Frustrated and behind on homework...but loving the world.

I realized that you can become fond of just about anyone if you're around them enough.  For example, my director for Dr. Horrible, Chris.  I was very unhappy with him at the beginning of the process. He seemed very bizarre, awkward, rude, and unorganized. A very poor combination of descriptives.  He still is all those things. But now I find his awkwardness endearing.  And as much as I'm frustrated with how unorganized his directing style is, I sympathize with him instead of taking it out on him. I think I've just realized that he means well. The same with our music director.  Yes, he's got an embarrassingly bad voice. Yes, he is kind of incapable of teaching anyone how to sing a line of a song.  But he always wants to please people.  And when a female cast member is missing, he takes such pride in busting out her solo lines in his falsetto. It's hard not to find him endearing, no matter how frustrating his lack of musical ability. Finally, Mike Rodio (this one's dangerous to write about since a lot of Notre Dame people know him, but don't worry, it ends happily). Mike and I don't get along all that well. Mostly because he'll say something arrogant or sarcastic, and I'll tell him he's a jerk and he needs to be quiet. Then the cycle continues. As Siomha says to people "Mike and Clare have a love/hate relationship. More on the hate side."  But it's gotten to the point now where I like having him around. I'm downright fond of him, our squabbles and all.  It has become a good-natured-sibling thing (kinda like me and Norah!! Except Mike is kind of afraid of me now. Norah is not afraid of me). 


Maybe this "being fond of people" thing won't last too long, but right now I'm very pleased with the way I'm feeling towards people here. I don't dislike anyone, I don't talk about anyone behind their backs... I think it's better to just be "fond" of people, flaws and all. I know "fond" is a vague word, but I think it's one that's well-suited for this kind of situation. 


I hope that all made sense. 


The past few days have passed extraordinarily slowly.  I'm not quite sure what I did. I spent most of Friday at the beautiful O'Connell house pretending to do homework, and in the evening I watched The Nightmare before Christmas with Nicole and a UCD friend named Thom. Having been away from my mom and Norah for months, I demanded that both Nicole and Thom give me a massage. They did so willingly. It was wonderful. 


All day Saturday and Sunday were spent doing absolutely nothing in the halls of DU Players. We barely ran the show once. I'm truly disappointed with the society as a whole. PEMCo has no school support, nowhere to practice, no stable resources. DU Players has a fantastic home base, filled with two theatres, practice rooms, a work shop, a costume room--all available 24/7 all year round. They have so many interested students, all with so much talent. They have the support of the school, not to mention dozens of celebrities. And what do they do with all that support? Produce mediocre shows. Maybe I shouldn't say that, since I really don't know if my experience with DU Players is a typical one. But I know that I have never appreciated PEMCo more. What a fabulous organization. We make something wonderful out of practically nothing, year after year. Not only that, but we manage to all be best friends in the process. I feel really blessed that I went to Notre Dame, mostly because of my involvement in PEMCo. 


That was cheesy, but it was also true. 


I think that going abroad is a great experience. But I don't think its value lies in going to the bars every night. I don't even think its value lies in traveling to countless countries. That's all fine and good.  But I think you need to go abroad just because you need to leave home. You need to leave your home to realize how great it really is. I miss Notre Dame. I miss my friends, I miss the trees, I miss the professors, I miss the buildings, I miss PEMCo.  And I miss Beverly Hills. I miss my family, I miss 13 mile road, I miss my car, I miss Somerset around Christmas time. Maybe that's weird that the "value" I'm getting out of my abroad experience doesn't relate to my actual experiences abroad. But I think there's something to be said for appreciating where you come from. I wouldn't want to feel any other way. 


Now I'm off to bed. Maybe I'll pretend to read some of Richard the Third before I go to bed. Or maybe I won't. 


Night,
Clare Mairead


P.S. Speaking of fondness for others, my roommate, Siomha, is delightful. She has become a little piece of home for me. We're oddly similar in our personalities, in our moodiness, in our love for weddings and tea and girl talk. It's strange how quickly we became close. We don't even spend that much time together, but we coexist wonderfully. And she's taken to saying things like "my clare" when she's talking about me or defending me, or she says "hello beautiful" if we pass each other coming back from class. It's little things like that that make me feel like she's my home here. 
P.P.S. Just a little anecdote... Siomha's "hello beautiful"s almost backfired on her one night. My Irish roommate, Dee, has a boyfriend named Henry. One night, Siomha was in the shower/bathroom washing her hands, and Henry was walking into the toilet/bathroom (we have two bathrooms. It's weird).  Siomha didn't see the person's face, just their shadow as they walked by. She knew that the person was tall, and assumed it was me. She must've been in one of her silly moods, because she was about to say "hi sexy," to me when she saw a MALE hand reach outside the bathroom and turn on the light switch. Luckily she only got out "hi" when she stopped herself. She was mortified. It was hilarious. I think Dee might have murdered her in her sleep if Siomha had said "hi sexy" to her boyfriend. That would have been a difficult one to explain.