sfuqua wrote:It's interesting to see you get a little disillusioned with Ireland; I'm in the grips of a huge desire to get back to Ireland. I've missed it the past few years since COVID. I've also had a bunch of wanderlust for Irish. It is such a cool language connected to such an amazing culture. As a terribly rusty advanced beginner in Irish, I might have to start over from basics....
Anyway, I miss Ireland and Irish.
I do still love Ireland (and I definitely think you should come back to Irish... give in to the wanderlust, even as I try not to myself), and I think a lot of my issues with the country are more of a personal thing than anything else. Or a problem with Dublin and just how damn
expensive everything is here, without the salaries to match. But, really, the main issue is that it's difficult to find hobbies and such, and break into friend groups. Especially being a 30 year old expat. I'm beginning to understand why expats generally stick together when they move, even if they can speak the local language. It's just difficult to get into friend groups where they've known each other and hung out for years. I've had some success, but all of them come from Irish-language oriented things and while I probably could live my entire life through Irish except a few things (shopping and interactions with my house mate), it also puts a limit on what I can do because it's a minority language. There's not any martial arts groups, for instance, nor any board game groups. There are the GAA teams, but I've injured my foot in 2021 and it still hasn't completely healed to enable decent running. And most convesation in Irish somehow always turns to talking
about the language as well. Which I love, but does get somewhat old. It's another change I'm going to make this year hopefully at the conversation circles. Less talk about Irish in Irish.
One of the big regrets of my life is that I never got a PhD in linguistics. My life has been great, but I was
good at that whole graduate school thing, and it would have been a great experience, even if I never tried to climb the whole academic ladder. There are so many things that I only got to look at superficially during my MA in second language studies. My MS in computer science that I got a few years later was a completely different direction, and it might have been better to stay focused on linguistics. I could have skipped a couple of years of decadence in Asia to spend in graduate school.
Anyway, I just wish I had completed a terminal degree.
This is the big thing, honestly, especially being 30. I don't want to look back at the time I spent in Europe (especially as I'm leaning towards moving back to the States for reasons I've talked about here previously) and regret not taking this amazing opportunity. Even if it ends at the masters, it'd be a huge regret for me not to do it
It's also funny how you have such different MAs, and ended up teaching as well. My undergrad was in physics with a minor in Irish. My first masters was my teaching one, then I did the one here in Applied Math and Theoretical Physics (focusing heavily on the applied maths part), and now I'm considering Celtic Studies for a third one (and PhD). My research topic would be very philology-based, as opposed to cultural based, as I'm interested in idioms and commonalities across the Celtic languages, particularly before mass amounts of English influence (so I want Middle Welsh/Breton and Old Irish, which Brest offers). Though I'm unsure if I have any desire to do academia. It'd be nice to be a professor and teach and research, but the politics and other stuff do not appeal to me. I'd almost rather just return to high school teaching in the States and use my holidays to do the research that interests me, without being beholden to a funding organisation or 'publish and perish'. It's really a tough decision though, as going to France now does likely mean I give up on Irish citizenship, etc., and thus means I likely will have to return to the States at one point, even if I change my mind again. And, if there's one thing about me...I'm fickle. For instance, your log has already gotten me interested in picking up Japanese again, despite my already overly ambitious goals for 2023.