elinguis

Less than two weeks from now, I will be in Dublin, Ireland, with a backpack and a suitcase and a purse--nothing else. I will convert a wad of cash to euros in the airport, then take a bus to downtown Dublin, where I will deposit my suitcase at a hostel on Aston Quay and wander around a bit until it is time to check in to my room.

I will probably scope out the USIT office, first, which is down the street. I will be arriving on Wednesday. On that Friday morning I will have to head down there for an orientation through BUNAC, the people from whom I bought travel insurance, and who helped me sort out my working holiday authorization and gave me a wonderful little booklet of information that will be vital as I start to canvass the city looking for jobs and accommodations and travel and entertainment. In the first week I will need to register with the Immigration Bureau, as well.

I estimate that it will take me two to three weeks to be gainfully employed in Dublin. Even if it takes two months, however, I have money enough to see me through, and won't have lost too much of my 12 working months to idleness. To be honest, I don't care what work I get, as long as it's minimum wage or more and a decent number of hours a week. I'd gut fish six days a week in order to live and travel in Ireland and the rest Europe. I'd sort through rubbish for recycling. I'd sit in an assembly line putting piece B into slot A for hours on end.

I cannot fathom how little time I have left here in America. I didn't graduate from University all that long ago, and I haven't done much since then, unless you count watching British comedy shows and reading comic books. I mean, I have this super-part-time job Delivery Driving for Cuisine on the Scene, which is pretty fun and really flexible, but I'm only getting like $50-$70 a week doing that, only running three or four orders a day, if that. And it took me a month and a half to even get that job.

I hope that Ireland will infuse me with life and energy. Ever since I left university I feel as though I've lost a lot of the articulateness I used to have, and without set deadlines my creativity is flagging, too. I need to write and draw a little every day for the practice, sketches and lines of poetry and paragraphs of story that don't necessarily have to go anywhere. But mostly I watch Top Gear or faff about on the internet.

I'm gonna try to make my time in Ireland different.