I am surfing the web to surf some foreign couch via the freeloader’s delight website known as www.couchsurfing.com. A pretty cool gig actually, and the people that my roommie Bridget has had usurping her couch space have always been groovy to the max. Here’s the real problem, and it’s a mathmatical one so get your thinking caps on (you can also feel free to use a graphing calculator for those who are trying to get their money’s worth from Geometry class).  Here goes: I leave the first of October. It is now the twenty fifth of September.  I don’t at present have any confirmations for sleepovers in foreign cities. Therefore, I am .  . . ???

Yes, it’s a word problem but I will use the numerical equivalents if that will help.

1 Oct – 25 Sept = 5 days

5 days + 0 leads for accomodation = :(

I’ve sent out two emails.

I know it’s easy to get discouraged when nothing seems to be happening, and even moreso when you really haven’t put forth enough effort to deserve things going your way. I am a procrastinator, I won’t lie. But, in my (weak) defense, I will say that part of the reason that it’s taken me so long to get on the ball is that I’m pretty sure the people that I would want to stay with (i.e. quadroplegic investment bankers with locks on the door who have no reason to or ability to follow through with stabbing me in the middle of the night) are totally not the people that Kristen wants to stay with (as in, hip young cool kids that like to listen to live music and raise a few).  What to do, what to do . . .

At this point, the answer has become: get in wherever you can. Wish me luck. And perhaps if I’m fortunate on a more grand scale, all this impassioned desperation will make me more prolific in the future. (Sorry for being somewhat AWOL of late . . . )

Moving along, here’s the scoop. So I’ve dropped my Comparative Government class, and before you say anything, check yo’self ‘cuz I went over it with Arend and he already said it was okay. So THERE. :::sticks tongue out like a three year old::::

It isn’t as if I don’t want to learn this stuff. I do! That’s why I dropped it. I got my book late, I have a three week class term, and I am nowhere near prepared to take my midterm on Thursday. The real trouble is that I found out that taking the same class in the autumn quarter, which I was so totally prepared to do, is impossible. Apparently it’s “full” or some such nonsense. I suppose I’ll just have to cross my fingers that it’s offered in winter quarter and pounce on it as soon as it perks its unsuspecting little head up over the long grasses on the Savanna.

Sigh. I wanna go to Africa.

And that’s where all this is going. I thought I was doing all this schooling because 1) I think my mother would have liked it and I’m able to afford it because of her, and 2) because afterwards I wanted to go to Bible school and then whisk myself off on an African evangelism adventure! But now I can’t afford to go to Bible school afterwards, and I wonder suddenly, What am I aiming for?

This is the constant confusion of People My Age. I’m not too worried about it. Not too worried about the wondering, that is. It’s typical, it’s appropriate. But getting to the answer, ahhh, yes, that is something.

So now it’s time for, you guessed it:

What? You were expecting some half clad British chaps or some breathtaking views of the Highlands?

Well, I’m sure there will be that too. The second one anyway. Yes, yes, we’ll be starting out in London, filling up on some delicious British yogurt, then heading to the Chunnel and to France to go to an apparent all night art festival in the City of Lights. After that, it all gets a bit hazy, as we probably will too with the jet lag coupled with staying up all night roaming through museums and drinking free wine. Ahhh. It sounds like a dream.

So today is St. Patrick’s Day.  All day long on the radio and TV have been historical documentaries of the Irish plight past and present and interviews with Irish or Irish-American women and men who’ve overcome adversity, made a success of themselves, or just have an opinion they’d like to share in the thier giddy sing-song brogue. And, of course, there is the territory of the Sitcom Special.

Okay, so I guess this is a little out of date. I took a sidenote excursion with my brother and met my sister along the way and I got sidetracked myself and now it’s after midnight. Regardless. If any of you have seen the Mad Men episode in which Don Draper pitches an ad for the new Kodak Carousel (sorry, I couldn’t put it here-Curse ye, Embed Disabled by Request She Devil!!!), you know what I mean when I say that St. Patrick’s Day makes me feel nostalgic.

In truth, it probably always has. At first, it was the ache to be there, to go there. And now it is much the same. I miss that land, the greenness, the freshness of it. Sitting on the windowsill with one of my legs dangling over the two story drop to the ground at my off campus flat, I could almost make out the outlines of Belfast Harbor, where the Titanic was built. Rainbows were no rarity. And from Simon’s family home, there were feilds where sheep grazed nearby and daffodils his father planted overtaking the front lawn, as well as running up and down Straw Road. A few minutes walk would take you to the windiest place I’ve ever been, up a hill where my unzipped jacket almost blew off my body, or to a small stream where local fishermen in hip-high boots lazily dropped their lines in. I think of the cliffs in Portodown where I threw Simon in the grass to show off my mighty American wrestling moves, where we rolled dangerously close to the edge and could have quite easily fallen to our deaths and from the top of which on a clear day, you could see all the way to Scotland, or so I was told since it was cloudy. The streets were full of so many people whose whole idea of the world had been shaped by this little island that they grew up on. And they were happy to ask me where I was from, was it near California, New York, or Florida?

I miss it. It sounds probably vain and overreactionary. But it’s true. I do miss it. And screw this St. Patrick’s day for reminding me!