I have twenty minutes to write and it's twenty minutes I'm going to use to the best of my ability while both my laptop and iPod charge for this journey to the other side of Ireland, to wait for a plane to take off tomorrow, to take me back to the States, where I won't get back home until very late that same night. It's here, folks.

Like the before mentioned departure date from Port Huron, the departure date from Ireland has sort of snuck up on me. Not that I didn't know it was there, just that I've been busy doing other things to bother with it. But I can do that no longer.

So I leave. What happens when I get home?

I would hope my friends would have this date marked in their calendars with circles around it and arrows pointing to it as if to mark its significance; however, while I don't know the value in this long awaited return it's perhaps me who has been making the circles and drawing in the arrows because for forty-three days now I have been completely on my own aside from the very few times that I was with people I knew.

Over in Europe I had to find my way pretty much, forge ahead alone, and I got to admit- it was hard and sometimes painful to keep forcing myself forward. Would I have seen more with another person? Would I have experienced less?

Loneliness is an all too familiar feeling and it's documented in this blog. It is a motif in my life and it comes and goes in various forms. I am slobbering over the opportunity to really focus in on this subject, possibly in a future play I will write (it's definitely not going to be in the next few months, but I will leave it on the shelf and pick it up later).

I will go home. I will see the people I only got to see a few times in between college and this trip and I'm hoping for glorious things. And it doesn't need to be glorious as in magical to anybody else but me...a simple get together with a movie on discussing pop culture would be considered glorious to me at this point.

I only have a few weeks before I leave for college again, and then it's off for who knows how long. I want to be a holiday RA, meaning I'd spend a majority of my time in Chicago, added to the fact I want to be a summer RA I would be basically be living in Chicago year round from when I start school again until I graduate hopefully. This leaves a fine predicament for the friends back home.

Growing up you have to deal with things like this but up until now I haven't really. There have been a few friends, over the course of a long time, who have faded away and others who I haven't seen in years and have been able to keep really good contact with, but are my friends and I ready for this?

There's very little chance, noting the number of times this has happened, that they'll come and visit. Maybe once an academic year (if I'm lucky).

I want to stay in Chicago or go to LA or New York. They are back in Michigan and I'm unsure of their plans.

It's life happening in front of your eyes and if I had more time to type I'd keep doing it...but for a later date the conclusion will be written maybe

Hey blog, you look good. You've got some rust on ya, but nothing a little polish and shine with newly written material can't help make you more appealing to the female blogs.

So yes, I'm writing again; it's not like I stopped, but I'm back in the business of writing on this. And no, I'm not quite home yet, but in 2 days I will be. I'm writing this from my hostel, which I'll be checking out of in a little less than 10 hrs. The rest of the day will be spent at the Comedy Carnival and trying to get my last bit of Dublin in before I head to Shannon Airport to fly home the next day.

I'm not going to write anything about my trip on this blog...I'll be writing that elsewhere. It's book material, just sayin'.

Well, short post tonight...just to get the feel for it again. Won't add another for a while probably because I have to get home, get over jet lag, and catch up on a life I haven't been a apart of for a while

Okay, it's here now. C'mon Eric accept it- accept the fact that in mere hours you'll be heading to the airport for the first leg of your journey; a journey that will lead you across two continents, seven countries, and a variety of other intangibles.

But I can't.

It's hard to look down the mouth of an adventure and tell what's waiting for you once you plunge yourself into it. I have no choice but to grit my teeth, lower my right shoulder, and plow into it with all I've got.

I leave for Cairo, Egypt at 3:15am for a 6:00am flight. It will be the longest day of my life because I don't get to Cairo until 12pm the following day.

I don't know how much I'll update this blog, already I've begun work on a journal and that will be my primary place to put down what's happened to me. Check my Facebook for the most up to date stuff. I can't tell how often I'll touch that either.

I'll miss all of you, the ones who are most likely to read this. Take good care of yourselves and be safe. I imagine we'll see each other again soon whether that be back in Port Huron or in Chicago and we'll have lots to share. Know I look forward to this moment almost as much as my entire trip. Friends sometimes become like family and after saying goodbye to some of my friends last night, and most of my family today, it's all pretty heavy for me to be away and alone for that long.

Send me your prayers, well wishes, or what-have-you because I'll need them. Keep in touch please. Leave me messages on my Facebook wall and I'll write you back. This is going to be a ridiculous time in my life and like I've said before many good things will come from it. Don't let one of the drawbacks be losing touch with some of you.

I wish I had a better conclusion, but I don't.

Always,
Eric

I went out to lunch with my friends today and got a fortune cookie. Inside it read: "Get your mind set...Confidence will lead you on."

As earlier posts would suggest, I am a pretty superstitious person. I may not believe in my horoscope but I definitely look at them and try and attribute it to my life, or try and rebuke it. Strangely, the fortune cookie has some relevance to my situation in getting ready for Europe.

I am nervous and I think it's been clear to the people I've talked to about the trip. There's so much for me to plan myself that at times I think its over my head. Confidence is definitely something I need going into Monday morning. Truthfully, I believe I'm going to be fine and since I'm such an independent person already I can combine that with my resourcefulness to at least survive the 43 days.

Short post today- long day of packing, visiting, and planning tomorrow. Interesting.

Bee-tee-dubs:
I'm going to do great things one day, things that I am proud of and love doing; I'm beginning to see what lies ahead of me and I'm excited. I'm excited to share this with all of you. A lot can happen in the two years I still have left in undergrad...stay tuned.

How I didn't know that I was going to be gone for 43 days completely boggles my mind. I knew that I was going to be in Europe for a while, but 43 days? I had to count the number today and was pretty shocked to find the actual number. Oh well I guess,...there's no reason not to go for that long...aside from the money issue.

I originally planned to take "x" amount of dollars to Europe. It was a fair number and I thought I had enough to spend. My mind was opened when I took the number of days (43) and divided it from "x" and found that my daily living expenses would be very, very low.

It's safe to say that it's a good thing I did most of my financial stuff today because by 4:00pm I still had some left to do and without tomorrow to finish, Saturday and Sunday would have marked the days where banks are closed and I'd be left without a cent.

I rolled coins for an hour or so with my parents on the living room floor. I then took those coins to TCF where I found the only way I can get money for the coins is if I run it through a change machine, so pretty much all that effort in rolling coins was in vain; at least I knew roughly how much money would come from just the coins. At TCF I got traveler's checks and almost cleaned my account out. At E&A I did just that by closing that account and getting more traveler's checks for my trip.

It's safe to say that financial issues may prove to be an issue over in Europe, but we'll see. There's nothing I can do now but to be smart about how and what I spend my money on. As my mother graciously put, "It's not like he's old enough to drink and go to the bars for hours." While I am old enough to drink throughout Europe I got her point that I won't be spending a majority of my time in pubs, but I won't count them out completely haha.

Chalk it up to nervous angst but life either way has accelerated even more since I got home from Chicago. I turned in my finals like a good student and the packing and moving was done in one day, though I'm still putting things back in order at home (at least the way my parents want them to be).

Five days. Five days. Only five until I will leave the country with only a backpack full of stuff to last me a week plus a month. Just let that soak in; how would it make you feel? I've been given a grand opportunity to do this whole thing but don't think for a second I am entitled to this and that because of my parents I'm able to go on this trip; I've gotten that reaction and it really bothers me because I'm so young they think I haven't done much that merits a trip like this.

True, my parents are letting me gallivant across Europe but they in no way paid for my trip, their involvement includes picking me up and dropping me off from the airport. I have had a job since I was a freshman in high school and was good about saving my money up in order to do something of this magnitude. And yes, I did have parents that helped me with necessary costs along the way but it's something that everyone can do if they work hard enough for it, and I believe I did.

I leave for Cairo, Egypt on the 14th and arrive there the 15th. I will stay in Cairo until the 20th and have a nineteen hour layover in Athens on my way to Madrid, Spain. From there I will travel to Barcelona, Marseilles, Paris, Rome, London, Dublin, and fly out of Shannon, Ireland on the 26th of July. Those are the dates of the trip and stops I want to hit.

I will be traveling alone. I will be very lonely and am already starting to feel the effects of not having anybody to share this experience with. I am a lot sad but I hope it can do wonders for my writing. I already have a screenplay in the works that I'm hoping to send in to be reviewed. The story, I think, is pretty good and I'm just brimming with anticipation to get writing it. Other than that I'm going to be writing 2-minute plays to add to my repertoire so when the time comes that I get an audition or someone wants to see what I'm made of I'll have those at hand. There are so many things that are going to come out of this trip.

Summer will seem shorter at home. I'm not all too sad. I still get to see everyone and spend a great deal of time with them. Relaxation has got to be a top priority when I get back from Europe, ya know the kind, the lazy couch potato maybe-do-some-door-decs kinda thing, right? Who knows.

I believe my bed time has been reached. I really want to say that I miss all of you back in Chicago and I hope the people who are reading this in Port Huron will make an effort to contact me to hangout. I really have so little time left it's hard to plan all this stuff around yours and my free time.

PS- Dear So and So:
       I don't know
       if you're reading this
       but I sincerely miss
       all that little time we spent
       together, but know it meant
       all the world to me so as I
       set sail for new horizons
       know that you'll be on my mind
       while I write and walk from place to place
       no sooner will I forget your face because
       everywhere I go is like a postcard-
       "I wish you were here"

-Eric

15 days? 15 days?! Are you fkng kidding me?!

I'll be in EGYPT in 15 DAYS?! I can't believe it. The time flew, right into the front of a semi-truck; I am not prepared to leave this country that soon.

There's been good and bad since I posted last...

I went to the Neo-Futurists again this past Saturday. It's not like a recent revelation, but I realize that I want to do anything I can for that ensemble. I am inspired by the people that are there and my time would be so well spent helping them out and learning on the side; I feel like against all my schoolwork and RA duties in the fall that I could still do it and I don't care if I can't because I'm going to try anyway, so I sent an email to them saying that I wanted to intern. The wheels are turning in more ways than one.

I went to a Chicago Fire game vs. AC Milan. AMAZING game. Ronaldhino played! AC won 1-0 but I was happy I got to see it with one of my best friends at DePaul :)

FEST was crazy cool! LUDA. All the bands performed well. Can we get a DJ next year for After-hours though? Please?

Certainly I have made a fool of myself in my many years on this Earth, often times unavoidably. I can't help it, ya know? Theater made me the way I am. Anyways, I made a shamble of myself on Friday when I couldn't find my friend's apartment, you know the situation, she had to come and find where I was. Well, we had a really nice time (doing schoolwork of course) and after I had left I realized I forgot my laptop chord (doh!). So, I went back and called her when I was close...again I walked right past her place. Ugh...my brain was fried that day, I guess.

Some things I have to accept, but I can't; I literally, can't. I don't want to give up, even when there's clear reason to believe another person wants to.

Ahhhh, this University Hall thing is growing old...I'm ready to move on.

I still have a lot of work to do for classes unfortunately. Tonight I have to, have to, get done my 15 page screenplay. I'm on page 11 now and I just can't wait to get it over with so I can move onto something else. Page restrictions are so....restricting.

Thursday I have an 8 page research paper due that I haven't started...oops? No. I did that on purpose, just to prove something. I won't say because I never know who reads this,...possibly my professor?

My Peer Education portfolio is due Friday.

Finally my poetry portfolio is due Monday...easy. Not worried.

Europe though,...sheeee; I guess you could say- I'm worried.

Next month I'll be leaving for Europe and I still can't believe it, it feels like I still have so much left to plan when in reality I have a lot of things under control. This blog isn't really about what I will be doing in Europe, though I'm sure as I move closer to the date I will write about it, it's more about what I hope to gain from the experience.

For me, it will be the first time I go overseas. Sure, I have been to a bunch of places in the Northwestern Hemisphere but it seems like such a huge step to venture into the Eastern Hemisphere (dah duh dummmm). It's not just Europe I'm visiting either because my first stop is in Cairo, Egypt to visit my friend who lives there when not in school.

By the time I get back I want to have written a lot.
I want to write a series called "Lucky Penny Moments" where little instances of luck resulting in something positive. These will be short, more like Tweets, but I don't know how much access I'll have to internet so my notebook will serve as the note holder.

I want to come out of Europe with a few novel ideas. Ideas that I can actually use sometime to write a book. It's time to start expanding my repertoire from short stories, sketches, and poems to quality stories and screenplays of length.

I am hoping to think critically about my future. I mean, for real, not like the dreams that I have but how I can actually accomplish them.

I want to come back with stories. Of all kinds.

I'm going to be traveling alone as far as I know...so, I want to test myself to go places even when I'm tired and don't want to walk anymore.

I don't know, there's so much...I'm just really looking forward to the 14th of June where I leave home for a long and exciting journey. Yeee.