This is my final blog entry for my semester abroad and as my semester comes to a conclusion I cannot help but reflect back on the past three and a half months. I cannot believe how fast the time has gone by here, I feel like just yesterday I was packing in my room at home stressing about putting four months of my life in two suitcases and currently I am panicked about putting those four months worth of stuff and souvenirs back in my luggage.
After visiting six countries (Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, England, France and Germany), learning more about the world than ever before and making great new friends, I am ready to return to the comforts of home.
This past week was revision week in which students do not have classes so they have ample amount of time to study and write essays. At first I was excited (a whole week of reading days) but as the days flew by here I am freaking out about my essay due tomorrow and my exam at three tomorrow afternoon.
In Ireland, and much of Europe, the schools are not like the states in which several assignments are due each month, I literally have gotten two grades back across the six classes I am taking. I some classes I didn’t hand anything in to be graded until last week, everything relies upon the end. I was telling my friend I feel like I am hibernating, I have left my room only once a day and besides my roommates and skyping my parents I have not had much contact with the outside world, it is pathetic.
However, I did manage to leave my room last weekend to travel to Germany to visit a family friend who lives there and I had the opportunity to go to four German Christmas markets. Also, this weekend I went to the Dublin Christmas markets as well.
I have decided the most remarkable thing to me about these markets (well besides the delicious German food) is that it is solely Christmas. The Christian influence is unbelievable. Even at school these are not my final exams I am studying for, but my Christmas examinations, everything is Christmas related. I tried to ask my Irish friend about this and her response was “you are in Ireland, everyone celebrates Christmas.” While I am sure this is not true, but traditionally Ireland has been a Catholic and Protestant country, so the influence of other holidays is very minimal (my friend didn’t even understand my comment about being politically correct and saying “Happy Holidays!”).
Most people go abroad and tell their friends and family at home that the experience “changed their life forever.” I do not want to be cliché, but I completely understand how. It did not change my life in that I will not be the same person, I think it enhanced my life forever. The ability to live in a foreign country has made me appreciate growing up as an American, but has also taught me to have a more worldly view. Although I missed my friends at Fordham and my family at home, this truly was an awesome semester. I cannot claim it was the best semester because it really has no comparison. I cannot compare jet setting to a foreign country for a weekend to having a dinner on Arthur Ave, they are not on the same level. However, after this semester I can tell you that I am so grateful for Fordham. I cannot imagine returning home from a semester abroad and having to go back to school in a small or rural town, I am so grateful for New York City and the opportunities allotted to me through Fordham.
I wish I had more to talk about in my final post, but I seriously have been sitting at my desk studying and writing essays for five days now. So I don’t have much to say unless you like to be informed about the themes and motifs of Hitchcock films or the Latin to English translation of Virgil’s Aeneid!
Good luck on finals to everyone! And Beannachtai na Felie (Holiday greetings)!