No particular order

The following is in no particular order.

1. I am so excited to Jacob LaFond. He is the member of my family that it has been the longest since I have seen. He is also one of my best friends.

2. Leaving these kids and this family is one of the hardest things I have ever done.

3. In my church we pay tithing eg. 10% of your income you give to the church. The church uses it to get aid to those who need it, to support education, to build temples and chapels ect. I have been very blessed for doing that this year.

4. I love European chocolate. I am considering giving up chocolate this summer. Because I need to loose weight somehow. Once I get to the point when I will like American chocolate again I will, hopefully be back in school in Wales.

5. A lot of people travel to meet new friends. I find a beautiful aspect of traveling is complete one on one time with yourself.

6. That isn't to say that I haven't made brilliant friends this year.

7. "Brilliant", "fantastic", "manky", "class", "posh" "hiya" "cheers" and "spanner" are now all part of my vocabulary.

8. I can say "That's mine." In Irish, which means that I can have an argument with a toddler in Irish.

9. I no longer use "British" and "English" as synonyms. because they are actually two very different things. Britain is the Kingdom comprised of four countries. England is one o those countries.

10. Along those lines, Ireland and Northern Ireland are different countries as well.  Approximately 6000 people have died in the last forty years fighting about this fact.

11. I have gone native. I can rattle on for hours about Irish history, specifically everything the English subjected the Irish too.

12. The Irish and the English are friends now. There will always be extremest on both sides. But, now the reasonable people have seen what catastrophic consequences listening to these people can have.

 13. I've said it before but again the Irish are some of the kindest and most genuine, generous and open people you will ever meet.

14. I will miss an efficient public transport system.

15. I had never seen Doctor Who before this year.

16. I did National (technically it is international) Novel Writing Month. I won.

17. I decided to get my post graduate degree in International Relations rather than Theatre, Film, and Performance.

18. I have been accepted into the best program in the UK for International Relations.

19. Irish people don't name their children Shannon.That was a name Irish Americans came up with who missed Ireland.

20. I have been to four countries this year. Not as many as I thought. But still impressive and I loved them all.


21. I made it most the year basically without a bank account. I will be glad to have one again.

22. Excited for flip-flops again.

23. It feels like I am going to a foreign country rather than my native one.

24. Excited to go to thrift stores with my mom and sister.

25.Turns out "Gypsy" has very negative connotations in Ireland. When you say Gypsy here you are not referring to a fairy-tale like people based on real people but who have become very romanticized. Here if I were to call myself a Gypsy people would interpret it as my calling myself a crack-whore. Not that all people of traveler dissent are bad. But that is what the word "Gypsy" carries. So yeah, that made this blog title interesting.