Journeying to Ireland

 “I’m glad you’re with me, Sam” ~ Frodo Baggins

            If someone had told me that I would spend half of a year outside of the US travelling the world, I would have thought they were crazy. Yet here I am, going to spend two months in Ireland, which will bring me up to 6 months when combined with Semester at Sea’s (SAS) 4 month voyage earlier. I have always wanted to travel, but never really thought I could because of financial reasons. One thing I have learned is that God is very faithful. If you could believe it, I have worried more about this smaller trip to Ireland than SAS because I wasn’t sure how I would manage to fund it and I expect to be alone more than I would like. Nevertheless, He has provided enough funding and has helped me to draw closer to Him this year. So, I am ready to brave the unknown because I am not alone: I serve a God who goes before and I certainly know He has done that for this trip.

            "The Lord Himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." Deut. 31:8 

           

As some of you may know, I am going to Ireland for an internship. UVA has some great programs, one of which is the University Internship Program (UIP). They, along with another organization called EUSA, help match participants with an internship and plan lodging so that we can focus on learning the skills and gaining the experience we hope to get from this opportunity. Honestly, I do not have much work experience and am not sure what I want to do when I graduate, so I looked into this program to help me figure out what path I should take. I also have many interests and kind of felt bad that I did not give EUSA much to work with, but they eventually managed to find me something (which is a feat as I really did not give them much direction at all). I will be interning for the Refugee Service Integration Centre, a non-profit that helps immigrants, refugees and other people coming to live in Ireland adjust well to the Irish culture. I’ll be performing mostly administrative work (which I love doing so that’s no problem) and I will be learning about how the non-profit works and this career path. I am actually very pleased that I can see this line of work as one of my TA’s at UVA had suggested it as a way to combine my two majors (anthropology and psychology). So, I am glad that I can now assess it as I had thought that was a good idea when she had mentioned it to me. At the very least, my biggest hope for this experience is that I will have a much better idea, if not direction, of what career path I should follow after graduating as I really have no clue. So we shall see how this turns out in the end. For those of you wondering why I decided to name this blog ‘Celtic Odyssey’, there is a bit of history related to that. One of my favorite songs (link below), and top albums, is called Celtic Odyssey. My mom used to play the following song frequently when my brother and I were little and we still love to listen to it today. It’s in Gaelic (which I hope to learn a bit while I’m in Ireland since everyone is bilingual there), so I don’t know what it’s saying, but I know it’s about a wedding and getting some new ship ready for the new couple. That’s all I know, but you don’t really need to know more in order to enjoy the music. I am a little sad I can’t bring my violin as I would love to learn from Celtic music while I’m there, but I am very limited as to what I can bring. Speaking of packing, I really don’t like professional clothes – they make me feel very frumpy and I don’t know if I will ever get used to wearing them, but I wish there wasn’t some exclusive standard for the lofty style of ‘professional’. Oh well, there’s not much I can do about that.

I am excited to really learn Dublin and Irish culture, as my stay here will be much, much longer than any stay I had while on SAS. I hope this means I will make some very good friends with some locals while I am there. I also hope to do some travelling, though I am not yet sure where or when I will do so, but I will certainly blog about those things. I am going in just 5 days to visit my brother for a day in Boston before taking the plunge. This will certainly be another adventure and I just hope I can make the most of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8X0Vu6y-i4