It Certainly Took Me Long Enough...

Greetings from America!

I'm sorry this took me so long --- I couldn't really bear to conclude the blog while I was still in Dublin. Even if I had, it would have been difficult to make clear everything that I've recognized during the fall semester abroad.

The last week was insanity (both good and bad chaos, but just that). Somehow, we all got onto our separate flights and made our way back across the ocean. It was wonderful to get home, to see the low gas prices and to be able to drive on the right side of the road, and to have as many pillows and as few potatoes as I wanted. But it didn't really seem as if we had been gone.

Christmas came in a flash --- a sweet, humble, quiet one at that --- and suddenly it was 2009. Writing the family Christmas letter, it certainly seems as if a lot got done during 2008. There's a lot to be proud of, and a lot to remember, and I'm surprised we managed it all in one year.

I'm writing now from my little dorm room in Manhattan. Classes don't start for another week, and I haven't said a word out loud for hours now...it's quiet and cold, but I'm hoping all of my good habits from Dublin and from home came with me to the city. Please cross your fingers for me that this spring semester goes as well as the fall semester away did. And even if it doesn't, I'm going to keep an open and determined mind to get as much as I can out of it.

Thank you all so much for reading this. It was such a comfort to me to be able to update you all on the goings-on in Dublin. But we're (pretty much) all in the same time zone now, aren't we? So let's keep in touch.

Slan go foil and goodbye for now,
Monica