Events that Shook the World

In honor of the upcoming Foyle Film Festival, I would like to dedicate this post to ‘Events that Shook the World.’ Or, more accurately, my world, since I am clearly the center of this universe/blogosphere. If you’ve read a little bit about my transition to Northern Ireland, you will hopefully have realized that here, nothing is immediate. Last month, my blog could have concluded with the words “And then the Earth cooled.” So, if you were to rank the events of the past couple of weeks on the Richter scale of world-shaking magnitude, I’d give them about a 6.5. Somewhere between a hand grenade and Haiti, and obviously, without the death and destruction.

The proverbial butterfly effect was the arrival of Ben’s medical card in the mail last week. When we entered the waiting room at Clarendon Medical Center to register Ben with the General Practitioner over a month ago, my first thought was that the plague had hit Derry. These patients were not suffering from your common colds and sniffles. These were some seriously sick people. Feeling like the lone survivors of some global medical epidemic, Ben and I watched the ticker until his name appeared. Despite some confusion over how Ben was supposed to provide a urine sample (Apparently, Ben was supposed to bring it to the doctor in hand, in his own container. Northern Ireland never ceases to amaze us.), the appointment went well and Ben was ‘registration accepted’ in a mere ten minutes. Although I think we will be self-medicating from now on, the arrival of the medical card means that Ben and I both have free health insurance and will be able to see the General Practitioner whenever the plague spreads to us.

The first little ripple came in the way of our cell phone service. After more than a dozen visits to the Vodafone store, a couple of phone calls to their customer service, and a visit to an independent retailer, Ben and I had learned a number of things about the mobile phone system here in the UK. In order: 1) you cannot get a monthly mobile or internet plan without a UK bank account 2) you must have proof of residence to get a UK bank account 3) a school reference letter is the only valid proof of residence for non-UK citizens who rent from a private landlord 4) even with a UK bank account, you will not pass a credit check for a cell phone until your money has been transferred into the account 5) Even with money in the account, you will not pass a credit check unless you are registered on the electoral roll 6) Even if you have done all of these things, you will not pass a credit check for a cell phone in the UK unless you have been a resident here for at least three years. As we couldn’t get a monthly plan, we decided to reevaluate Vodafone’s pay-as-you-go options. Eureka moment ensued. Not a single customer service representative ever asked us if we were going to be making local or international calls. Instead, all of them had sold us an international pay-as-you go plan, making our local calls extremely expensive. Last week, Ben and I switched to a new Vodafone pay-as-you-go program which will give us 300 minutes of UK calling, 3000 UK texts and 50 MB of data on my Blackberry for 20 pounds per month. Not only will the switch save us more than 40 USD each month, I can now use a phone that doesn’t look like it belongs in a pocket protector.

Since we realized we weren’t going to be able to pass a Vodafone credit check, Ben and I contacted Virgin Media to install our internet. After a month of phone calls, direct deposit set-ups and the like, two workmen arrived this past week to drill a hole in the front of our flat. Within half an hour our internet was successfully installed. Ben and I will no longer have to walk between 15 and 20 minutes to the library or Starbucks for a three or four hour internet cram session. And we were actually able to chat with Ben’s family for the first time in months.

The next ripple helped push things along with Rotary. I have now completed 8 presentations with local Rotary clubs and have scheduled my remaining two presentations for the beginning of next semester. The presentation with Carrickfergus went especially well. Their President was really kind and even drove Ben and I to Carrickfergus Castle and Marina to take pictures. This past Friday, Ben and I attended an international dinner sponsored by the Rotary Club of Coleraine. I also presented to the Rotary club here in Derry and now have a calendar of their upcoming events. I am planning to go to their fundraiser this Friday, and look forward to building more of a relationship with my host club. My host counselor and I chatted for a good while after my presentation and he signed off on my First Report, which means that I should be all set to receive my next scholarship disbursement. 

A wave emerged on the horizon a couple weeks ago, when I meet with Kilcranny House, a peace and reconciliation non-profit organization based in Coleraine, to talk about some potential internship opportunities. They seem really flexible and open to working with me, but I haven’t been able to commit myself just yet because I have been in contact with some other projects that seem equally promising, and might be a better fit for me. Also, the other Ambassadorial Scholar in Derry and I met to discuss some of our ideas for cross-community projects involving young people. We came up with a list of the organizations in Derry we are most interested in partnering with, and narrowed it down to our top 5 choices. Last Friday, I met with one of the groups, Off the Streets, in Galliagh. Off the Streets does group work on the street every evening with young people ages 11 to 24 in a six-week program culminating in a community service project. I got a really great vibe from meeting with them, but I’m hoping that my quintessential American eagerness didn’t scare them off. Tomorrow, I have another meeting scheduled with S.E.E.D.S., a cultural diversity awareness organization, after which Katie I will be regrouping and scheduling a joint meeting with our two mutual top choices. I think it’s definitely going to be difficult to narrow the field to just two organizations, but at this pace, I could be trained and starting youth work by winter break.

The real tidal wave, however, has been our social life. I’m not saying that Ben and I have friends per se (My social pool is a little too limited for that), but now that we have health care and can communicate with the outside world, we’ve actually had some fun. We’ve been to see a few movies at the local Omniplex - namely In Time, and the Adventures of Tin Tin - and we’ve been scoping out some area restaurants. So far we’ve found some really great cafes in the Derry city centre: Cafe Soul, Fosters, and the Boston Tea Party. The highlight though was yesterday, when Ben and I went to see the Ulster Orchestra perform a “European Odyssey” at the Belfast Waterfront Hall. It was a wonderful concert, and we got to Belfast early enough to grab a bite at Sakura, this absolutely scrumptious Japanese restaurant in Queen’s Quarter by the University. (The Red Dragon sushi roll was killer!) This week looks even more promising. The Foyle Film Festival is coming to town, and will feature movie premieres of The Artist and Shame, along with the LIM awards for Short Film (winners are automatically considered for Oscar nominations) and question and answer sessions with special guests Brendan Gleeson and Terry George (director of Hotel Rwanda). I am super excited and plan to get my tickets tomorrow at the Nerve Centre. Also, this Thursday will mark my second Thanksgiving in Northern Ireland. Ben and I have invited everyone from my course at Magee over to the apartment to celebrate with us. I’ve already planned my dishes and made a shopping list. It definitely won’t compare with Thanksgiving at my grandma’s, or a Lisa feast, but I hope Ben and I can make it special.