A Girl, A Book, A Game, A Pub

Hello everybody,

Honestly, I'm not quite sure what to tell you all. As you know from my last post, I've not been in the best of places lately and that's definitely had an effect on every facet of my life over here since. It would be an extremely long post if I tried to describe the details of the whole thing, but I'll avoid that for all the obvious reasons. Simply put, I don't know what's happened. I didn't expect it, I don't know how to handle it and I'm extremely disappointed by the whole thing. Things look good sometimes, and then there are days that I think it's going nowhere or there is no solution at all.

I've also begun reading for my first short paper of the semester. I've chosen to do an in depth analysis of how the media affects foreign policy. So far the book I chose has been using case examples to show how the media can shape public opinion to cause wars, stop wars and influence politicians, but also how politicians can counter the media or use it to their advantage. I wish I could read it without writing the paper, but that's not the basis of going to school I guess. Lately I've been wondering what the point of my lectures are in the first place though, as there are no tests at all. It is all based on papers; none of which are explicitly about what we've learned in the course, so I'm wishing that I had no class (though I don't have much anyway) at all and could just write.

Last weekend I went to an Irish Premier League soccer match in Bray, a town just down the coast from Dublin and saw the team that's currently in 1st place play. It's quite a talent and atmosphere drop-off from going to Sporting Kansas City matches, but I had to try to get my mind off of how I was feeling. It was a pretty good game, with a lot of near-goals but ended in a nil-nil draw.

Saturday I went to a pub in town called Bull & Castle with a few Americans that are studying abroad here. It was a good night, spent in a beer hall with a large selection. I was a little short on money so it turned into a short night though. Also, I joined soccer in order to get to know people here on campus but after going to the meeting it turned out to be way too large of a time and money commitment for me to make and I am not going to participate now. I'm a little disappointed it worked out that way.