Ireland: The Thick Greenery

In the thick, the muck, the life! I cannot help but compare my time here on the Emerald Isle with my time on Earth. Over the hump.
I am breathing crisis of youthful and middle age, and suddenly my experience in the universe is put into context.

A typical study session

Classes are in full swing, and what does that mean? Midterms, projects, late nights, the familiar sting.
[Riley, stop rhyming]
If I had to compare it to America, I'd call it harder work with lower stress. At least, that's an insight I stumbled upon while walking from class. It sounded thrifty. And it's probably because there's midterms all the time back home. We only have a final, here. Finals, finals, finals (still weeks away. What luxury).

I haven't worked this hard or been this un-stressed since elementary school.
[My mother will appreciate that one]
I think the motivation here is more healthy than fear of attrition (that is, survival of the fittest). I'm learning so I can accomplish this project I've told you about and participate in class and group discussions. We're designing a building from the top-down. Have I taken all the time to work that I would if I was still in America? No. I try to worry, but all of my classmates keep telling me "Oh, that's not so bad" and "no worries" and "it'll be grand" and when I asked them about whether I should study or worry or adventure Ireland, they all tell me "Adventure Ireland. The academics all come together." (I'm paraphrasing)

It's a blessing, the work.
Honestly, there have been points where I am twisted between tired, unfocused, and deadline and I'll step out of my chair, kneel down, and pray. Sometimes I'm just too distracted to focus, and other times I am filled with an intense desire to work, to learn, to focus. I've talked to God a lot about engineering, why I was drawn there, why I continue, and where the strength keeps coming from. There must be a reason, I think, and then I pray, and then, with prayer comes the inspiration (often the inspiration comes days after the prayer, but it always gets done).

Where is the spirit in engineering? Where is the spirit in Ireland?
I'm over being the master of my purpose. I've felt it. It's so quiet. I'm hungry for it.

But listen, you might find this interesting:
I was always kind of joking when I talked about learning the language of engineering. I've literally been making as many flashcards for these classes as I did in my first semester of spanish class, back in the day. Language is no joke. Engineering is a study of relationships, and expressing those relationships in the most concise symbols available. My roommates and friends have all been teaching me their languages, too. Here's an engineering poem, translated to english.

"Push me, pull me" the portal frame relents,
And scribe my bends into pencil ends,
That the public may continue their breath,
That the dwellings stay warm, and the lights keep on.



Emotionally, though,
I'm feeling a unique loneliness, and so thankful for my roommates and my friends and our dinners. Breaking bread and doing dishes among brothers and sisters is always good. I've leaned on them here and there, though I haven't really landed on anyone, emotionally, despite my aches. Not really heavy, anyway.

I'm also developing the start of a sore throat.
[I really shouldn't be writing right now. Mom, I can hear you tell me to go to bed, and I know it's a good idea. You've had a lot of good ideas]



It's been a long time since I've talked to home. Since I've put much time into remembering Texas or Oregon or Montana or Washington. This is the first time I haven't felt pressured to maintain my relationship with them. I'm so far away, liberated to be present with those around me. Like, I'm not there, not damned to haunt them like some electronic spirit, which is what I've tied myself to in so many other instances, but I know I'm always welcome there. So many places. So many homes.

Christmas time, I'm halfway there, and I am just anxious enough and just excited enough for your arrival that the present is just about where I am. Walking to and from class. Listening to headphones. Walking, walking, walking in the rain.

Now, it's Halloween. I am here. I will dress like a scary scientist penguin.



Rain, rain, rain, Ireland replies.
Rain, rain, rain.

Expectations: "I am Godzilla"

I haven't written in a while.
I've posted kind of recently, but
the bulk of my last two posts were written a long time ago, and only edited on the days I posted them.
This post is the newest.
It is a desperate cry.
It is a rough draft.


I am small.
I know little.
I know so little.
We all have so much to do.

Within Blarney Castle

New insights into Ireland?
I've been tracking some of the novel differences in culture. I'll publish the list for you some day.
I still haven't made friends with an Irish girl so I can listen to her accent.
It's a vain endeavor, anyway.
I remain surrounded with my wide circle of friends.
There are so many of us.
We celebrated Laura's 21st birthday tonight. She's French Canadian.

Escaping my problems through celebration,
losing my academic traction for the sake of 'seizing' these days,
brings me to wonder where on
this
awkwardly shaped wardrobe
this
"the day" to be seized
Where
are the good handholds?

I've only just now hit expectations.
Classes dead from 9-1, Meeting from 1-4, class again from 4-6, then much studying to catch up on.
Presentation on Wednesday, and there's a lot to consider for it:

[Slab depth
Scheme design
Column spacing
Live loading
Dead load of the building itself,
Mitigating risk of flood damage during construction
Qualitative analysis of wind loading from two directions
Quantitative analysis of an element
And worst of all...

Sketching the damn thing.]



Confidence, Riley.

It should be noted I drank a whole pot of tea on my own.
Not to impress, but only to my own surprise
[And delight]

So
Tonight
in my writing, I commiserate with anyone who reads this.
We are not working here. Not here or now. We are surviving for surviving. We are looking for energy. We are relieving tension, just a bit. We are children on the playground.

My mom, bless her and all of her grace, patience, and wisdom, has recently picked up work again.
 [This is relevant, stay with me].
She tells me about kids on the playground. Everyone on a playground is de-stressing [you see where I'm going]. They're coping with growth. With learning. You may not have noticed when you were playing on the playground, but my mom noticed this: Everyone on the playground copes differently.

Smitty? He sits on a bench and holds his hands close to his eyes, probably (if I may speculate) enveloped in a mix of exploring his own texture, and finding comfort in simplifying the world to his hands. He stays at his one bench, and politely moves out of the way to a different bench if someone else's coping disturbs the air.

Dylan? He is Godzilla. He roars, breaking barriers between universes and acknowledging his surroundings only as the monster might. Other days, my mom asks him who he is: today he is a blue whale, of course. A blue whale is the most intelligent sea mammal, he tells her.
Why would he be anything else?

[And now, we tie it in...]
If my observations on maturing count for salt (see: value, weight, worth anything), I'll say that I don't think growing up or living doesn't ever get easier or harder, in a relative sense. It feels too obvious to say, but imagine, we are still here, on this playground. We keep coming back.
Coping.
De-stressing.
Here, we are monsters. We are whales. We run and jump and laugh when we can.
We just look at our fingers, fractions of meters apart.

There is so much to do. So much to learn. To experience. To love. To hold, capture, print, paint, dance, explore, explain, and share. There is so much.

But tonight.
Tonight,
I am a faraway writer.
An amateur poet in a notebook and a ballpoint.
I am a blogger.
I am Godzilla.

(A construction site I got to visit. They were building a harbor.)

First challenges: My Crux

Listen and Begin: Academics.

Here rises the more gritty nature of my stay:
Shifting from small school Oregon (~4000 kids) to big school Ireland (~20 000 kids).

So
here
rises
My Crux:

On a field trip with the civil students

Civil Engineering-> Integrated Design Project:

"You will pass if you turn up"
"There isn't some secret right answer"
"Gantt Charts and Meeting Minutes are the
most powerful tools we have as engineers."
"You are going to teach each other as students and colleagues a lot more
than we, as professors can."





This is wisdom gathered from the modules (classes) I've been taking so far.
We're taking a collection of modules designed to help us ultimately design a section of a three-story educational building. From the ground up. It is called the
Integrated Design Project.

Neil, Ferdia, Andy, Paddy, Rafael, and Pedro are in my group. This is where we work. In the architecture studio.
We are designing the offices of the building.
[I've definitely met more Irish kids in class than in touring and housing. There are also a lot of Brazilian students studying civil engineering here.]

Is this unique to Ireland? I think the integrated "trigger-based" learning is. I was told this particular activity is here because there is project management experience among the faculty. To a civil engineering programme faculty, this particular skillset is rare.

How does it feel?
A new challenge has been the absence of the institutional rigor. I mean, I'm entering week 4 of studying, and am used to midterms coming up, but there are no midterms being mentioned. There's no list of expectations from me. Just more and more lectures and content to study independently.
Without familiarly rigid structure, I am floating. This was a fear of mine.
How will I confront this?

This is what I wanted.

There's a grand wake of self, of responsibility and freedom and consequence. The values of this educational system feel different. The consequence of my experiences, much more than before, are my responsibility.

This is what I wanted.

I've decided that this phenomenon is not unique to Ireland, but in contrast because of my Irish surroundings mixed with the nature of being far from home. This has been a step in my personal journey.

This is what I wanted.

The last days have my head contorted around online databases, documents, schedules, passwords, accounts, and on. Classes (called modules here, I still can't decide what to call them out loud) are never in the same place, nor do they follow a day-to-day pattern [they are only familiar on a weekly scale]. The electronic system that updates me on what classes are where has only just decided this morning that I'm humble enough to make use of its services. I've been carrying a digital copy of my schedule around that is only correct sometimes.

This is what I wanted.

There are innumerable choices to be made. To travel, to study, to sleep, to wake, to sit and be quiet, to expand my spiritual life, participate in my community, buy groceries, accomplish chores, and enjoy the time and money I squander abroad. Again these things rise. Already, these opportunities feel like sand and leeches. Those I leave, go. Those I take, drain me.

This is what I wanted.

Disillusionment. Not to mention the doors never open predictably.
In the end, though, this experience certainly is what I was after, but it is not soft.

Fluff your pillows, friends. Sleep soundly when you need to.

Dinner: an impressionistic exploration.

Hey.

To wear down the intimidation of writing a big piece,

I'm going to share with you

an impressionistic view

of a warm night in Castletroy, Ireland.

+Riley

It is Loud Here

Ireland, so far, has been people.

Some sights and languages are different, but there are still the many unique social channels to tune into. My richest experience, as I mentioned briefly before, here has been a global perspective on empathy. The bulk of my time has been a tactile exploration of what I've been told my whole life: that we, humans, are all so unique, and all so connected.

Cutting my 21st birthday cake

America is not alone, and we do have a reputation outside of our shores.
I've seen it, and it's not much different than one might expect.
I have also observed also a similar sense of humor across cultures. That laughter has brought me hope. I've noticed its unitive power. I imagine the news, the votes, and the discussions that I and all these other people will have when talking about the world, when we return to our corners.
I have hope that there, at the root of their discussions to be had, will resonate the love and laughter in our relationships formed here.

My first Irish rain

I have hope, hope, and hope again.



The honeymoon is over, too.
There are too many opportunities. In order to experience any, I must miss so many more. This tour, that tour, a night out, a good night's sleep, or good academic performance.

I spend some days (especially the early mornings) searching for creature comforts: sugar, tea, television shows, Facebook messages, warm clothes, snacks. I miss home.
There are less things to munch here. It is expensive. I get nervous when there's nothing to munch on. I've been nervous lately.

I feel also that what is expected of me is ambiguous. There are high expectations for Irish students (now my colleagues), but how about me? I will not graduate here. How much does my performance really matter back home? To some degree, it will, but I will really take what I actually learn.

What can I learn in Ireland uniquely?

A stump carved into a throne I found

I return to the love I've shared with my international friends, and I look again at my Irish colleagues.
I consider balance, and naturally, my relationship with time and money.


I've been saving so much of both for my trip, so now will I finally feel justified to squander it? Will I be any more generous because I am here? I've been just as careful with money as I was before. I do not count what I have, but I am hesitant to spend it when surrounded by grand opportunities to explore.


I am of the belief that my time here is due to a force outside of myself.
I am a passenger, on this, the most independent act I've yet participated in.
I believe this force, or this spirit will be what decides where best I can give to this place, and, reflectively, where I will receive the most fruit.

I resolve, then, to the spirit.
I pray for the courage to follow when I hear it and the patience to listen when I don't.
That is all I have and all I need.

The Early Irish Breakfast

Listen:

I've been sleeping for the last year, dreaming of greener grass and music.
The flight attendant asked me [in her brilliant accent] to move my suitcase up to the front of the plane, because the back had no room left. I was awake. The passengers tattered in the poetic lilt of the Irish, and the Boeing 757 200 series was decorated with shamrocks.

The plane window was entirely dark for the duration of the trip. I'd slept, read, and watched a movie for hours. Upon descent, the window quietly displayed the city like a tired animal at the zoo: reluctant to be seen. I held the city lights in my eyes like diamonds.

The clouds went away and the ground moved closer like one does with the lips of a lover.
When the plane hit the ground, I felt like I had been kissed hard.

***

Jet lag and a hard reset later, I then was in a house with Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden. 

In our house, we celebrate language, cultural differences, global politics, and the like over noodles, rice, potatoes, vegetables, oil, beer, and the like. We are at the foot of Babel.

First visit to town

I keep a stack of euro coins on my desk so I can grab a fist full every morning. In that first week, I only just barely kept up, only just got enough sleep, only just had enough to eat. The cultural experience is very familiar, and inconvenient at worst, but I've still been struggling with adjusting and staying balanced between academics, social fun times, and Irish adventure.

[This is no different than being home]

I do not yet have a full scope of what money here is worth. I can't help but see something for three euro and feel like I'm paying three dollars, when I'm really paying closer to five. I live off the fat of my careful savings from back home. My resources, when unchecked, feel infinite like my youth. That's why I carry around those coins: so I can feel my pockets get lighter.

Watered down juice
(orange, apple, or lemon)
is a popular drink in our flat

***

There is not enough time to do all the things here, nor, like my finite pile of bus coins, do I think there should be. Time is precious, as we know, because of its finite nature. Missed opportunities, then, are a fruit of time's own beauty. We celebrate the opportunities we choose, just as I am thankful and aware of my singing pocket.

Just as I am thankful for this place

 ***

Our first dinner together

Torn paper bags are a regular part of life
#groceryshopping

I pray, dear readers, that you are able to look beyond this superficial squander of travel and find some deeper insight. This is where the richness of my trip lies. These little musings are beyond me. Hopefully, they inspire questions, which lead to understanding, which, I believe, is at the root of love. This global love, then, fellows, is all we have to give.

Sleep soundly, America.
We are marvels on every face of this planet.

You're Allowed to Love

It's late, quiet, and empty here. I'm deep in the middle of producing a video and feeling lonely.

Here's the story:
Finals week at Oregon Tech wrung my brain out as I fell in a car, took off to the air, and woke up in

Texas.

I had only the opportunity to shake hands with all the staff once. Armed with a flexed face, I greeted campers the next day and they kept coming for 4 weeks. As a media director, I was often on the verge of tripping, keeping my eye set on the Holy Spirit. I centered the project around my own need for guidance.
The goal of my work was to nurse our infant media program to be able to change the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas as we know it...no pressure.

All right after engineering finals! No time to plan! Imagine.

I tell the story dramatically to drop mouths and feel impressive. There hasn't been a day that's passed by where I have legitimately felt qualified or prestigious, though. Often, I acted out of necessity and desperation and maybe love for the people instead of experience and wisdom. I was glad to be respected and supported by the staff in good faith. I thrived, I got tired, I'm asleep.

The season's over.
Here's a list of what I did:

1. I learned about drinking water and sweat.
2. I smiled a lot.
3. I prayed.
4. I got to hug around 20 people a day.
5. I never took my swim test.
6. I made 4 okay slideshows.
7. I made 1 good video.
8. I met one really inspired group of kids.

Let's come back to those open mouths. In particular, I drew admiration from always remaining positive. Positive energy is more sparse since the staff left camp and work has started on post-production. I was allowed to love because they loved me first. I kept loving because they were present to be loved.

John talked about that. "We love because He first loved us." (John 4:19). My aunt was telling me about that. There's been enough of my life building up my ego. Here raises a new idea.
I was met with love, and so I was allowed to be the biggest love Riley O'Boyle is capable of.

I haven't felt like I've had anything worthwhile to share for a long time.
But then I read this girl's blog. She went to a coffee shop and just wrote her fog away.
The simplicity of the act baffles me some days. Sometimes it's just there.

I'm alone, awake, and thriving in all this creation. My emotions are playing this video and these keys like strings, and all the tension and pressure is just making that beautiful noise.

This beautiful noise.


UGH.
I'm only writing this to appeal to some greater crowd.
Practicing the amateur journalism I planted a year back.
Can I write what I mean and still expect to reach some greater conclusion?
That's it, right?
I want to sell that conclusion.
That
great
big
thesis.

Here: Love.
That's it, here's my one more unique presentation.
By loving, you are inviting people to love you.
When you are loved, you are invited to love back.

Also,
It is more blessed to give than to receive. So give love.
Why? Because it's better to get then to have, and so it must also be better to have given then to give.
Does that make sense? I'm playing with an old Calvin and Hobbes parable.
I grew up on those.

Can                                     [this freaking spacing]
I name it in one other way? Yeah, love also liberates.
Oh my gosh, when you are loved, you have been given permission to
LIBERATE PEOPLE.

THAT IS WHAT I LOVE. I love that LOVE IS LIBERTY'S LANCE.
LOVE HURTS.
LOVE IS HARD.
LOVE IS POKEY.
LOVE IS KEYS.
LOVE IS AMERICA.
Don't we all carry around personal shackles? Self-inflicted or otherwise?
We have the power to free people. We can take their shackles off.


How inspired.


You've got my words for this evening. I'm pleased with my own tone about it.
I look forward to writing about Ireland as the days approach.




The fog blog that inspired me.
http://daniellebarozinsky.wordpress.com/2014/07/17/saying-hello/

Roboprom Part 7: The Ring; The End

This is the last part. By this point in the story, I'm sitting with the girl on a couch. I was planning to attend college north of where I'd grown up, which was especially far from the girl. We would part ways this night, and neither of us wanted to.

We'd just kissed, and were in the final minutes of being together. I gave her a bunch of letters I'd written over the days of the trip, and we cuddled in the hotel lobby until the moment began to tear up a little in the seams. She walked me to a door, and said she had to go. Our hands were tangled, and I felt an inorganic tickle fall into my hand. I thought it was my guitar pick. She looked me right to the core and said
"I promise I'll see you again."

We held eye contact until the door closed, and I looked in my hand and saw a ring.
I wore the ring like some backwards Frodo Baggins through the Summer. I had it hung on a chain that eventually broke and was replaced. She and I kept writing more and more meaningful letters until I made the decision to attend school where she lived. She was excited at first, then we grew increasingly distant until the day I arrived in her town where I'd never been.

Once I was admitted into my college dorm, I wound up on a stage where I told this whole story to everyone in the audience. The host, an expert on the subject of dating, said that the girl probably had a boyfriend. I didn't believe the host. I went to my dorm and set up a date with the girl. She left me a message later that night saying she had a boyfriend and couldn't meet me.

I wrote her a letter, my feeble parting words along with the ring, and went on.

I turned her into literature. This act was inspired by a line from [500] Days of Summer, if you've ever seen it. There was a lot of emotion around the RoboProm girl, and I'm glad every day that I sat by her at the robotics stadium all those days ago. Walt Whitman has some really good words on my last sentiment of the RoboProm story, so I'll leave you in his tender care. Good night and hopeful days to all who have read this.

"Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse unreturn'd love,
But now I think there is no unreturn'd love, the pay is certain one way or another,
(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not returnt'd,
Yet out of that I have written these songs.)"
-Walt Whitman

Roboprom Part 6: To St. Louis!

I want to finish this story and go to Ireland, so this will be my second-to-last blogged account of it.

The girl and I both had a ticket to attend the FIRST Robotics national competition in St. Louis. As it turned out, both of our robotics teams had booked the same hotel, which was very exciting. I had plans to dazzle the girl.

For the sake of building tension, bear in mind that there was a period where she almost stayed home because she would be short of the necessary cash. She did raise the money, of course.

Now, let it be known the major consideration I'm holding through the whole trip: When do I kiss this girl?

Wednesday:
It's the morning after arrival, and I want to go see this girl. I ran around the hotel, looking for the room number she gave me, and I found it. She had Dr. Pepper pajamas, and a warm layer of sleep coming off of her whole body, and boyoh, when she came in for the hug, (the first hug we'd ever had), I felt safe like Saturday morning with a bowl of cereal and cartoons.

I spent the day wrestling my team's schedule into hers, with unsuccessful interactions again and again. We all went to the zoo, and I expected a whole day with her, but her team was catching the bus before us, or just leaving an exhibit right as we arrived, and I grew frustrated.

Later, an opportunity to watch Will.I.am from the Black Eyed Peas arose, so I invited her to go, and she finally did. I sat next to her and we watched whatever was going on, and I was sitting next to her. I sat next to her until the theatre emptied and the clean-up crew told us to leave. After that I stood next to her and we walked together until my team scolded me for going off on my own for too long.

The day was long after that, and then it ended.

Thursday:
The day of RoboProm. I didn't see the girl until evening. My team was keeping a closer eye on me, so I couldn't sneak off much. I did, of course, escape briefly for some minor excuse, and we ran into a photobooth together, laughing.

I was in the stadium, scouting, until 8 that evening, and the prom started at 7. I quickly dressed and walked into the crowd, eyes up, until I saw her and she lit her eyes up for me. We danced with the whole prom, bending the floor to whatever steps came out of the speaker.

I planned on kissing her outside her hotel room, but every time I worked up the courage to move my face into hers, someone walked by. I went to bed with dry lips, and a friend of hers told me that she'd give me a signal whenever it was the proper moment.

Friday:
The day was quickly gone and the girl was crying on my shoulder.
Before the tears, I'd held her hand up in the light and asked about all the rings she had on it. I gave her a flower made out of braided guitar strings and pipe cleaner. We talked a lot, and then we stopped for the tears.

I told her she and I would talk the next day. Saturday was our last day together ever. I cried that night, too.

Saturday:
I sang her my song in a talent show that I was definitely not qualified to be in. The crowd gushed from the romance I spilled on the stage. I messed up a lot, but after I finished playing, I found her and sat by her. Our arms were wrapped together, and we were both smiling again.

Then, Dean Kamen, one of the founders for the whole robotics program decided to be at our event. Everyone I knew that was there asked him for a photo. We all posed in that photo, and I was standing next to the girl. It was raining after the photo, so the girl and I ran through puddles because she never could back home.

We changed back into pajamas and talked through sore cheeks for a while, then I had to leave her. When I returned back, I ran into someone else. I must express to you how much I did not want to see this person, and he wanted to show me something. I did not want to go see whatever he wanted to show me, and I said yes anyway.

He brought me to the spot where I would kiss the girl, so I ran back to get the girl.

I found her, and she told me a story about a Nutri-grain bar and a horse. She noticed I had something on my mind.

We walked to the escalator down to the spot, and she told me she was afraid of escalators.

We walked into an elevator filled with mirrors, and I tried to kiss her, but she didn't notice and instead nuzzled me.

We sat by her friend complaining about the Avengers.

We stopped and listened to another friend tell about this guy she met at the dance.

We passed the spot I wanted to kiss her because she didn't like the room.

I listened to her take a phone call that told her that she was the prom queen back home.

We danced to a piano
for a while.

He stopped.

We kissed.