"Crisis"

I've been living in Ireland now for exactly 10 weeks. That is two and a half months. As you millions of loyal readers know, a lot has happened in these 10 weeks. The first few weeks were relatively quiet, uneventful, filled with lots of shopping, walking, and general calmness. The past 7 or 8 weeks have been a frenzy of lectures, papers, music, friends, and general craziness.

But as anyone who's ever studied abroad, anyone who's lived abroad, or even anyone who's moved to a new place knows, there's a point around the two or three month mark that you lose it. You lose whatever motivation, whatever excitement, or whatever just plain inert movement you had to make the move and to make the move work. I think I might have hit that point.

Ever studied abroad and you've probably seen this graph before. Schools and universities and international offices are always using it to demonstrate the range of emotions students experience when they go abroad and also, interestingly, when they return home.

First, there's the honeymoon phase. Pretty self-explanatory. Everything's new and exciting, you're so glad to be wherever you now are. You barely have time to call home. And you wouldn't have it any other way.

Second comes "culture shock" as they label it. Basically, you're not so sure anymore. You're getting homesick, you're missing customs you're familiar with, you're frustrated with customs you're not. And you're probably constantly complaining about your new culture and ready to tell anyone who will listen how much better everything is in ..... wherever you're from aka the greatest place in the world.

Third comes Adjustment. You're over it, that homesickness or whatever it was that started you on your downward path to misery. You're not a part of your new culture, but you're not apart from it either. You feel pretty competent in both your own customs and the ways of your new culture. You're feeling pretty "dual-cultured".

And finally, Mastery comes. This one's a little vague and open to interpretation. And I also think it depends on the person. So whenever that happens for me, I'll just write again and let you know what it feels like....

I used to live in Ireland; I've already returned home. So basically, I've already experienced almost everything on this graph before. And therefore I really don't think I'm doing so again. I've looked at the graph over and over and over again recently trying to see where I fit on the plane, and it's just not working. There is no longer an infographic that will help me understand my life.

However, I am feeling a bit homesick. In fact, I turned on Christmas music the other day because it seemed like the home-y-est thing I could do. A few of my friends weren't particularly happy with that one. But it worked!

 So I apologize in advanced if I start going a little off-the-grid with blog posts for the next couple of weeks. I've got lots of fun American and Irish, and Irishy-American things planned to share with all of you. But it's all in an attempt to get me through the end of the semester and into Christmas. And Christmas might be coming early here as well. I need an outlet, since I'm apparently not allowed to tell any of my friends here that I'm listening to Christmas music already. I have to wait until December... but not for you !!

Friends, hobbies, day-trips, afternoon plans are all ways to fight homesickness, I'm finding. Lots of work continues to pile up (it's that time of the semester), but finding time for yourself (sleeping, gyming, reading, blogging) and finding time for friends (and a few pints or a few cookies, depending) are essential.

I've taken a silly break from this blog, but never fear. I'm back. Let's have fun in Ireland together xx