A Balancing Act

Today, while walking to my Latin class in the Arts Block, I was thinking about what I had to do for the remainder of my day: I had to go the library to make photocopies of Yeat’s autobiographies for my Irish Literary Autobiographical class, register for an extracurricular Gaelic class, look for a place that sold knitting needles, I was going to the Kick-off welcome Mass, coming back to Goldsmith to make dinner, heading to the gym…it was somewhere around that point that I realized two significant things about my rather regular train of thought. Firstly, I wasn’t thinking about where I was going. Seeing as Holy Cross is a small, homey campus, it didn’t take me very long to figure out all of the quickest routes to get to Stein from anywhere on campus. But, Trinity is massive. My apartment is a good 15 minute walk from Front Square-and I’m a quick walker. So, today, when I stopped to realize that I no longer had to mentally check myself to make sure I was heading the right way, I couldn’t help but smile as I looked around at all of the TCD students on this lovely fall day as I recognized that I was, indeed, one of them.

Secondly, I had a schedule-and quite a busy one that mixed academics with my new extracurricular activities with my own individual cares and interests! I can’t help but acknowledge that my “new” life is quickly becoming a familiar routine. This new sense of familiarity actually directly relates to something we learned about in my Theories of Literature course this past week. When discussing Formalism, our lecturer, Pr. Murphy, discussed how the purpose of literature is to de-familiarize ordinary objects and events, to make them fresh again in the reader’s eyes. It’s true, isn’t it, that the more familiar we become with a person, a place, a routine, the more we fail to actually see them?

So, although I am dedicating my study abroad experience to a complete acclimation into Irish lifestyle, I also want to make sure that I don’t fall into this trap—I don’t want the familiarity of my routine to endanger my appreciation, my awe, of it. It’s a balancing act to maintain a sense of wonder with the inevitability of adjustment, to be completely and wholeheartedly part of something and to simultaneously see.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 7th, 2010 at 6:06 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “A Balancing Act”

1. Kelsey says:

   October 11, 2010 at 12:20 pm

   Yet again, everything sounds unbelievable!!

2. Paul says:

   October 19, 2010 at 11:31 am

   too busy a schedule brings about fixed routines which cause a narrow field of vision.you need to leave abundant oppurtunities for the absurd and curiousity to lead you down strange paths,pecular gardens, rabbit holes,to odd fairs and where ever the mind may roam.