I had dinner with a Canadian friend of mine who has been living in Dublin for four years now. We were talking about upcoming visits home. She's going home for a week in May as she found a really cheap ticket on a charter. Unfortunately, I couldn't go at that time because I have a big event coming up the first weekend in June and can't take the two weeks before the event off. There is no point in me going home before the end of May because that's when my brother and his wife are having their first baby. I want to see the baby, not see her hugely pregnant.
Last week, I asked for the second week of June off. The ticket isn't so cheap anymore, but it's still reasonable - especially considering the time of year. Well, I was turned down. I kind of knew I might be, as I knew my coworker was going to hand in her notice yesterday and I would be leaving at a really busy time - it always is immediately post-event. I was, however, hoping that my bosses would be optimistic that my coworker would be staying on after all and let me have the week off. Now that my coworker is definitely quitting, I have little chance of taking time off before the end of the summer. I'm going to ask for 10 days off at the end of June and hopefully come home for Canada Day weekend - the price of the ticket is still under EURO 500. However, if I'm turned down for those days, I'm stuck because flights are really expensive from then until September. I'm kind of bummed about that. I really want to see the baby, and I don't know that I can go home in September. I'm still thinking about moving over to the UK in a couple of months, and once I do that, the travelling will have to come to an end for awhile. It will be more expensive over there at first and I might go over there without a job lined up. I wanted to get the visit in before I moved.
Our discussion turned towards the dilemma that I think many expats face. What to do with one's vacation time - do you go home every chance you get, or do you take advantage of where you are and travel as much as possible while you have the chance? I know that to my friends and family back home, I'm going to start sounding like a spoiled European here. I have four weeks vacation a year, not to mention all those bank holidays, and yet, it's just not enough. I am conscious of the fact that I'm very lucky to have this much time. If I were in Canada, I would be slogging it out for eight paltry statuatory holidays and 10 vacation days a year. There would be no question about what to do with my whopping ten days if I were an expat in Canada - if I were lucky enough to be able to take them all at once.
But I digress. When I asked my friend how long she was going home for, she said just a week. I too, was planning to go for a week - well 10 days to get two weekends at home. I thought about going for longer, but then I would be using up all my vacation time on going home, when I factor that I will probably go home for two weeks at Christmas. Yet, by choosing to go home in June and again at Christmas, I'm saying no to a family cottage weekend in August, a friend's wedding in September, and Thanksgiving. I'm also saying no to a longer vacation somewhere else. Though I have been taking advantage of my proximity to Continental Europe by taking a few extended weekends, I have not done a big trip over here yet - except when I went to Portugal for a week last year. So far in 2005, I have been to Switzerland, Amsterdam and Tuscany for 4-5 days each. Next weekend for the May bank holiday (yup another one), I'm going to the West of Ireland. I'll be in London and Belfast sometime next month, and in June I'm going to Monaco and the South of France for a few days. Mind you, I'm going to London and Monaco for work, but I'm staying over through the weekend each time to take advantage of the fact that the company is paying for my flight. However, though I'm great with the weekend trips, the fact that I'm going home twice this year precludes the possibility of taking a longer trip here. I can get to Vilnius or Riga for less than EURO 300, and I would love to do a trip through the Baltic states and also on to St. Petersburg. Or perhaps a trip through the Balkans - Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia. With the expansion of the EU, there are more flights than ever to many Eastern European cities like Budapest, Prague, Warsaw, and Bratislava. There are also plenty of cheap flights to Bankok from London. I have so many options over here that I wouldn't have if I was living back home.
However, there is a definite draw to visiting home. I definitely have roots there, and I get excited at the thought of seeing familiar faces and catching up with everyone. I think about all the old haunts that I would visit, and how I would get my fill of things that I miss. I'm also conscious of the fact that as I am here longer, it's harder to keep up with everyone and everything back home. It's so easy to let it all slip, and because I'm the one that's not there, it's up to me to keep up the relationships. I don't want to return home in a couple of years to find all my friendships have been dissolved and everyone has moved on because I failed to keep them up while I was away.
Am I being selfish to want it both ways?
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Not of the family fold
I've alluded before to the fact that Ireland is a pretty exclusionary place. The legendary friendliness of the Irish is about as real as leprechauns. Sure, if you come over for a visit, you'll run into some real down-home Irish folk who will talk to you as you sit in the pub, or chat with you as you stand in line. They'll also stop to give you directions - sometimes. What I'm talking about, though, is a real friendliness - a desire to become friends with someone, not just the surface stuff. In that regard, the Irish are not friendly at all. Many people in Dublin go home to the country every weekend. They only work and crash during the week in Dublin - they live in the country. Therefore, it's not worth their while to make friends with anyone in the city. It's especially not worth their while to make friends with someone who just moved here and might be leaving at any given time. Most people here have the same friends as when they were four. I can't compete with that, and nor do I necessarily want to, but you can definitely tell that for many people, there just isn't time or room for newbies.
Often, when meeting new people, I inevitably get asked when I'm going home. I often get the impression that I'm not asked out of interest, but in order for them to gauge how much effort they should put into getting to know me better. After over a year in Dublin, I have one Irish friend.
The simple response to this is "join a club". Well I've tried that. It's actually easier said than done here. I work in the sticks, so by the time I arrive back in the city after work, many courses have already started - including the French class that I took last year and would like to build upon. I've looked into taking a writing or editing course, but despite this being the land of the Celtic Tiger, it's actually hard to find information online about taking a part-time degree course without enrolling into a full program. I know I should probably call the Universities, for info, but well, that's just hard isn't it. Working in high-tech, and being from North America, I am of the opinion that if an organisation doesn't have the proper information easily accessible online, then they just can't be very good. I've looked into joining a hill walking group, but any web sites I've checked aren't exactly advertising for new members. You have to apply for membership, and if they like you and you're compatible, you can come out for a "test walk", and if they still like you, you're in. They all sound very exclusionary about how the members have all been together for several years, and new members are elected by committee, but I'm sure it's more likely that new members are only elected if they know someone in the club already. I tried to join a tag rugby team as well. On the web site, it says that if you're a player looking to join a team, click on the link to enroll once the season opens. Well, once the season opened the link was removed from the web site. I emailed in my interest instead, but was told to apply through the web site. When I replied that the link wasn't set up, I didn't get a response and it wasn't fixed until all spots were "full". I think it was intentional. I think they actually only allow individuals to join if existing teams are crying out for additional players.
Everything I've experienced here tells me that people just don't want to open their doors to newcomers. Many foreigners I've encountered here have expressed the same difficulties. Many have said that when trying to join clubs, they get the impression that they are turned away because they're foreign. Of course, most foreigners want to join clubs because they're used to a more active lifestyle than what can be found here, they tire easily of going to the pub all the time, and they're looking to meet people and make friends. However, having two Poles, a Slovakian, a French person and an American in one's hill walking club would certainly change the personality of it, and I can see why some people would be reluctant to let that happen.
Someone at work alerted me to a tag rugby team that was being formed through one of the other offices. I expressed interest and filled out the questionnaire. Then I heard nothing for over a month, so I just figured that I didn't meet their criteria (ie. I'm not Irish). Yesterday, the captain wrote to me saying that he's having difficulty with my registration. The company we work for is sponsoring the team, however the stipulation is that all team members must be permanent employees. I'm a contractor. Therefore, I can't be on the team. He's apparently asked for an exception, but what it looks like is that I will be able to join, but will have to pay extra as the sponsorship amount will be lessened since they're only sponsoring the actual employees and not me. It's so frigging ridiculous. The fact that after nine months I still haven't been made permanent is annoying enough, but a whole other story which I may or may not write about. However, what gets me the most is that every day in my email and other communications, I keep getting all this BS about how they want all people working here to feel welcome and at home and take part in company activities. I don't see why someone who has been working with the company on a perma-temp basis should be excluded from that. I work alongside everyone else, I put just as much in, I keep being told to "get involved", but then when I try to do so, I'm turned down. It makes me wonder whether I'm not better off at a company like Microsoft where the perma-temps are almost completely segregated from the regular employees instead of this half-and-half stuff. For an American company, it's so Irish - friendly, but not too friendly.
All I want is to belong to something.
Often, when meeting new people, I inevitably get asked when I'm going home. I often get the impression that I'm not asked out of interest, but in order for them to gauge how much effort they should put into getting to know me better. After over a year in Dublin, I have one Irish friend.
The simple response to this is "join a club". Well I've tried that. It's actually easier said than done here. I work in the sticks, so by the time I arrive back in the city after work, many courses have already started - including the French class that I took last year and would like to build upon. I've looked into taking a writing or editing course, but despite this being the land of the Celtic Tiger, it's actually hard to find information online about taking a part-time degree course without enrolling into a full program. I know I should probably call the Universities, for info, but well, that's just hard isn't it. Working in high-tech, and being from North America, I am of the opinion that if an organisation doesn't have the proper information easily accessible online, then they just can't be very good. I've looked into joining a hill walking group, but any web sites I've checked aren't exactly advertising for new members. You have to apply for membership, and if they like you and you're compatible, you can come out for a "test walk", and if they still like you, you're in. They all sound very exclusionary about how the members have all been together for several years, and new members are elected by committee, but I'm sure it's more likely that new members are only elected if they know someone in the club already. I tried to join a tag rugby team as well. On the web site, it says that if you're a player looking to join a team, click on the link to enroll once the season opens. Well, once the season opened the link was removed from the web site. I emailed in my interest instead, but was told to apply through the web site. When I replied that the link wasn't set up, I didn't get a response and it wasn't fixed until all spots were "full". I think it was intentional. I think they actually only allow individuals to join if existing teams are crying out for additional players.
Everything I've experienced here tells me that people just don't want to open their doors to newcomers. Many foreigners I've encountered here have expressed the same difficulties. Many have said that when trying to join clubs, they get the impression that they are turned away because they're foreign. Of course, most foreigners want to join clubs because they're used to a more active lifestyle than what can be found here, they tire easily of going to the pub all the time, and they're looking to meet people and make friends. However, having two Poles, a Slovakian, a French person and an American in one's hill walking club would certainly change the personality of it, and I can see why some people would be reluctant to let that happen.
Someone at work alerted me to a tag rugby team that was being formed through one of the other offices. I expressed interest and filled out the questionnaire. Then I heard nothing for over a month, so I just figured that I didn't meet their criteria (ie. I'm not Irish). Yesterday, the captain wrote to me saying that he's having difficulty with my registration. The company we work for is sponsoring the team, however the stipulation is that all team members must be permanent employees. I'm a contractor. Therefore, I can't be on the team. He's apparently asked for an exception, but what it looks like is that I will be able to join, but will have to pay extra as the sponsorship amount will be lessened since they're only sponsoring the actual employees and not me. It's so frigging ridiculous. The fact that after nine months I still haven't been made permanent is annoying enough, but a whole other story which I may or may not write about. However, what gets me the most is that every day in my email and other communications, I keep getting all this BS about how they want all people working here to feel welcome and at home and take part in company activities. I don't see why someone who has been working with the company on a perma-temp basis should be excluded from that. I work alongside everyone else, I put just as much in, I keep being told to "get involved", but then when I try to do so, I'm turned down. It makes me wonder whether I'm not better off at a company like Microsoft where the perma-temps are almost completely segregated from the regular employees instead of this half-and-half stuff. For an American company, it's so Irish - friendly, but not too friendly.
All I want is to belong to something.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Deep Thoughts
I've noticed that many taxi and bus drivers make the sign of the cross when approaching an intersection.
It doesn't inspire confidence. I would rather they put their faith in their defensive driving skills.
It doesn't inspire confidence. I would rather they put their faith in their defensive driving skills.
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Stray Cat Strut
In Ireland, most houses don't have screens on the windows. It's annoying. When you open the window, there is no screen between you and the great outdoors, which means, bugs and critters are free to come inside. Mind you, they don't have mosquitoes or flies in Ireland the way we do back home, but they do have moths, bees, and rodents. It just makes me feel uneasy. Even though my bedroom is upstairs in the house, my window opens out over the sun room, and I remember thinking that it would be very easy for a mouse or squirrel to come into my room from the roof of the sun room.
It was fairly warm in Ireland over the weekend, and as my room is south-facing, when the sun does actually shine here, my room gets very warm. I left my window open at night on the weekend because it was so stuffy otherwise. Well, on Saturday night I was woken up when some critter came in through my window, crawled over my legs and onto the floor. I started screaming, I was terrified. I just saw a fat, black shape with a tail and thought it was a giant rat. The creature jumped back over my bed and back out through the window, which was when that I realized it was a neighbourhood cat. I'm pretty sure it belongs to someone in the neighbourhood, but I would say it's more a semi-stray cat as it spends most of its time in all the neighbourhood yards and I'm not sure it's fed regularly and I'm positive it doesn't have all its shots.
I closed the window after it, and it tried to get in again a couple of times that night, which makes me wonder if it was chasing a mouse when it came inside my window. There is a ledge near my window that separates the sun room from the kitchen and it sat on there staring into my window for a long time. I know this because I was awake the rest of the night staring back. It goes without saying that I have a serious case of the willies – and not just because of the possibility of a mouse in my room. Cats just creep me out.
While it doesn't get much warmer in Ireland than the 16C it was on Saturday, it bothers me that I can't open my window anymore unless it's daylight and I'm in the room. My room gets very hot – even by my standards, and I would like to air my room out, but there's *no way* I'm letting this happen again. I can't see a conceivable way to get a screen attached to my window either without getting the whole window replaced. I'm currently looking into getting a safety latch, like they would have for people with young children, so that my window can only be opened a little bit.
Not having screens isn't unique to Ireland; lots of European countries don't have window screens on the houses – even the modern ones. I don't get it. Isn't anyone concerned about rodents - or evil stray cats?
It was fairly warm in Ireland over the weekend, and as my room is south-facing, when the sun does actually shine here, my room gets very warm. I left my window open at night on the weekend because it was so stuffy otherwise. Well, on Saturday night I was woken up when some critter came in through my window, crawled over my legs and onto the floor. I started screaming, I was terrified. I just saw a fat, black shape with a tail and thought it was a giant rat. The creature jumped back over my bed and back out through the window, which was when that I realized it was a neighbourhood cat. I'm pretty sure it belongs to someone in the neighbourhood, but I would say it's more a semi-stray cat as it spends most of its time in all the neighbourhood yards and I'm not sure it's fed regularly and I'm positive it doesn't have all its shots.
I closed the window after it, and it tried to get in again a couple of times that night, which makes me wonder if it was chasing a mouse when it came inside my window. There is a ledge near my window that separates the sun room from the kitchen and it sat on there staring into my window for a long time. I know this because I was awake the rest of the night staring back. It goes without saying that I have a serious case of the willies – and not just because of the possibility of a mouse in my room. Cats just creep me out.
While it doesn't get much warmer in Ireland than the 16C it was on Saturday, it bothers me that I can't open my window anymore unless it's daylight and I'm in the room. My room gets very hot – even by my standards, and I would like to air my room out, but there's *no way* I'm letting this happen again. I can't see a conceivable way to get a screen attached to my window either without getting the whole window replaced. I'm currently looking into getting a safety latch, like they would have for people with young children, so that my window can only be opened a little bit.
Not having screens isn't unique to Ireland; lots of European countries don't have window screens on the houses – even the modern ones. I don't get it. Isn't anyone concerned about rodents - or evil stray cats?
Monday, April 04, 2005
More Grey Matter
Terri Schiavo has now died. I think this whole story emphasizes the importance of a living will – because you just don’t know what's going to happen. However, I think the story is really sad and tragic. I don’t want to get into the possible ulterior motives of her husband or the loss that her family feels. Nor do I want to speculate on whether or not it was possible for her condition to improve after 15 years, or pontificate on the supposed "slippery slope" that the US has just stepped on in allowing her to die.
I think what's most sad and tragic about this is that it turned Ms. Schiavo into a pawn for the political agenda of the right wing. Anyone who thinks Bush actually cares about the sanctity of all human life should look at his capital punishment record while he was Governor of Texas. Ditto for brother Jeb in Florida. Not to mention that Bush sent scores of America's Sons & Daughters over to Iraq to fight a war based on false pretenses. Oh yeah, Bush cares – it has nothing to do with paying back his right-wing Christian Coalition cronies. Also, Tom DeLay, House Majority Leader, agreed, along with the rest of his family, not to put his father on dialysis when his kidneys failed and had a "Do Not Resuscitate" order for him back in 1988. You’ll remember that DeLay called removing Schiavo's breathing tube and "act of barbarism" and championed a political intervention in the case. But I'm sure that has nothing to do with wanting to deflect attention away from mounting allegations regarding his slimy dealings.
http://www.democrats.org/specialreports/delaycasefile/index.html
I don't have a living will yet, but I intend to make one. I don't know at what line I want to die but I know that I don't want to be in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, with no chance of getting better. I don’t want to be a drain on my family and I don't want them to remember me more for my vegetative state than when I was actually alive. At the same time, I want to make sure I've been given every chance to recover and rehabilitate before someone decides to pull the plug.
I think medical advancements have outstripped dying with dignity. It is possible to keep someone alive purely by artificial means for years with no chance of them living without the machines or regaining consciousness. I also don't think there is a slippery slope. We're not going to start killing off the Down's Syndrome kids and then start marching the Jews back to the gas chamber.
One thing I am very clear about in my mind, however, is that if members of my family ever debate over whether I should be allowed to die, and I somehow become a cause célèbre for the political right as a result (which would be hard because I'm Canadian, but if it happens), remove my feeding tube immediately. I absolutely refuse to be a pawn for the Christian Coalition, right-wing political agenda. If my family ever does let it get to that stage, and allows the fate of my being become a media circus where all the usual suspects (Jesse Jackson, Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters, Republican Party) gather to bask in the spotlight, you can bet that when I do die, they'll have to answer to me on the other side. In fact, if they do let that happen, and they then follow my wishes to have my feeding tube removed, I am also requesting that they read the above statement to the press – on Fox News.
Come to think of it though, what’s worse? Being a cause célèbre for the American right, or a martyr for them?
Good article from the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times – found on michaelmoore.com
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=2071
I think what's most sad and tragic about this is that it turned Ms. Schiavo into a pawn for the political agenda of the right wing. Anyone who thinks Bush actually cares about the sanctity of all human life should look at his capital punishment record while he was Governor of Texas. Ditto for brother Jeb in Florida. Not to mention that Bush sent scores of America's Sons & Daughters over to Iraq to fight a war based on false pretenses. Oh yeah, Bush cares – it has nothing to do with paying back his right-wing Christian Coalition cronies. Also, Tom DeLay, House Majority Leader, agreed, along with the rest of his family, not to put his father on dialysis when his kidneys failed and had a "Do Not Resuscitate" order for him back in 1988. You’ll remember that DeLay called removing Schiavo's breathing tube and "act of barbarism" and championed a political intervention in the case. But I'm sure that has nothing to do with wanting to deflect attention away from mounting allegations regarding his slimy dealings.
http://www.democrats.org/specialreports/delaycasefile/index.html
I don't have a living will yet, but I intend to make one. I don't know at what line I want to die but I know that I don't want to be in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, with no chance of getting better. I don’t want to be a drain on my family and I don't want them to remember me more for my vegetative state than when I was actually alive. At the same time, I want to make sure I've been given every chance to recover and rehabilitate before someone decides to pull the plug.
I think medical advancements have outstripped dying with dignity. It is possible to keep someone alive purely by artificial means for years with no chance of them living without the machines or regaining consciousness. I also don't think there is a slippery slope. We're not going to start killing off the Down's Syndrome kids and then start marching the Jews back to the gas chamber.
One thing I am very clear about in my mind, however, is that if members of my family ever debate over whether I should be allowed to die, and I somehow become a cause célèbre for the political right as a result (which would be hard because I'm Canadian, but if it happens), remove my feeding tube immediately. I absolutely refuse to be a pawn for the Christian Coalition, right-wing political agenda. If my family ever does let it get to that stage, and allows the fate of my being become a media circus where all the usual suspects (Jesse Jackson, Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters, Republican Party) gather to bask in the spotlight, you can bet that when I do die, they'll have to answer to me on the other side. In fact, if they do let that happen, and they then follow my wishes to have my feeding tube removed, I am also requesting that they read the above statement to the press – on Fox News.
Come to think of it though, what’s worse? Being a cause célèbre for the American right, or a martyr for them?
Good article from the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times – found on michaelmoore.com
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=2071
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