Seriously running out of time. Seriously.

So when I said tidying had to happen on Friday, apparently I was ruling out the possibility of not doing it then, having a great (but busy) weekend and coming into the office in the middle of the night to file, tidy and trash my year’s work. Still got to pack at home and less than 12 hours til I leave the lake. In fine tradition of Tina leaving on a jet plane, I will not be going to bed tonight.

I think I’m going home a different person to the one that arrived here just about a year ago. But I think it’s a good different.

I no longer get homesick. This is the girl who spent most of her university years missing home yet I have lived in America for just about a year and only got homesick twice. Neither time resulted in my actually crying.

I actually quite like country music. This is the girl who said once upon a time ‘I don’t understand how anybody could like country music’ yet now I can happily listen to Country music and dare I say the words, sing along.

I have improved my writing skills thanks to Princess. This is the girl who, everytime she had an essay due at uni, would have a grand countdown til the word count was reached. I’d even write ‘The Second World War’ rather than ‘World War Two’ because it’d get me an extra word. Seriously. I must write a good one thousand words a week on here.

I'm know there's more, but one thing I would like you to not make comment on is any Americanisms, and any twang to my accent. Kathryn H has already pointed it out to me. But a year, I lived here for a year. It was bound to happen. So let’s just say now I know and I’m working on it. Anyway it’s all of you who have the accent. I talked to Ross earlier on the phone and I nearly couldn’t understand him. I’m trying to believe it was the phone connection and not that fact that I can’t understand my own people. Start to worry if I repeat you when you say 'bin', 'petrol' or 'sidewalk'.

It is totally mixed emotions going home. All in the same breath it’s ‘Yay! I’m going home! Aww. I’m going home.’

I’m excited about living by the sea again, but I’m going to miss the lake.

I’m looking forward to driving my car but I’m going to miss how easy they make driving in America. Gif-ted. Especially now I have the right-side wrong-side of the road worked out.

I’m excited about seeing roundabouts again (even stupid painted on mini roundabouts) but I’m going to miss needless stop signs

I’m looking forward to seeing my friends but I’m going to miss my friends.

I’m looking forward to being in the land of the BBC but I’ll miss all the great US programmes.

My right foot is looking forward to my left foot doing some work when I drive but my left foot is going to miss resting on the pocket of the door.

I'm going to miss the mountains but I'm looking forward to seeing how my altitude training here will help me at sea level.

I’m going to miss free refills but...hmm...yeah, there is no upside to that. I'm just going to miss free refills.

Anyway, I’ve put a lot of stuff on here about my life here, but no means it all. You should hear the stories that didn’t make to the blog, there were some crackers. Funny things just happen to me, I can’t help it. But I really don’t know if I’ll keep on writing here. Somehow I can’t imagine my life at home will be that interesting to y’all. Plus my next employers read it so there’ll be less opportunity to blog in work. Maybe I’ll not write so often. Or maybe when I write, I’ll write to an American perspective about Irish life. I guess we’ll see what happens, which is the principle I tend to live my life by.

Anyway now I really have to tidy now. Seriously.