The Land of Ice Chronicles: Final Chapter

It’s been about three months since I came back home from Ireland and a day hasn’t passed that I thank the lord I had the opportunity to go. I’m so happy with everything that I have learned. I have grown so much and learned to not let the small bad things affect me. It is ALWAYS better to look on the bright side of things.

I think we should walk the Earth every day as if we just arrived to it’s soil. It doesn’t matter if you’ve lived in NYC your whole life; act like your a tourist and I’m sure you’ll find something new you never knew existed. 

I say this because the truth is that we take for granted a lot of the great things that we have going on in our lives. [Take me as an example] I went to South Korea and fell in love with all of it’s wonders (I never ever was depressed or sad in the sparkling land). However, that left me feeling upset I did not live there. I began to hate the NYC subway and complained endlessly about how MY country was a trash can. I began to annoy all my friends because I was always BASHING the place they’d known to be amazing their entire lives. To be honest with you, I’d become a bitch who disliked everything that made her who she was, everything that even gave her the opportunity to go to South Korea in the first place.

Then I went to Ireland, and suddenly…. everything back in NYC was where all the hype was. I found myself missing the dirty old smelly subway. In the vein of honesty, the only that changed when I got the Ireland was the location. I was still just a bratty kid complaining and spreading negativity everywhere I went. And at some point…. all that negativity will come back and deck you square in the face.

And let me tell you from first-hand experience….that shit feeling you get when the negativity you’ve spread finally makes it’s way back to you is extremely painful and all-consuming.

So here’s a little trick I learned after I began my meditations in Ireland:

Whenever you start complaining or feel the urge to complain, splash some ice cold water in your face and come back to reality. There are people that are in worse situations than you are! Be grateful that you are still on the Earth alive and breathing. Go out for a walk and become one with all around you. Do what you gotta do.. just don’t be a dumbass like me and complain about things that you shouldn’t be complaining about. Take a shower, ya dumbass.

100% RAW TRUTH

So to recap for everyone…..

My experience in Ireland was a life-changing one that needed to happen. Now, to answer some questions I know you may have:

Do I miss the easy academic courses? Yes

Do I miss the fun musical courses I took? Yes

Do I miss Ivon Roberts and his amazing soul? YES

Was Ireland an overall good experience? Yes

Would I go back there?

In the words of my wise and beautiful aunt… It is a good thing to have been there and learned that I could never live there. It is a good thing to know when my future man & I are ever thinking of re-locating to a different country. If he ever suggests Ireland, I’ll give him a strong NO. I think that countries with large amounts of sunlight are locations that I could move to and happily survive. Being in such a cold place has its perks but it just ain’t for me y’all. If you are dead-set on exploring Ireland though… I’d say to go in July and stay for a week. There isn’t much to do (in Limerick at least) so a week is enough to get everything you want to do done and have a fun experience. A 4 MONTH SEMESTER IS TOO LONG FOR THIS NYC GAL.

Long Story Short:

STUDY ABROAD! IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!

 

 

 

This has been “The Land of Ice Chronicles”.

I hope you enjoyed every minute of it. Thank you for listening.

This is Sammi signing off. I love each and every one of you

The Land of Ice Chronicles: Adjustment 101 [Week 1]

“Rise and Shine”, my alarm seemed to yelp at the top of its lungs at 7am on a Monday morning.

I smiled as I woke up; it was the first day of Orientation.

For some odd reason, I was excited for Orientation week. It was fun in South Korea and it was a blast when I was a freshman in New Paltz so I had high expectations. I put on a ton of makeup, put on my cutest outfit and even wore my tiara. I was convinced that today was going to be an amazing day and I wanted to feel like a queen while I experienced it.

I walked into the auditorium where all the orientation stuff was happening and was able to talk to people more easily this time than when I was at Eden the day before. I made a few friends and then we were all off to get our Student IDs and going on a tour of the school. Our tour guide was Edward and he was a literal ball of energy; he called me Princess the entire day (which I admit made me feel like royalty). However, there is one thing he said at some point that harshed my mood just a bit that day. We were all talking about reasons we decided to come here and when it was my turn, I told my truth “I’m 25% Irish so I wanted to see what I was missing”. Before I could finish my sentence Ed cut me off and said:

“Hah- Americans always going around saying things like I’m 3% Polish, 0.001%Irish, 4%African…”

That response caught me off-guard and I admit that, at the moment, I wanted to roundhouse kick Edward in the face. It enraged me so much; that was so uncalled for. It made me feel so unwelcome in the country I was in. Even though I let it all slide after it happened, I think that it was that moment that kept me in a negative mindset for most of my semester here at UL. On the low-key, I couldn’t stop thinking about that one moment. It always seemed to remind me of the untrue thought I had; “I don’t belong here. Coming here was a mistake”. And then I would make it worse for myself by comparing the journey I was having here to the one I had in South Korea. I’d tell myself things like “if we were only in Korea we’d be happy”. The fact is that in Korea, I’d say things like “I think my spirit is Korean” and Koreans would just smile, laugh, hug me, and invite to go to places with them. Yet, here, a country where I have an actual ancestral history with wasn’t accepting me as being a part of it?

I know. I know. I was being 100% overdramatic is what I was being. The truth is that happiness shouldn’t be placed on anything external. It should always be something that is within you. After all, happiness is an emotion and we are the people that control when and why we feel or don’t feel it. This is a lesson that I wouldn’t learn until months after my first week in Ireland.

But before we get to my moment of enlightenment, let me tell you about my journey of getting there. So after the tour, we all went out for a beer which was pretty great. That’s one thing I love about this campus; there’s a bar on it. A bar that doubles as a nightclub. So you could imagine my excitement for the International Students Party. And I’m not gonna lie, when I look back at the first Stables Friday Party, I like to think it was pretty amazing.

Why was it so amazing?

Continue reading “The land of Ice Chronicles” and you’ll find out!