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ten things about Northern Ireland and my semester, now that I'm home

1.) Wherever you go in the world, America is there somewhere: in people's conversations, in the newspapers, etc. But when you come home...you have to hold tight to the cross-cultural experiences you have...because America, like everywhere else, is busy talking about America.
2.) Peace is everywhere. Far from any Mennonite Church or Mennonite community, I confronted people who valued peace and pacifism just as much as the pacifist Mennonites I grew up around. Some of them were inspired by God, and others were inspired by Human Rights.
3.) The Irish are storytellers, and what wonderful lessons and stories they have to share!
4.) The Irish haven't gotten the hang of specialty coffees.
5.) But when it comes to chocolate, they blow us out of the water!
6.) I really do like teaching!
7.) While there are plenty of issues the Northern Irish students deal with, they will gladly share that there really aren't many popularity divisions. Students can sit with whoever they want to at lunch, and they don't care who the school sports stars are.
8.) Rain becomes quite ignore-able after a while.
9.) Shoes don't last long. Good luck finding a pair that won't leak water after a month.
10.) Derry's a place you never forget. Wherever I go from here, Derry will always be in my thoughts

ode to oakgrove

Today was my last day at Oakgrove.
It was nice to end the last day with a Hands for a Bridge meeting. The Hands for a Bridge students always impress me with their ability to talk with each other about the things that so many others in Derry avoid talking about. In fact, the Oakgrove school in general impresses me. The students appreciate how their school connects people, the administration is eager to try new things, the teachers go to great lengths to give each new idea and teaching system a chance, etc. Oakgrove's eagerness to accommodate my cross-cultural student teaching experience this past semester is just one of many examples of this openness and adaptability.

I walked home from the bus station in pouring rain as I thought about the task I had just completed. The rain had sort of snuck up on me, starting as a subtle drizzle and growing into something more heavy while I let my mind wander through the events of the last three and a half months. By the time I realized it was raining, i was wet enough to ignore the umbrella in my bag. I let my big, cavernous hood work alone as it caught most of the rain before it could wet my face.

When I got home, it was a warm, fire-lit house I returned to. Sparky was sprawled in front of the fire for a nap and Stevie and Roisin watched the soaps from the sofa behind him.

Just like the rain, a host of goodbyes have snuck up on me, collecting to an overwhelming weight before I could focus. I've opted not to dwell on the goodbyes: to ignore it like the rain, and let it fall as it may.

I'm sure I'll be back someday. If God allowed me to return this time, perhaps he'll allow me to return again.

thanksgiving and deadlines

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Despite the fact that I got up at 7:05 like usual and experienced a full day of classes, it really did feel like Thanksgiving today. At lunch my cooperating teachers threw a little goodbye party for me and the other Bluffton student interning there. It was lovely and I had to smile at the thought of how brief the tough times of student teaching were, and how wonderfully everything turned out. Yes it was rough at times, but the student teaching experience i'm leaving is one full of warm friendships, valuable lessons, and shared lives: a bright and beautiful version of the trembling and unfamiliar thing it started out as.
As I talked and laughed with the students, letting them relax and enjoy our painting exercise, I was made aware of how thankful I am for these students: for my time with them and the teacher's who have helped me to ease into my role as a teacher.
After school, the Hands for a Bridge group that I help out with threw a little Thanksgiving party for me and the other Bluffton intern. We had turkey and cranberry sandwiches, fruitcake, and other little adapted thanksgiving dishes. It might as well have been a kitchen table instead of a conference room table. We ate and talked to one another about the tradition of Thanksgiving, and the Americanisms as they appear to Irish students. Thanksgiving is a somewhat confusing holiday when you think about the history of it versus what it is now.

All of these wonderful activities have made me feel like have so much more to soak in, and so little time to do so. This last month has been wonderful, and it seems strange to try to wrap it up in just a few days. I leave in exactly a week, but I really only have one free day next week before I fly out. Monday and Tuesday I'll be in the school collecting materials, saying goodbyes and etc, and Thursday I fly out...so wednesday will be my day to soak in Derry...to say goodbye to it and the people i've fallen in love with here.

Its a strange thing to leave. There is nothing like home and I'm still thrilled about coming home soon, but adopting a new home for three months is a hard thing to wrap up in a day.
I will enjoy my last week indeed. :)

there and back again

It is very strange and wonderful to be back at Corrymeela. Corrymeela has several lounges that are used for retreat guests, and as fate would have it, our designated lounge is not the same as we had earlier this fall...it is instead the exact same lounge I had more than 3 years ago on my very first Corrymeela visit. Corrymeela has always been a place of rest and remembrance for me, and now especially so. I expected to have a weekend that would bring a sense of closure and completion to this semester, but when I sat in the cozy little room and thought back to the last time i'd been there, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of accomplishment that stretched all the way back through my college years, bringing me a sort of double closure: for this trip and for my college experience as a whole. In my very early days of college I sat here in Corrymeela and wondered what N.Ireland would be like...what it would be like to be gone for a semester...what it would be like to return to bluffton after having a semester experience here.
Now, three years later I can think back and remember how all of my hopes and fears evolved and resolved. The questions about college are behind me, and in their place is a feeling of remembrance for the long and adventurous college experience I've had. What a wonderful and unique journey its been.
I suppose you could say that my college experience began and ended with Corrymeela: with Northern Ireland. And how changed my college days have been because of the things I've seen and enjoyed here...
Indeed, its a strange and full sense of completion and accomplishment that I have today.
The borders of Bluffton University stretch far if you let them.

corner store irony

Last evening when I came home I immediately traded my skirt and heels for a nice comfy pair of blue sweat pants that Anna gave me. The sweats are much too big for me, but the long pant legs are the perfect length to fall down over my feet and serve a double purpose as trousers AND socks, so I don't mind the extra length.
I wear them mostly around the house and for bed time.

Up the hill, there is a corner store that Anna and I like to run to during commercial breaks. Its just close enough that we can dash up the hill for a juice box and still be back in time to see how our host mom's favorite soaps are going. Last night was one of those nights. When the commercial break came I looked at Anna and said, "wanna run up to the shop and get some lowfat Ambrosia custard?" (This is essentially low fat vanilla pudding, but the name custard makes it taste more exotic.)
We didn't have time to change into decent clothes, so I stuffed my sweat pants inside the tall, pink striped galoshes Rachel gave me for my birthday. By the time I went out the door, I looked ridiculous with bright blue baggy pants stuffed inside my bright striped rubber boots. I muttered to Anna as we dashed up the hill that 'I'd better not see any of my students in the shop.'

But of course, God likes to exercise my humility quite a bit it seems. While I stood at the register paying for the glorified vanilla pudding, looking like a kids birthday party clown, a girl in a school uniform stepped in line behind me. I glanced back to see who it was and it just so happened to be exactly the girl I wouldn't want it to be. A few weeks ago I saw two girls picking on a little boy on the bus. They did this day after day and I could tell that the boy was miserable. He would purposely get off the bus miles before his bus stop just to avoid being bothered by the girls. So finally I told the 'higher-ups' and the girls got in trouble. Now, one thing I try very hard to show my students is that adults don't hold grudges. Any time I have to get stern with a student, I try to communicate with them kindly and normally after the event, so that they know my problem is with their actions and not with who they are. I talked normally with the girl in class: asked her how her work was coming along, etc. I often see the girls when I walk to the bus since they live on my street, so I made sure to wave to them as I walked by.
They never wave back.

So I laughed at the irony when I turned around and saw the girl who doesn't wave. Its always been my opinion that ridiculousness is less embarrassing when confronted full force, so I turned to her and said, "I KNEW I'd see a student if I walked out the door dressed like this."
She laughed and smiled back.

Now that I think about it, if my ridiculous outfit made the girl who doesn't wave smile at me, then perhaps God was doing more than simply trying to humble me.
Perhaps he was humbling her.

kitchen in the sea

This weekend a few of us visited our fellow American student friends Jo and Jen at their internship at the Kilkrenny House in Coleraine. It's a beautiful little farm way out in the country where a few animals are raised and a little fireplace warms the inside.
After feeding the goats, collecting the eggs, and dealing with a dead hen, we went to visit Dunluce Castle, known for a rather unfortunate event that occured while it was still inhabited: the kitchen fell into the sea. While we walked up and down the path at the foot of the castle, we tried to sort out where the kitchen had been. The castle had such a precarious placement on the cliff that it was a wonder the whole thing hadn't fallen in. I picked out at least three different cliff-side walls that looked like they could be missing a kitchen, or would be soon. As fragile as it looked, it was also beautiful, propped there on the cliff-side rocks with beautiful long sea-side grasses overgrowing it's edges. It looked like it was more a part of the cliff than a structure built on top of it, as though it was trying to melt into the landscape, or escape into the sea.
Visits like this remind me where it is i am.