for my complaints. There was confrontation, politely spoken, and they told me that some of the sounds I had thought quiet enough not to be heard outside were room were not, that they needed more co-operation and consideration and forgiveness from me; and somewhere in there that it was normal to have little disruptions like this, and that they were entirely willing to take themselves downstairs at night when it was only them, but their friends had thought it was weird of me to be so insistent at them.

I think something in that struck at me somewhere; although of course, I had not been sleeping well and was not at my most stable. I began to leak a few tears, silently. One of my roommates did see, and was alarmed and apologetic, said she was only trying to have a normal conversation about it. I said that I cry easily, and not to worry about it, that it was important to talk about it if there were problems with anything I were doing, too, and I thanked her for doing so.

I have not had the will to write my follow-up emails to the representatives from Ireland today, though. I have not been willing to do homework or work out, or even really to go back out into the cold (it is quite cold and windy today) to buy bread. I am feeling weak, and sad, and small. I have returned several times to crying.

I miss Eoin. I feel conflicted. I feel guilty and self-conscious and yet still slightly, in some ways, indignant. I think some part of things is that I had been so focused on the meeting with the reps, and I suspect some stresses I had been putting off processing are out now that it's done. I decompress. I feel sadness. I remember all the things recently associated with sadness, and I feel a little helpless, listening again to voices talking in a language I do not understand, through the very slight muffling of the wall, and I miss Eoin.

I will pick it all back up again later. For now, I remain small and curled inside myself, hiding from the conflict I do not know how to deal with gracefully, hiding a little from the responsibilities I must return to in time. There is time, there is time.

Storming Phase

I spent much of today feeling very annoyed with my new roommates. Yesterday I discovered that a jar of quarters I had kept near the washing machines had vanished completely, and I was unable to do the load of laundry I intended until today after going out to get some more. Further, the kitchen counters have been a mess and the sinks piled high with their dishes.

I was soothed a bit when I asked one of the trio who cook together and talk so much together when I could expect them to have cleaned it up, and was told they could have it done in an hour, but when I came back from my errands to find the house empty and the kitchen still a mess I was angry.

Nothing steals away my energy and motivation to do cool stuff like resentment. After plunging away the blockage that had formed in my ensuite bathroom's toilet and cleaning it, putting my laundry on and into the dryer, I just could not find the inclination to study, although I had already been delaying. I watched YouTube for a while and eventually fell into a mid-afternoon nap... only to be woken by the trio chattering gaily away and returning to the house.

Almost nothing infuriates me like the ongoing distraction of unwelcome noise, and being woken up from tired slumber by it makes it even worse. For some time, I turned this way and that, flopping onto one side, burrowing in my blankets looking for my socks, for I'd fallen asleep clothed. I was angry and exhausted, and knew I would not be able to be polite to my roommates. Eventually, at last, I got myself onto my feet and resolved to go out, get myself a coffee (being caffeinated seems to help my mood as well as my focus) and perhaps seek somewhere quiet where I might get something done on the campus. I still fumed away darkly at the feeling of not having quiet space to enjoy within my house, though.

It occured to me to check the area where religious gatherings and discussions generally took place, just in case there might be somewhere there this Sunday evening whom I could plead to advise me toward patience and diplomacy, because I was out of it... but it was closed up and locked with a note on the door about how to book the space.

I found my way to the library, remembered that the homework I wanted to do would require me to have my headphones to listen to sound, and immediately left again to get coffee and headphones. The landlord was in when I returned, mending a cabinet in the kitchen. I had been strongly considering walking in and demanding of the noisy trio that they keep quiet so I could do my studying, but the presence of an unexpected person took all the wind out of my sails. I collected my headset and walked back out to the college, waiting for a moment outside, as the landlord was leaving at the same time, thinking I might mention my frustration to him... But he was bustling around putting his tools away, so I did not.

I checked out the B building and D junction computer labs, but one was full of more students than I would like to be around, and in the other some people arrived talking noisily to one another, the last thing I had patience for just then, so I made it back to the library lab, and set myself down to work.

In the end, I did about 2 hours and 45 minutes of diligent homework, study and organization tonight at the campus, with a break in the middle to use the bathroom and take a brief walk around the halls. They were so empty, I took up karate stance and a couple of steps, then finding the purchase very slippery, ran and slid across the floor a few times just for fun.

The trio were still awake when I returned home at half past eleven. One was still talking on the phone, although doing so in a soft, low voice. I portioned myself some soup I had made yesterday and a toasted bagel, washed my soup pot (finally empty) and returned to my room where I now write.

Once while I have been writing the girls reconvened and started talking to one another more loudly. Braver now and feeling more justified and more capable, I walked out to firmly hush them: "Excuse me; please; quiet. It's late." I was given an understanding smile and apology in recognition. Perhaps things are not so bad. The state of the kitchen, and seeing them only tidy up in time for them to start cooking and fill up the sink with a whole new batch of dishes is still a major annoyance. I will try to bring it up with them later, when I have more energy and more patience.

Amusingly, yesterday while I was out on a long walk, I listened to a couple episodes of the Accountancy Ireland podcast, and one of them brought up the four stages of team building: Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. Well, I guess this is bound to happen. At the very worst, I should on most days, or at least most weeks, be able to find somewhere on campus where I am able to focus on schoolwork. If it comes to that. I will have a great deal of complaint to make if it does, but I will not be rendered entirely helpless nor allow myself too make too much of an excuse of it if my home environment is unhelpful.

Another thing I did while walking was listen to Oceans again on loop for a while, and think of Eoin...

When it comes to love, you've dipped your toes in the river, but I've got oceans waiting for you...

It even uses a metaphor of catching fish in there somewhere. Heh. Sigh.
Don't let me fool you. I still love you, Eoin.

Final Exam

Before writing the exam:

The first exam I took in this same testing room was in much different circumstances, just a few students here.

Today, I arrived just on time, and had to wait in line to be processed for about ten minutes, then sit and log in to a computer and wait again until one of the staff on duty here comes to open my exam with the password for me. Five minutes? Ten? I brought a Monster drink with me, and I consider that there is some risk of my being distracted during the test by a need to pee. I wait anxiously for my chance to begin.

I did not study much for this, but I did put in a solid two hours from home this afternoon before coming here, to get my brain back in the practice of the course's exercises and ready. I've got my depreciation pretty well down, from the looks of it, although I'm still a little confused about some methods of tracking impairment. The review document was about half depreciation, with some impairment and capitalisation of intangible assets and goodwill.

-----
After writing the exam:

It went pretty much as expected. I did have to pee for about half of the duration, but regained my focus thoroughly enough to get through the test and answer every part neatly and thoroughly. In a couple of matters, I put a great deal of work into applying all the details of a theory that I wasn't sure was actually the right theory to apply. The doubt was a difficulty, but I overcame it to make my explanations thorough, if it turns out they were the right ones. All in all, I think I can feel fairly confident of earning at least an 80% on the final exam and on the course in general. Grade A, although not A+. I'm happy with that.

I came back from the college hungry and shaky with caffeine jitters, chatted to my roommates, ate some spaghetti, and then retired to play Drawful and Xyzzy with a few close friends for several hours. It was an excellent evening of gaming. My friend Lyric stormed the first game of Xyzzy, reaching 12 points and victory while everyone else was back at 6 or so, and then we played another one, to 15, and it was my turn to have an awesome winning streak. I closed the game with a blank card and a reference to a theme about sandwiches having voting rights which had been established in the previous round. The last winning combination of the game was "WHY DO YOU HATE SANDWICH FREEDOM?" ...And I was very, very happy with that as a cap to it all.

The relief of being finished the term at last is tremendous and happy and floaty. I look forward to a short rest from active enforced schoolwork, and a fresh start to the next.

I will take a couple of days to just relax, if I feel like I need them, and will make a point of prioritizing checking out free available classes at the school's fitness center, and preparing for Pathways Week.

... It's been a good day.

Dear Memory: Trying to Slow Down

I wrote myself a checklist for today which consisted of very little big or taxing, and included leisure as an entry. It has been exams, and I have been dizzy with love and busy with study and unable to get much sleep, as I stay up late and my roommates always wake me with their conversations in the morning.

So I have had a quiet day deliberately for once. I set away my laundry, I enjoyed my tea, I ate leftovers and a shawarma on my way back home from a walk. The snow glitters like tiny flashing stars everywhere. Across the ground and in the air, the world around me shining with pinpoint mirrors, facets on a tiny flake of ice. Craft glitter could never match this, for all that it might be designed as though to try.

I Googled up some podcasts to do with finance and bookkeeping and Irish experience or systems in particular, and listened to one first episode of a couple on my walk. In one of them, the voice of the speaker sounded so similar to my dear friend Coda that I giggled to myself about it. In the other, the accents brought me nodding recognition and a reminder of the lecturer who taught my marketing class in Athlone.

The man at the pizza shop (who made me a shawarma) was good-natured and complimentary, happily chatting to me about all the diverse ingredients that make up the flavour, and shared the basic ingredients in the garlic sauce when I confessed I didn't know how to make it.

Half way along the long stretch of Oxford St. which is bordered in great sports fields and open to the wind, I paused and stared in some wonder at the sky. Lights... Lights on the distant side of the field stretched straight up in gorgeous vertical beams, visible high into the sky, diffuse with gentle auras. Some lights more reddish, others more bluish, and a couple thicker and brighter and yellow. I suppose, the light must have reflected off the sparse falling snow, to show those magnificent beams like pillars or signal lights up into the sky. It was worth stopping to stare at for a while, and I could not help but wish I had you with me to see it and awe at it alongside.

My phone had died of podcast. Its battery is rubbish these days and I hadn't fully charged it before leaving anyway. Otherwise, I would have taken a picture. As it is, I describe it here and encourage anyone who might read this and who lives in a place where it snows to look for the beautiful sight on a night when it is only just snowing in tiny flakes, so you can see into the distance.

I certainly must have overexposed myself to those Elbow songs in the past couple of days. Now I can hardly get them to stop interrupting my thoughts, and I am a little irritated of the feeling, even though they are good songs.

I am trying, for the moment, to calm myself down and return some focus on the present and near future, as much as it is habitual and forever tempting to continue daydreaming of meeting you again. I do not want to overdo it and lose sight of the broader existence and variety, and the options in my life. I hope to continue to find ways to enjoy my time here in more than just waiting for it to be over. I see myself in a broad variety of lights, as a student, a traveler, a romantic, a strong creature going on adventures, a restless youth barely able to pull myself together for an hour or two to study and touch ground between flights of fancy and self-indulgence.

Yesterday I went over to the college for a while just to get out of the house, and wandered into the library. There I found on a rack of books to be returned to the shelves a volume called Celtic Mythology, and I picked it up and sat down and read a while, a description of what disperate and scattered records shed any light at all on the religions and folklore of old Irish and broader Gaul or Gael culture. Records in Greece, observations written by their foes, suggestions in the content and the labels of some various works of art; statues, a cauldron somewhere... I read a brief English summary of the stages in the Book of Invasions.

Although I felt restless and tired and was frequently tempted to return home, my mind was also hungry for this context of some of the scant few things I heard others say while I was visiting, and one bit in particular, a mention of one surviving boat of a migration, which carried fifty women and three men, prompted me to blink to myself in some astonishment. I had heard that story before. Only briefly mentioned in this book, but I had heard a much elaborated version in a book I had read while still living at my mother's house what must have been over ten years ago.

It put me in a keen interest to someday take some time to visit other sites around Ireland, any place which still has symbols or record of these old stories, or special relevance in them, and see what it might inspire me to wonder. I thought, perhaps I could become a scholar of these great old stories someday, perhaps write conjectures on them... That, though, is another big and bold idea. It must be enough for now to be fascinated and pleasantly distracted by them, and keep going about my business of learning business, putting forth however much effort performing well at that must demand of me.

And it must be enough, for now, to bring my writing to a close and wish you and myself a good and restful night.

Dear Memory: Je Pleut

Weather alert: ... It's raining.

For a few days there, it was really cold and windy, and had been snowing a great deal. Yesterday, I think, I walked to the next major intersection and completely wore myself out, because I was sinking up to my mid-calves in snowbank along the way. It's much warmer now, and we have a great deal of melt and thaw and misting rain. It is more like an Irish winter. But there is still lots of snow left.

I... really wish I could talk to you, Eoin. You were in my dream last night, back in Killaloe. The one I grew up in. I dreamed that you had followed me there. I miss you.

I think it's been a little while since I let myself just miss you. It's kind of good to say it again. It's good to imagine talking to you.

I've been doing pretty well. I finished my last quizzes in Intermediate Accounting today, with a 100% and a 83% on my last two. It's... good enough, all things considered. I was mostly doing my accounting work in tax class today, in between paying attention and trial and erroring a bit through reconciliations between net income for accounting and for tax purposes.

I've been singing to myself, from time to time, when my roommates don't seem to be in the house. They come and go a lot, and often together. I have been singing the song I wrote for you, before the silence. I've also been singing "It's Over Isn't It" from Steven Universe. Because it's a really sweet song and I've been rewatching the show. A couple months ago, I couldn't bear to face Garnet. I guess I'm over that now.

Toward the end of the month, there's going to be a week at the school when representatives of other colleges and universities come to advertise their programs, and then a week of recruiting and advertising for summer jobs and career opportunities. I expect to be attending both of them. Especially because... There are some Irish institutions that will be represented there.

I'm making it steadily through my term. I'm doing fine... as far as academic success is concerned. And honestly, I think I'm doing better than I was before in terms of stability too. I've been talking a lot to an old friend of mine I had fallen into an awkward silence with. If we ever do get back into conversation, remind me to tell you about Pyat sometime. I guess that line is inherently more to me than you... but permit me my illusion for a bit.

Reflecting on some things, and at one point being reminded of how I was bullied back in school... I noticed something. Something important. I think something has changed. When I was talking about it, I realized I wanted not to be so angry anymore. I think... I actually believe now, that I don't need to be resentful in order to be myself. In a way that I didn't before. And I think it has a lot to do with you.

I think back again to that scene in the parking lot, and your forgiveness. There's something tremendously powerful in the sight of others. There's a reality that a second perspective lends to things. All the difference between "Am I crazy" and "or is this really here?" is answered by someone else being able to see it too.

No-one else ever seemed to see the difference between myself and the way I've been hurt before, the way you did. And I've been to some counselling. You know, back when I was in Ireland, and continuing to the present. I know it's something that counselors have been trying to condition me to believe for years. And... It's different. It's stirring. To hear myself say it. I could still be just as insightful and amazing if I didn't go hot and cold whenever I remember how isolated I've been.

It's a strange feeling, noticing that difference. It feels... weighty. Not happy or sad, just important, mostly. And kind of... Well, awe-inspiring. I wonder if I will continue to feel that way reliably.

I miss you. I miss you so badly it hurts, and I wish I could tell you how much I want to see you again. I will make it happen, if I can. I just hope you will want to see me again too. It's such a simple thing to say. But the emotions behind it are immense.

One at a time, some fast and some slow, the days march on and on. On Saturday I went to the hospital Emergency area, anxious because the left side of my face was inexplicably numb and tingly. There were some tests. Nothing alarming was found. I came back home. Yesterday I had an exam. Tomorrow I will have two more. I get through it, missing you, looking forward to seeing you again, looking forward to your answer.

The most sensible and effective strategy in general seems to be to act and plan assuming that my plan to return to Ireland succeeds just as I want. That way, my actions will be aligned with my goal, and the future I choose will be reinforced along the way. I'm going to try to enjoy as much of this winter as I can. It might be the last Canadian winter I see for a while, if I have my way. Throughout the coming year, I'm going to have to get rid of a bunch of this junk. I have altogether too much stuff, and it's in the way of unpacking it all and settling in more neatly. There is comparatively so little that I really need, that I really use. I kind of look forward to getting rid of it, although it will take some doing, both physically and emotionally.

Anyway. I... I love you, Eoin. I miss you. So much. And I guess that's about it for me, for now. See you later.

Christmas Crash

After my last post here, I decided to look back a ways and revisit what my feelings had been in November, when I was just setting up my resolution to return to Ireland. I was a little shaken to see how uncertain I had been about how I might expect Eoin to feel, and how much more confident it seemed that I had become.

Of course, I have been careful to avoid developing any sort of certainty that I would be welcomed, and every time I think or speak on it, I at least pay some lip service to the possibility that for some reason or another I would not be welcomed back. But by often envisioning him hugging or kissing me, by remembering his smile and his affection, I think I have further reinforced the notion to myself that I will be greeted with love of some kind.

Upon observing the distinct change in my confidence, a crumbling came on me that was probably well due. I had been working hard, catching up and keeping up with my schoolwork in one thing or another, for a solid stretch and I was tired. My spirits had been flagging uncertainly, waiting for the fall for some time, but I kept pulling them up again. This observation, though, and an opportunity to doubt and wonder if all my confidence had been built up by self-conditioning and wishful thinking, was just the slip I needed, and the fall came.

However, as these things go, I will say it was short. I spent almost all of a day in bed or idling, watching YouTube videos to fill mental space with noise, sleeping in frequent bursts. The next day, I reached out to my friends, although wretchedly and in an awful conflict, grumpy from social neglect and fatigue, feeling the stresses of ancient habits of self-doubt and deprecation bending but not entirely broken. I was surly and rude and plaintive to those who took the time to listen, but...

Throughout it, I acknowledged that I was in a crash at the end of a long streak of positivity. I spoke through all of my feelings and complaints over everything from my doubts about Eoin to procrastination of tasks I found intimidating or dull to feeling fatter than usual, but at every point I spoke of feelings and imaginings, and did not say that any great flaw I saw in myself was fact. I managed some gruff apologies and excuses to those friends I leant on. I held my tongue for vital moments some moments, and pointedly avoided some opportunities to pick fights even though I had to wrestle with my impulses and irritability to do so.

I was invited to play Jackbox 4 games by one of my dear old friends and enjoyed them, although the way we played over stream and without voice chat was less intimate than I used to enjoy from Jackbox games and had an irritating delay. Still, being welcomed into the fold for social fun was something I acknowledged that I badly needed, and had gone too long without.

I did not expect anything for Christmas, and did not get much. One friend bought me a game soundtrack that I had put on my wishlist at some point. I was happy to have been thought of with such a gesture, and made a point of saying so and giving my thanks.

With the patient ear of one friend, some friendly invitations and thoughts from others, and the vital acknowledgement that although not perfect, my judgement in times of happy optimism is probably better than when I am breaking down with doubt and fear; that so long as I do not presume to be infallible, sustaining my spirits on a reasonable hope is a fair and fine way of carrying on, I recovered fairly quickly. This morning, I woke and got back to some schoolwork pretty much first thing. In the early afternoon, I made a point of going outside just for the sake of my health.

Having come back here to write, although I have paused uncertainly many times, will be the last thing on my list of things I have set myself a duty to do today. Having done this, I will be free to relax, or to work up the courage to do something a little more intimidating, like returning for a brief refresher to my JavaScript lessons, or working on my resume to send to companies that might be my key to get back to Ireland. Ah... Breathe, Serp, breathe. It is still intimidating, that. Taking a solid step toward a desperate goal usually is, I think.

Forgiving Mentors, Relentless Longing

It is the second day of classes resuming, and much of the miserable doubt and worry of the empty time during the faculty strike is lifting surely as our professors reassure us, cut out small pieces of the courses, and focus the first week largely on review. Every gesture shows understanding and mediation for the difficulties of resuming after such a long interruption. My intermediate accounting professor, having read an email I sent him telling him that my morale and confidence had been very low trying to navigate his online course with the textbook alone, thanked me for my refreshingly candid words and invited me to sit in on classes in person. It is all a soothing balm to my troubles.

Sadly, the professors themselves may have had little relief from theirs. The strike's disputes were not resolved, and there is some worry that this might all repeat in another four years, after the new contracts expire again, and they must meet to agree on terms of renewal again.

My spirits are higher, and I look forward to moving into a very nice house directly across from the campus, the nicest I have lived in... Looking back, and looking back further, it may be fair to say that it is the nicest looking and most modernly appointed house I have ever lived in in Canada. My parents' houses were a welcome home to me, but simple. My new room will have an ensuite bathroom, and the kitchen has a central island and two big fridges to accomodate I think five female tenants.

Through all that, though, my thoughts remain restlessly and inexorably drawn back to Eoin and distant Éire. It feels to me as though the memory of him stands always behind my shoulder. When my mind wanders, it wanders to dreams of return, and meeting with him again, with much tear and hope and fear, desperate to know what his answer will be...

It has been three weeks since our last goodbye, and since the law of silence has been set between us. These last few days have tested my will to adhere to that law. I felt that I was doing fair well, for a little while, at looking to my own life alone, although it was a miserably empty stretch of life indeed with neither love nor work nor school to sustain me. I took up to make a game to run for friends, which I have nicknamed the SCDP game, a Super Casual Drop-in Pick-up game of Pathfinder such that I can run it and invite people to play it without a set group or a set schedule. I finally finished writing all the stats for available player characters to the website I'll be using just a day or two before the return to classes, and I have not played it yet. I am not certain I will even get the chance, but the project was something with which I might hope to enjoy the social attentions of friends.

At some point, perhaps a week ago... I lost track of the empty days for a while, so I am not sure... I was re-watching a bunch of video reviews, and one of them ambushed me with the high, haunting and familiar voice of Loreena McKennitt and the sweet melancholy violins of Irish tradition behind her. I knew the song, The Old Ways, I had heard it and loved it and felt magnificently drawn by it from my early youth. It hit me like a hammer blow, and broke open yet again any thought that I could deny my desperate want to go back there, back over the bounding waves to the distant shore of a land I have always loved, in music and legend, and the man I loved who lives there.

Eoin could not promise me any answer. It has been three weeks since I last heard his voice, and now at last doubt begins to creep back, and I begin to worry and wonder. We knew each other scant three months, and it is already past that long ago. Even if I do make my way back to that great isle, and see his face again... If it is a year, if it is several, how could I expect him to look on me as other than a sad and obsessed woman whose storms and ferocity he may have been glad to be rid of?

But. I know with enough confidence to say that I know... whatever may happen in the coming years, at the time three weeks ago when he bid me leave him be, Eoin was yet undecided. If he had in his mind any certain answer, I know with confidence he is too good and honest a man not to have given it. When last he spoke to me, there was love enough in him, and perhaps also longing of his own, that he was not set against seeing me again someday. He was not sure what he would feel. If it had been more honest to tell me he would rather never see me again, for all the pain it may have cost him, I am sure he would have said it anyway.

So. What his answer will be, I cannot know until I have heard it from his own lips. I cannot hear it until I go there, for until I am there, he cannot know himself whether he will be willing to bring me close again. As I walk out from my house into the cold, bare young-winter, gazing up at the steely light where the sun shines through the thinnest parts of the grey clouds, returning at long last to my studies with the weight of my work things at my back... As I walk the cold and formal halls of my college, which now seems too large and too impersonal... I know that Eoin is not the only or the first man for whom I have felt this utter determination, the deep and aching sense that I would be willing to do nearly anything to see him smile at me again. I feel rather as though I will set my determination to heading there, but do it all with a sheepish apology to him, and hope he will not feel my devotion cheap because he has not been the only one to inspire it.

I know my will, though mighty, is shifting. I know I may look back on these words with embarrassment and a shake of the head that I was so caught up in love and grief. Still, from here, as of now, I am determined by all the madness of my heart and a relentless longing in my bones to go back to Ireland, to distant Éire, and find out what his answer will be. I know that to do any different while I feel as I do would be to rend apart my nature, to bury my desire and smash my compass, and live as someone I am not. It would not be a story worth telling. Better to go, full of all my courage and wild strength, and profess myself to him as simply and as gently as I can, even if the answer I find is to be turned away as a nuisance, and go back to the rocky path of lonesomeness, to stalk on like a restless ghost and seek on anew for someone who will at long last stand and travel by my side.

So every day, whether I resist it or not, my thoughts wander back again when I am not looking, and I imagine living in love with him again; or I imagine troubles there might be in trying to get in touch after I land; or I imagine cautiously studying his eyes when he first sees me again, asking how things have changed, what shape his life has taken, and trying to learn whether there is room for me in it; Or of being greeted with a kiss and falling into desperate tears, begging to know if he meant by it that I would be given a chance to stay this time. Sometimes I imagine talking to a border guard of my intent to immigrate. Sometimes I imagine talking to a representative of an accounting firm for which I intend to work in Ireland in an interview about my reasons for coming. But it is always something, and it always pulls my view East, across the ocean, with the call of the bounding sea.