Sup? So yesterday I finally got to play my first soccer game since I got here. I played with a bunch of Americans - five a side. We had to wait till seven o clock because otherwise it would be too hot - which only gave us an hour and a half of light so we made the most of it. They insisted on having tweenchy goals though and no goalies!!!! Naturally I was gutted as I had been planning on just standing in front of the goal for the whole thing and making some spectacular saves whenever the occasion arose. They just had a pallet for the goal - maybe it’s the influence of ice hockey that made them do this - the concept of jumpers for goalposts didn’t appeal to them at all. Anyway it was still really hot so naturally I was sweating like a pig. The playing surface wasn’t ideal - rather thin grass growing on sand - this meant that anytime I did my signature sliding tackles, several millimeters of my skin would be removed by the coarse sand. As I write I am in pain and probably will be for several days until I grow some new skin. I have friction burn all up my left leg. Of course it was worth it to finally get to play a real game of soccer even if there weren’t any real goals. Hopefully this will become a weekly event. I suggested teaching them how to play Gaelic but have slight reservations as there are girls as well and the increased physicality might alienate them from the game a bit. There was also talk of volleyball which would be great except they’d probably be better at that than soccer. Especially the insanely tall lad called Tyler (the lad stooping down with the bandana in the photo) - he’s an all-star basketball player so soccer is completely unsuited to him but volleyball would probably be right down his alley. He is the only person I have met since I got here who likes punk rock and it was like therapy talking to him about it and listening to his choons after the match. We went swimming after the match to get rid of all the sand on us and there was much horseplay and the like. Then Tyler gave me a brief but enthusiastic overview of the American punk scene as it stands today. He explained much to my delight, that they have an Oxygen here purely for punk rock - it lasts for only one day but it’s a tour so it goes to every city in America for a day and there are sideshows with skating and BMXing and tons and tons of punk rock bands on various outdoor stages in some fields somewhere. Most importantly, it’s all about the music unlike Oxygen which is all about the drugs, hedonism and general mayhem that invariably comes with putting 1000s of tents full of teenagers in a big field. Can you imagine? Such an event in Ireland would be like heaven to me! It was so soothing to talk to someone who liked Rancid and thought NOFX and Bad Religion were big. I haven’t met anyone else here, Irish or American, who’s even heard of them let alone thinks they’re big.

Well that’s pretty much all I have to tell for today. I’m gonna go ate my dinner now and then I have work. Good luck!

 Hey sorry again for the delay in updating but I’ve been pretty busy for the past few days. I have a day off today and yesterday but I opted to take over someone else’s shift yesterday because I’d have nothing to do with two days off in a row and I actually like being around the people at work. Plus I could use the money. Good news on the money front though. I made $104 a few nights ago and the night before last I made $103. Yesterday I only made $42 though. Basically you make all your money in night shifts but day shifts are way nicer to work. I work about half and half. It looks like things really do pick up in July as promised.

I had the fussiest woman ever in Johnny Rockets there a few days ago. She was the epitome of the demanding American. First she ordered fruit punch and when she got it she sipped it and then put this sour face on her and asked was it sugar free. I said I didn’t have a clue (of course it wasn’t sugar free or she’d have a really sour face on her – this is America for God’s sake!) and it was quite obvious that I didn’t care either. She asked for a lemonade instead so I had to throw the fruit punch down the drain and fill it up with lemonade instead. Then she wanted a new straw cos the old one was dirty. Then I brought her her chips and one of them touched the table so she made me take that one away and throw it in the bin. Then she started whining that she didn’t want to eat her chips first and then her burger – she wanted to eat them at the same time. Fries are labeled as starters on the menu. I was unsympathetic to her cause. Incidentally her burger was just ready anyway so I brought it to her and she complained that the bun was too hard and that she wanted the burger cut in half for her. So I had to take it back and the kitchen had to transfer the burger to a new bun and cut the damn burger in half for her. I brought it back again and she took one bite and said it was nasty and she wasn’t going to pay for it. And of course nobody was allowed to tell her that she was unreasonable and that she had to pay for what she ordered. The manager immediately removed the burger from the bill. Her own daughter was slightly embarrassed by her behaviour. This policy of ‘the customer is always right’ has created a culture of demanding Americans who just want everything and don’t want to pay for it and want to be as rude as possible while getting it and expect to be treated with flawless courtesy at all times regardless of whether they actually are right or not. The fact is that the customer is frequently wrong and someone needs to stand up for themselves and insist that they are wrong when they are – but if that someone was me I would be promptly fired so it won’t be. I’m disappointed with the managers’ attitudes though.

We’ve taught all the Americans and the foreigners who work in Johnny Rockets how to say ‘póg mo thóin’ and encouraged them to slip it in now and again when talking to customers or instead of shouting ‘Welcome to Johnny Rockets’. It gives them a feeling of immense glee to be able to say something rude that only they can understand – it’s like a secret in-joke.

A few days ago one of my colleagues told me that she really appreciated me dancing as enthusiastically as I do because it makes her smile whenever she’s stressed out. That really felt satisfying - to know that my dancing is bringing happiness to the lives of those around me - you know I just try to do my bit to make the world a better place man!;) Speaking of dancing, the coolest thing ever happened there two nights ago at work. We had just done an outdoor dance and a crowd had gathered to watch and take photos as they do wherever I go. Just after we finished and went back inside a bunch of black dudes and one white guy started a dance off outside and we all rushed back out again to watch. They were unreal!!!Their bodies were like writhing ropes being whipped by an invisible hand, they seemed to float effortlessly over the ground and then they broke it down and did a little headspinning and spun their legs and torsos all over the place. It was truly breathtaking. That’s one thing you definately wouldn’t see at home. I know the Dance club in UCC has a breakdancing section but you don’t see dance-offs on the street at home. Then again you don’t see busking here either. The cops are probably too bored and ignorant to allow it. But I digress. After the dance off finished, one off the massive black women who work in the kitchen went out and shook her rather considerable booty with rather considerable vigour. She was quickly joined by a white, balding, middle aged father who surprised us all by matching her vigourous booty shaking and doing it in doubletime! His teenage daughter was absolutely mortified. ‘Respeck!’, I say - the old guy can still break it down...respeck!

My third breakfast experience is my favourite yet. We went to a place called Hotstacks on Saturday morning and I had waffles (as in the French kind not the potato kind) covered in tinned peaches and whipped cream. I would very much recommend it - it is a great way to start the day and would also make a very good dessert. This, incidentally was prefaced by Fruit Loops (which I would not recommend) and sweet tea (as in iced tea with loads of sugar in it) (because we’re in the middle of a heatwave).

That night I went to my second baseball game with one of my flatmates and three Americans this time to explain. Unfortunately, as soon as it started, so did a massive thunderstorm. An intimidating black (and I mean actually black) blanket of cloud that had been steadily encroaching on the stadium for half an hour covered us and emptied itself on the stadium. Workers rushed to get the pitch covered with a big tarpaulin and the rest of the game was cancelled. I tell ye a drop of rain wouldn’t stop a match at home! The thunder rumbled really really loudly - you could nearly feel it. The lightning lit up the whole sky with a pink hue, sometimes trying to reach the earth in short-lived pink, flashing forks. It was way cooler than baseball. Most people left but there was a few hundred of us who stayed behind and started doing Mexican waves for no obvious reason. After we had been thoroughly drenched, we went down under to where all the shops and toilets and stuff are. It was packed with glum-looking over-heated people - you’d swear twas Armageddon and we were all hiding out in an underground concrete bunker.

The next morning was a Sunday so I went to mass with some Johnny Rockets girls again. This week was a huge contrast to last week’s massive mass. This one was a tiny Presbyterian church and was very old and decorated with 80s wood panelling. Afterwards we went to Sunday school which was about the life of David Brainerd. I couldn’t stop giggling inwardly at his surname and kept wondering whether Monty Python had got the name of ‘Life of Brian’ from this. The mass itself was conducted by a lovely man in a suit who was very nice and said something about Oreo and that’s all I can really remember. The place was so small that it didn’t have a choir, organ or pews. It had normal chairs and an old guy playing piano (very nicely indeed might I add). Afterwords we went to eat lunch in ‘Jimmy’s Japanese Hibachi’ where I enjoyed a bowl of noodles with shrimp. It was actually grand - I could eat it - not everyday though. I wonder if this is anything like my sister is eating out in Japan these days. It was my first time having shrimp and they were crunchy and quite tasty. Well now I think that’s quite enough for today - I’m going to go and make the most of my evening off now. I hope to get a chance to check back in soon - possibly Thursday. Good luck for now anyway.

Sorry I haven't written in a few days but I've been really busy. On Tuesday I had a day off which was well spent, on Wednesday I worked a twelve hour shift and yesterday I worked the day shift and then went to a baseball game at night. I will now proceed to tell you about these events and more.

The next day was work. I was meant to work the day shift but was then coerced into doing a volume (12hour) shift - from 10AM to 10PM. In return I got a free lunch and an hour off to eat it. I was sure to order all of the most expensive things on the menu and stuff it all down my throat. I made $98 in those 12hours. The next day I made $70 in just a day shift which is really really good for a day shift. I also got a $50 paycheck so I'm sorted now for the rest of the week. I have the night shift now today so I have to be in work in three hours time (3:30PM). I have taken to dancing on the counter as if twere a bar now. Is is the cause of much hilarity and excitement. I am now dragged out for nearly every dance and sometimes someone else does my work for me so that I can dance. I have become a major Johnny Rockets attraction. Yesterday, while dancing on the inside window ledge, apparently a woman on the outside of the window mimed grabbing my ass from the outside. How amusing! All the black people in the kitchen stop their work to watch. They find my white-boy dancing efforts very entertaining. There are several of them who start smiling everytime they see me now and they can barely contain their mirth at the prospect of me doing... well pretty much anything. I, as always, am more than happy to be the source of joy in my environment. This has its benefits too because it can be very useful to have the kitchen staff and the hosts on your side. They can make work very difficult for you if they don't like you. By the end of my twelve hour shift I was exhausted - this is the second time I had to do a volume. My exhaustion carried on into the next day but I think I have recovered from being on my feet all day now. Nothing is worth spending all day in work and getting up the next day to start again. I don't care how poor I am - I am here primarily to enjoy myself and my job is merely a way of facilitating that. Therefore I will refuse to work volumes if I have plans for the night or if I am really tired. I should still be able to do one a week if necessary. It has become increasingly necessary for management to ask workers to stay on for the night because they are running out of staff having fired many of them and driven others to quit due to poor working conditions and a lack of respect for them. The Irish workers are developing a bad reputation for coming to work drunk, hungover, half-asleep or even worse - not showing up at all. This is a stereotype I have managed to avoid due to me not drinking at all which somehow everyone knows about and due to my hyperactive behaviour during the day. The romantic image of the jolly drunken Irishman has vanished from the minds of the Americans in Johnny Rockets and they have now come to terms with the reality of an alcoholic lifestyle. I hope this realisation doesn't spread to the general community of employers. Some lads and girls too come into work looking like they've been dragged backwards through a hedge and in most cases have had less than five hours sleep, no shave and have been accused of smelling bad. I don't know how they can afford to live like this every night - they can't be making that much in tips in that state.

Anyway enough about that. I want to tell you about this very interesting young man whom I met the night before last. His name was Travis and he is from South Carolina but not from Myrtle Beach. He visited Myrtle Beach for five days and in those five days he made the aquaintance of most of the Irish in Rainbow Court which is more than I have done in my month here. He is insanely friendly and makes a point of introducing himself to strangers and shaking their hand. He is particularly excited by foreigners and here's the shocking reason why. He claims that until he came to Myrtle Beach this year, he had never met someone from another country (apart from Mexicans). How could you like in such an isolated bubble like that!!!? It's no wonder there's so much jingoism in America, particularly in the south it they have no contact with the outside world. And Travis is a very open-minded liberal who hates Bush. Imagine how this introverted environment would affect someone who happened to already be the opposite of Travis. This really helped me to understand why America has a reputation for being anti-the rest of the world. They're a lot of people living here who are sealed off from it! It looks like the USA has more in common with the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" than they'd like to admit. Travis hates the cops too and was very surprised to hear that I had never witnessed an arrest until I came here, where they are a regular occurance - not because there is more crime (which there is) but because the police are more reactionary and on power trips and really really just want to arrest somebody for something no matter how trivial. Travis also pointed out that the freedom of expression ammendment to the American constitution is merely lip service to an unattainable ideal. There is no freedom of expression here when the cops will arrest you for saying something they don't like. Even the TV is heavily censored. I have yet to hear a swear-word on TV! I don't know what all the chat-show hosts here would do with Tommy Tiernan. The girls in my apartment who have seen every episode of Sex and the City several times say that the episodes here have been edited to remove scenes that show actual sex eventhough it isn't on until eleven o clock! This really shocked me because in my first year of law, our constitutional lecturer told us that Irish constitutional freedom of expression provisions were far more limited than those of the American constitution but the gap between law and reality has never appeared more obvious to me than here in America. Freedom of expression here is nearly what academics refer to as a legal fiction but a legal fiction usually serves some purpose. It's like Orwell's doublethink - simultaneously holding two opposing viewpoints. A legal fiction or nonsense only exists in order to allow some other part of the machinery of law to work but I don't see how a false freedom of expression right does this. Perhaps it is necessary for American society to falsely believe that they have true freedom. I'm still not sure what that is and I challenge any of you to define it for me - whatever it is, it certainly is not to be found here in South Carolina. Travis has never had the opportunity to travel outside the country but plans on doing so some day. I really hope he does. As he pointed out, American students don't go abroad to work for the summer like everyone else, probably because they can't afford to with the thousands of dollars they have to pay in college fees. They rarely travel outside their surrounding states to work for the summer. He has found that Irish people are much more friendly than Americans apparently. I'm not sure if I would completely agree with him on that one - it's impossible to make a generalisation like that particularly when I have seen tons and tons of anecdotal evidence to suggest otherwise in the case of Americans and indeed Irish. He has also found that often the Irish are suspicious of him when he says 'Hey how you doing?' This is unsurprising - I am still suspicious of strangers who greet me for no reason because I don't expect this anywhere outside of rural Ireland. Travis has changed his greeting to 'Hey hows de craic?' and has found that this has better results with Irish people. He is the only American I have met since I got here that is familiar with the fact that many of the things Americans take for granted are idiosyncracies to us such as chips/fries, chips/crisps, jelly/jello, jelly/jam, cookies/biscuits, biscuits/scones etc. I started explaining this to him and much to my elated surprise he started finishing my sentances!!! It was so uplifting to meet an American who not only wanted to learn about the rest of the world (which is actually quite common) but had actually got up of his ass and taken positive steps to do so. I think I could learn a lot from his attitude. His attitude to his brief holiday was like a concentrated version of my attitude towards my much longer one. He wanted to learn as much as possible by talking to as many people as possible from different backgrounds. He is better at it than I am though. He has no hesitation in talking to anyone and is a great conversationalist. Fair play to him! If we were all more like him, the world would be a much friendlier and more educated place.

So that's that. My final topic of today's entry is the ball game I was at last night. Americans complain about soccer being too slow but by God I thought this game would never end. It went on for three hours with no half time. There are 10 of what I believe are called innings and the whole thing goes so slowly that you're never really sure when they're actually playing or when they're just passing the ball around to keep themselves busy. Between plays they throw the ball around for no reason. They only actually play in short bursts and the rest of time is wasted. So little of going to a baseball game is actually about baseball. While the game was on the was also a musical called 'Baseball - The Musical' on at the same time. There was a scene between each inning and it was really really bad. However, it was necessary because there just wasn't enough in this sport to keep you entertained. Obviously it didn't help that I didn't really understand what was going on - if I go again I'll have to go with Americans so they can explain it to me. People walk around in the middle of the game and go to buy beer or ice cream and there's a lad walking around the seats shouting 'Cooo-toooon Caaaaan-dyyyyy' (because he's selling cotton candy) kind of like the Echo in Cork. The ticket was only $8 - it's not like a hurling match or something - it isn't a big event that everyone gets into - there's one on nearly every night of the week. Very few people travel to go to away games. The only way I could tell if something good happened for the Pelicans was when the crowd started clapping. The whole way through the game, there's a 'comedy commentary' that has nothing to do with what's going on on the field and they play music clips of mostly American rock, the heaviest being Mettalica's Enter Sandman and the most surprising being Thin Lizzy's The Boys are Back in Town. I can't imagine how people find this sport entertaining and then say that soccer is boring! After three hours the crowd started clapping like mad for no apparent reason and then the word victory came up on the big screen and we were all so relieved that it was over - by that time half of the stadium had emptied out anyway. The final score if anyone cares (which I doubt) was Myrtle Beach Pelicans 12, Salem Warthogs 6. If we played hurling for three hours without a half time not only would both teams be collapsed on the ground dying but the score would be somewhere in the 100s. In conclusion, baseball games are a thoroughly mystifying American spectacle that has very little indeed to do with sport and a lot more to do with advertising fast food and selling $3 drinks. Ice hockey is a way more exciting and understandable sport. So that's all I've got for now. I'm gonna go get a hair cut at the barbers next door to this internet cafe now. Bye bye!

Hey it’s everybody’s favourite Kilnamartyra exile again! So I’ll begin today by telling you about the church I went to on Sunday. This week it was Ocean View Baptist Church. Some girls from work were going there so that’s why I went there this week. They very kindly gave me a lift cos it’s ages away. Like all the other churches, it had the same message but this church had drastically different window dressing. First of all it was massive, more like a big school with a massive gym than a church. It had conference rooms and corridors and the like. It was equipped with more than you would ever need just to talk to a group of people. It had massive screens and TV cameras and cameramen that showed the priest on the screen (this one dressed simply in a black pants and shirt – no white collar). There were massive speakers all over the place and it was by far the biggest actual room I’d been in since I got here. There was a very disconcerting lady greeting everyone at the door who, much to my surprise, insisted on hugging everyone for no particular reason – including complete strangers such as myself. Behind the ‘altar’ was a full size grand piano, keyboards, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass, drums and alternative percussion. There were also about seven very enthusiastic singers. Despite all this the music wasn’t great. Once again, there was a notable absence of black people in the church. For what seemed like half an hour, they sang hymn after hymn and they had the words on the screen again like the last Baptist church. I was wondering when the actual mass was going to begin when the priest finally sat down on a STOOL and gave his sermon sitting down! He was a relatively young man for a priest so it wasn’t for health reasons but there was no pulpit or anything. The topic was the age old question of why do bad things happen to good people. The sermon reached some good conclusions but took an unnecessarily long time to do so. Then it was over! The whole mass was just singing and a sermon. Then we went to Sunday school! Yes apparently there’s a Sunday school for college students as well. It was just watching a video of a preacher/religious comedian who was very engaging. There was also free food which nice. They had what they called ‘sausage biscuits’. These are neither sausages nor biscuits but rather more like a slice of some kind of large white pudding (well more brown really) inserted into a scone. It was very weird but ultimately alright. Twas no substitute for a good Denny’s black pudding though. So that was church for this week! Dunno where I’m going next week.

At work, there is a black boy who works in the kitchen and every morning/afternoon he sees me now he says ‘You gonna do yo thang t’day?’, to which I invariably reply ‘Naturally.’ My ‘thang’ now is the ‘She’s a Bad Mama Jama’ dance which I have taken to performing on top of the tables on a fairly regular basis. Everybody finds my dancing extremely amusing, particularly my black colleagues who I assume are unaccustomed to seeing a white boy break it down like I do. There’s one boy who insists on turning on that song specially for me so that we can dance to it. The customers really enjoy it too although sometimes when it gets particularly boisterous, some of the babies start crying. Well that’s all for today, tune in tomorrow or sometime for more random ramblings.

I just got mistaken for a Russian again! Every muscle in my body is aching after jetskiing. I can't believe it was so strenuous. I'm going to be in bits when I go home and start training again. Anyway so there's an old black man working in Rainbow Court and his name is Connie Mac! He introduced himself to me for no apparent reason and we had a big chat. With a name like Connie Mac you'd swear he was from wesht de road in Ballyvourney or somewhere.

I was talking to a Romanian girl called Joana who works in Johnny Rockets yesterday. It seems that the American lifestyle really doesn't suit Eastern Europeans and Russians at all. Every one of them to whom I've spoken so far hates America. When I asked what exactly it was that she hated about America she said it was the artificiality of the whole thing - everyone being so nice and smiley the whole time eventhough they weren't really. She also hated the materialism of America and the compulsion that everyone had for sucking as much money as possible out of everyone else. Everyone is just obsessed with money she said. It was exactly the same way I felt and most of the Irish people I've discussed it with feel the same way but Joana was a lot more bitter about it than anyone else I've spoken to. This might be because she has to stay here until October and by then the place will be deserted and depressing. When I asked her why she came here I was surprised to hear what she said. It sounded like me talking. She said she wanted to come  to 'grow up'. She wanted to see if she could survive on her own without the safety net of her parents' financial and emotional support and whether she had the strength and resolve to be able to look after herself so very far away from home. She said she was finding it very hard. However, she came with friends so she's grand. I'm so hardcore! And I'm not finding it that hard. But I had my own money saved up to come here whereas she has to worry about paying back a big loan. I think if she just changed her outlook and decided to make the most of her time here she would have way much more fun and just be happier in general. If you can laugh at every instance of moneygrabbing and materialism instead of letting it get you down, then one day it will be a great story to tell when you're back home. Anyway it was nice to connect with another foreigner for a while and discover that we had a lot of the same views on the city we were working in.

Yesterday I was also talking to a local black girl named Eboni who works in Johnny Rockets. She lived in Philadelphia for a while and so had a bit of perspective of how Myrtle Beach fit into the big American picture. She had some very interesting insights to share. I was particularly interested in the role race played in modern everyday life in America as I am trying to gain a deeper insight into all aspects of American society, particularly the ones that aren't immediately obvious to the impartial observer. She said that she never saw a white person while she lived in Philadelphia. I found this absolutely awesome. She said it was very strange seeing so many white people when she moved to Myrtle Beach. I found that very strange. How did this silent apartheid manage to seperate her from white people for her whole childhood? She went to a black elementary school. When I asked her why there was such a thing as a black school she was unable to offer an explanation - it was just something she took for granted. When I asked her whether she experienced racism on a regular basis in everyday life she said no. Apparently there is still an undercurrent of racial conflict in American society but it rarely rises to the top anymore. She said a white girl called her a nigger once but that was the only example of blatant racism she offered. But she correctly pointed out that there are still very few interracial couples around so there is still at the very least, a subconscious social barrier between the two races. She said that when she had been in an interracial relationship, they would sometimes get dirty looks when they went out together. According to her, some black women resented white women who went out with black men because the white woman was viewed by some as a status symbol conoting success and thereby devalued the black woman. Apparently now, Hispanics recieve the brunt of the racism. I think the American population now consists of 13% Hispanic as opposed to 12% African-American. This seems to be a recent development - kind of like the Polish in Ireland - and it is a MAJOR demographic change in the population. I think all foreigners are thought of as being desperate starving underpriveleged 'unAmericans' who desperately need dollars to survive. Americans don't seem to realise that we can make four times more money on minimum wage at home. When I mentioned this to someone, they misunderstood and thought I meant four times less money. I think they may look at us as pale Mexicans - poor, uneducated and only fit to work crap jobs for no money. A feel a silent smugness knowing how wrong they are and the fact that I'll be making the equivalent of $600 a week without the insecurity of tips when I go home reassures my skinny wallet. (Incidentally I made a record-shattering $96 yesterday cos for the first time I was indoors, I was in Broadway, I had the night shift and this is the busiest week of the year.)

Finally, I had breakfast this morning in a restaurant for the second time since I arrived here. It was a far more satisfying experience than my last, partially because I had the company of two American friends this time and partially because the food was much nicer. I had Special K, two cups of PROPER tea, and three big pancakes covered with strawberries, cream and syrup. I was stuffed. The decor was much nicer too. We had actual chairs, a carpet, potted plants and big black and white photos on the walls of Myrtle Beach in the 50s and 60s.

Right so that's all I've got for now. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to write back again on Monday. Until then...bye.

There’s a crazy lady in Myrtle Beach. I’ve seen her several times now. She walks up and down Kings Highway with her shopping and talks to herself quite loudly. In fact sometimes she gets very angry and shouts abuse at herself. Just thought you might like to know.

So anyway yesterday was the fourth of July. It was no big deal really. Lots of cheesy celebrations on TV like a New Year’s Eve Show on RTE only bigger and mostly outdoors. Didn’t do anything too exciting. Went to Tha Bar for Karaoke again. Watched the fireworks from the porch. That’s one thing you can’t do in Ireland - fireworks will very seldom be visible from any given porch in Ireland and certainly not on a regular basis like here. These fireworks were particularly spectacular. They went on for quite long and there was a wonderful finale. Watching them made me kinda sad for some reason. Pretty much everyone in Rainbow Court was out working so the place was very quiet at 10pm when these started going off. Watching fireworks on your own is kind of sad in a nice way if you know what I mean. It’s nice in a deliciously sorrowful kind of way. I savoured it. Opportunities for solitary romanticism such as these should be seized whenever they present themselves. I leaned on the porch banister and gazed up at the rockets swimming up towards the smoke-laced firmament like tenacious salmon determined to make it over a waterfall. (OK I’m sorry about this but clearly I don’t have any actual solid news to report so instead I’m just going to wax lyrical about whatever I spent most time pondering about yesterday. I claim poetic licence immunity.) So anyway there I was trying to relate to the fireworks and trying to understand what we found so alluring about them. I was reminded of George A. Romero’s latest zombie movie where the stupid zombie’s were unable to stop staring at the fireworks. I wondered if humans were stupid to be so entranced by something so pointless and to waste so much money on them. But I concluded that no, fireworks were an art form like any other and while Oscar Wilde’s assertion that ‘All art is quite useless’ is entirely true, that isn’t the point. The very fact that art serves no practical purpose is why it’s so reassuring in a commercialized world intent on getting the maximum amount of money out of every single thing on the face of the earth. Real art is pure and untainted by practical motives. Like flowers...or fireworks. They’re just pretty and that’s all they’re for. This knowledge gave me a connection to the brave little fireworks thrusting up into the sky. Apparently the whole Myrtle Beach coast had fireworks going off all along the beach at the same time and they looked massive in the sky but I was reminded of my flight back from Prague on New Year’s Eve 2003/New Year’s Day 2004. We flew while Europe celebrated a new year below and we could see fireworks going off in the sky above France and London. They weren’t massive. They were tiny little spurts of coloured light miles below us. Being up that high gave me a sense of perspective. For thousands of people, the fireworks were the only thing in their life for that 10 minutes or whatever. The undivided attention of thousands of people was geared solely towards these fireworks and from up in the sky we could see how pathetic and inconsequential they really were. Fireworks are like a lot of other materialistic things in the world, we focus way too much on them for something so trivial, and in doing so often fail to see the big picture. Fireworks are also like people. Yes they are. They’re tiny but they have an inflated sense of self-importance for something so small. They live very briefly and they spend that brief period struggling against the weight of the world, trying desperately to break through to the other side and climb all the way up to heaven. Eventually they burn out and realising that their goal is unattainable, instead decide to go out with a bang and a blaze of glory. If they fail to do even this, they peter out anticlimactically and nobody even knows they existed. But if they succeed then they bring joy and awe to thousands of people and leave the world a more beautiful place than it was when they arrived. Maybe that’s the best we can hope for. Maybe that’s what we should be striving for.

When the grand finale finished, I heard a massive cheer come from the direction of the beach and I realised that I hadn’t been alone at all but that thousands of other people had been watching exactly the same thing I had and having a similarly awesome experience. And so I ended my idle musings and went inside to continue reading my book. And so I end these equally idle musings and bid you adieu. I warn you that no concrete conclusions should be drawn from my entertaining analogy as it is purely artificial but it was interesting to think about it and I hope it was for you too.

Well today is the fourth of July and I have the day off. When I asked an American what goes on on the fouth of July I kind of thought it would be like an American version of Paddy's Day with a parade and drinking and stuff but she said there would be fireworks which was fairly predictable. But they have fireworks here practically every night so that's no big deal. However, according to Maximus, there will be a fifty-mile wall of fireworks along the beach which would indeed be pretty cool. Apparently, people also like to celebrate their Americaness by eating hot dogs (which are horrible by the way) and hamburgers both of which are German inventions. Again this happens here every day, particularly where I work so I don't see the big deal. I think today is a really bad day to have a day off if everyone wants to eat hot dogs and hamburgers though cos I'd make tons of tips. Yesterday I made a record $62. Apparently the 4th of July rush of people (and tips) lasts an entire week though. This is the busiest week in the year. If I was in a proper restaurant I'd be making over $100 a night. There was a hot dog eating competition on TV this morning. The world champion is Japanese. I wonder if Noride is eating hot dogs or sushi over there (she's my sister and she's in Japan for a few weeks). So I don't really know what I'm doing tonight. I'll have to do something - maybe check out the fireworks but they're no big deal anymore. I do have work tomorrow morning so I can't stay out too late.

As soon as people figure out I'm foreign (it can take a while sometimes) I always get asked what I think of America and I can't answer. It's impossible to sum up such a massive and weird country in one sentance, particularly when I've only seen a little bit of it. I do like it. There are many things that I don't like about it but overall I do like it. But despite what the Americans would like to believe it's not better than Ireland. I'm not saying Ireland is better than the US either but Irealnd does have people who I understand and I miss a lot of things like watching the Cork matches on TV and Tae Kwon-Do and the lifestyle a had in Cork and a lot of things that are personal to me rather than a characteristic of Irealnd as a country. So to those who want to know what I think of America all I can say is that it is impossible to sum up any country objectively because my judgement is inevitably coloured by my experience which has largely been a good experience. Like most experiences I have had, I am glad I did this - I hope it has been character-building - I think it has. Many myths about America have been busted and a few have been confirmed to a limited extent. Americans are not rude and demanding...but some of them are...exactly the same as Ireland. Americans ARE largely introverted and not as educated about what's going on in the rest of the world as people from other countries are. However, I have talked to many many Americans who are not apathetic to world affairs and are highly self-educated and have travelled extensively throughout the world - far more widely than I have and have a more realistic idea of how big the world actually is and how small any one country is compared to the world. Having said that, everyone's views are affected to some extent by the media and environment which they have been exposed to and therefore, America is more conservative (well the south certainly is anyway and I would say the capital is too) than Europe. I think the two continents are going in two different directions, with Europe becoming more liberal (with the notable exception of the UK) and America going backwards. This perhaps controversial assertion is based partially on people's behaviour and attitudes that I have observed since arriving here and partially on something I was taught in my first week in college. We were told that while law and morality were essentially seperate, in reality, the latter did inform the former to an appreciable extent and in this way, a country's law was a snapshot of that country's social, political and economic standing at a given point in time. Laws change over time in order to stay in line with changing trends in morality and the political undertones of that country. Therefore, if the laws of the USA and UK are compared to those of the European Union and European countries, we can see that we are drifting apart, with the former two countries becoming increasingly unconcerned with the rights of the individual. It is disheartening to see a country that came out of a commendable well-intentioned constitution, gloss over such sacred rules as the presumption of innocence (when dealing with terrorism) and the same goes for the UK - recall the police shooting an innocent Brasilian electrician on the London underground because he was a 'suspected terrorist'. Now being suspected of something is enough not only to throw someone in jail indefinately without trial but to shoot that person. He was suspected because he was wearing an unseasonably warm jacket for that time of year - clearly a terrorist. Furthermore, the lack of workers' and tenants' rights here points to a country that supports employers and landlords - essentially the rich folk - and doesn't care about the little guy - that's me. And as I have already discussed at length, the poor law enforcement regime does little to inspire confidence in a country. Obviosuly, Ireland has plenty of its own problems but they seem much more trivial having seen America. If you can get past the law and the politics though, this is a nice country and what makes it nice is the people. I have learned that that is the only important thing about a country. Weather is not that important to me anymore. Having sound people around you is the only thing that will make you happy. And the people here, despite having a bad rep at home, are largely very friendly and personable and eventhough some of them don't know much about the outside world, they do seem interested and they want to learn. Why the education system refuses to serve this need is beyond me. There are lots of people here too who are out to screw you, definately more than at home which is the major problem with this place. I think that could be a local thing though. I certainly didn't see any of it up in DC. One American said yesterday that Myrtle Beach was 'very different to the rest of America'. When I asked if it was different in a bad way, he said yes. Another American mentioned that this city is like a money hoover which is true and probably not true of the rest of the country. When you make all your money for the year in three months where people from all over the country come here looking for fun with their full pockets, I guess you have to be greedy. So that's what I think at the moment anyway but I have yet to see New York and that could concievably alter my opinion.

Anyway just to finish, I might as well mention that I did the Human Slingshot and it was the scariest ride I've ever been on. The streets look tiny compared to the huge grey ocean stretching out under you and then spinning around so that it's over you. I didn't scream though. I just said 'oooooo' very quietly the whole way through. There's a video camera attached to the seat pointing at your face and then people gather at the bottom to watch your reaction on screens and laugh. My flatmates took a picture of one of those screens while I was up there. Check it out. Anyway by for now and happy fourth of July guys!!!!;)

Today’s entry might be very random and scattered cos I have several different things to tell ye about. Therefore I have arranged today’s very long entry into several bitesize pieces with easy-to-identify headings.

CRICKETS

Firstly and very randomly, I think you should know about crickets. Yes crickets. The little insects. You see they have quite a lot of them here. I would say there are probably more crickets in Myrtle Beach than there are people in the world. This I can safely conclude having spent quite a lot of time walking to and from work over abandoned grassy areas that are infested with them. Day or night you can here them cricketing away for no apparent reason. You’d think they’d get sick of it but no - they continue to rub there legs incessantly against their abdomens. And the weirdest thing is that despite their deafening chorus, I have never been able to find one. They hear you coming and they have their own cricket language and as you walk by one of them says ‘sketch!’ and it gets passed on so that they get quiet where you are standing but keep going just ahead and behind of you. It’s like they’re teasing you!

HUMOUR

Now for an equally random observation on an American peculiarity. Yes indeed it’s that time of the blog again: Americans seem to be much easier to amuse than Irish people. Even pretty basic jokes seem to make them laugh genuinely. I can’t imagine why this might be. Maybe we just have really high standards of comedy in Ireland...or maybe it’s because there are so many clowns in Ireland that we’ve developed an immunity to mediocre humour. I would have thought that a country that produced Southpark, The Simpsons, King of the Hill and Family Guy not to mention non-animated intelligent comedy and sitcoms such as Seinfeld and Malcolm in the Middle (I know many of you will disagree on the last count but the latter is totally underappreciated) would have a very high laughter threshold. But no. Then again they did also produce unforgivable crap such as the Scary Movie franchise. They show old episodes of Southpark here every night at midnight and King of the Hill most nights just beforehand and I have to fight against a groundswell of opposition to intelligent humour in my apartment to get to watch such programs as these. Red Dwarf was on last night aswell and I had the same problem. A lack of appreciation for such gems is incomprehensible to me but I guess you don’t have to travel half way across the world to find people with bad taste in TV. We can usually agree on a late night chat show though. The schedules here are very crowded with American versions of The Late Late. There are at least six or seven different versions of such shows on every night in the paltry twenty something channels he have (some apartments have over forty). They are all very similar and it’s difficult to see how they could attract large audiences with so much competition. Then again they have a much wider pool of watchers to fish from. The weird part though is that they’re on every weeknight! It’s not an event at all like. And yet they consistently manage to pull major guests from whatever movie is opening that week. It’s like another form of advertising vehicle for the movie industry - like an extended ‘the making of’ trailer with ad-breaks (so many of them that you want to throw something at the TV). I have taken particularly to Conan O Brien’s particular brand of cynical acerbic humour which I think is quite similar to what I’m used to at home from my friends (only better obviously) but you never see that kind of humour on TV in Ireland.

I’M NOT STARVING!!!

In other news, my jobhunt has been, thus far, fruitless. It takes a week or two (or three) for places to get back to you, especially when you still don’t have your social security number! But it’s only a matter of time before I have another job. I’m just enjoying my last few weeks in Johnny Rockets. I got my first paycheck yesterday which was for a fabulous $11.66. Shopping spree!!! They have another paycheck waiting for me up in the other restaurant which should be a bit bigger because I spent most of last week in that one. I won’t get that until next week though so it’s off to the ATM again to pay tomorrow’s rent! I’ve been very good this week and have only gone once. I have around 800euro left so I’m not going to starve or anything. I have plenty of food so stop worrying Mom! Even if I didn’t, McDonalds is so insanely cheap here, that it would actually work out cheaper for me to eat there everyday than buy food and make it at home. It wouldn’t be very healthy but then again I don’t have a George Foreman grill here so all I can do is grill stuff like burgers and chicken nuggets anyway accompanied by a side of oven chips which isn’t exactly healthy living either. Furthermore I’m getting no exercise whatsoever apart from a lot of walking. There is absolutely nowhere to train - trust me. It’s too dangerous to do it in a park or on the beach where bums or randomers hang out. I’m going to be so out of shape when I get home. It’s going to take months to get back to the level of fitness I was at. It’ll give me something to do when I move to Dublin though.

WELCOME 2 JOHNNY ROCKETS!!!

Anyway to keep myself amused at Johnny Rockets, I’ve been saying the mandatory ‘Hi, welcome to Johnny Rockets!’ (Which you are apparently now getting fined for not saying when customers walk in the door) in as many different accents as possible. My drole accent gets some confused looks.

TERMS OF ENDEARMENT

Another insight into American peculiarities: Obviously nobody says ‘boy’ around here when addressing people. There are several substitutes to address someone colloquially around here: man, dude, bro, dawg etc. The latter two tend to be used mainly by the black population and the second by the white lads and the first by pretty much everyone. To avoid confusion I have been sticking to ‘man’. I still say boy when I’m talking to Irish lads though.

DRUNKEN DANCING

We had a mandatory meeting at Johnny Rockets yesterday at 9AM even though lots of people were off that morning. There were free Dunkin Donuts. Yummy... Anyway the entire JR workforce had to go outside and dance for about half an hour after listening to giving out from the managers inside. Most of us just plodded around dutifully in the heat. However, every single Irish lad bar three were still extremely drunk having obviously just left the pub at closing time - 8AM, an hour earlier. They danced around in a drunken Irish manner yelling incomprehensibly. They were within their rights to do so because they weren’t being paid so they weren’t actually working. One of them was wearing women’s underwear on his head although he insisted they were ‘pants’ but management insisted he remove it. Many of the American workers looked a bit scared and didn’t understand that this was perfectly normal behaviour. The stereotype of the drunken Irishman (which is a thorn in my side over here because I am met with confusion and disappointment when I fail to fit this stereotype) was once again confirmed in the minds of Americans who didn’t seem to find it quite as funny when actually exposed to it in real life in broad daylight in a family shopping district. Personally I found the Americans’ uneasiness even more amusing than the Irish lads’ antics.

INJUSTICE AND THE LAW

Ok three more news items to report. Firstly, a friend of mine was recently evicted from a Rainbow Court apartment for writing a letter of complaint to the management, protesting against the fact that many appliances in her flat were broken. They responded by giving her one day to pack up her belongings and leave. When she protested that she had not broken any rules of the tenancy agreement she was told that she was breaking a rule just by ‘talkin smart’ to them. I really hate the rednecks who run this dump. They are total crooks. This kind of behaviour would obviously be totally unlawful in Ireland but I don’t know my rights in this crazy country! If workers’ rights are anything to go by, then tenants probably don’t have many rights either. It seems obvious that Rainbow has breached their contract and any term in the lease giving them the right to behave like this wouldn’t stand up in an Irish court but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was perfectly acceptable here. It seems that there are local laws contradicting and overriding pretty much every kind of contract law. If any of you law students out there are bored and want to look this up for me at home feel free to email me what you find (you can contact me using the contact sheet on this blog) - she’s not going to take any action but who knows - I could be next and I want to know my rights. She even went to the cops and complained about the illegality of Rainbow’s actions but the cops didn’t care less and told her to go away. The cops here are all inbred and related to everyone who runs a sleazy motel. She never had a chance. There are two cops here devoted entirely to policing Rainbow Court. One morning when returning from a night out at 4AM, I was walking in to my apartment minding my own business and when one of the cops passed she ‘ordered’ me in her horrible redneck accent to return to my apartment immediately without making a sound. If looks could kill I’d be on death row for capital murder. I hated the fact that what she told me to do was the only thing that I actually wanted to do anyway so I couldn’t disobey it. I wasn’t going to turn around and walk out again to hang around in this dodgy neighbourhood at 4AM which I think I can safely say would be perfectly legal. The pigs can do whatever they want here. Apparently it is a crime not to do whatever they tell you. That is infuriating. What kind of a naive legislator assumes that all police officers are good reasonable people. And loitering is still illegal here despite being unable to define exactly what it is. I saw two of them handcuffing some poor confused stoner outside Rainbow Court and making him sit on the pavement while they smoked. When I walked by again there were six of them persecuting him and then they just let him go after having their fun. So much for the land of the free. There are people shooting each other all over the place and they’re worried about noise pollution. There are streetsigns telling you to be quiet when you are in a big group and yet boy racers are free to legally remove silencers from their souped up cars and SUVs. I could obviously never live in a place like Myrtle Beach fulltime although I thought DC was a nice friendly place to live. However, I don’t think I could put up with the near martial law in this country. In Ireland, when you see a guard walking down a city street at night, while he is a figure of authority, you get the feeling that he is just an ordinary lad doing his job and if you’re an ordinary lad just out for a night of mostly legal enough fun, you feel like the guards are on your side and are there to take care of scumbags with glass bottles and knives. Here, when you see a cop strutting around (they do strut) with a nine on his hip, you feel like he is just looking for a target on whom to exert is inflated authority and you better not get near him or that target will be you. Sometimes I take solace in how ridiculous they look riding around on bicycles in shorts. How could you respect a man in shorts?!!! They look even more ridiculous in their little golf carts. Yeah they have golf carts. They’re basically little four-wheeled scooters with a metal canopy and no doors. I have seen only one motorcycle cop here and he was a traffic cop. Why they don’t use motorbikes to weave through the traffic and catch people is beyond me given the popularity of motorcycles with civilians in this town. I’ll be glad to leave these pompous small town authority figures behind when I leave this country.

BEACH/POOL PARTY - Lifestyle contrasts

On a happier note, I went to a beach/pool party on Friday with some Americans. They had built a slip n slide going into the sea - that’s a plasic sheet on a slope with water and washing up liquid thrown on it so you can throw yourself on it a slide down into the sea like a slide. I bruised my ribs doing it and I’m starting to really feel it today. But it was loads of fun. There was about 50 Americans there. Then we went back to their apartment complex and had competitions like who could push other people into the pool the hardest. They were all from different colleges around the states and had been brought there for the summer by a college religious outreach network or something for what is called a leadership project so their lives are very structured. They provide a striking lifestyle contrast to all the Irish folk living in Rainbow Court. I didn’t see any booze there the whole time I was there which was refreshing. The problem I have is that Rainbow Court is just like a 24hour party/hangover but this place was a bit too structured for my liking. They have to be in certain places at certain times. Also I don’t know whether they all choose not to drink and to go to bed early which would be just dandy or whether they actually have to which to me would be like having to be a gaeltacht student at the age of 20! I couldn’t deal with all that having become accustomed to the laid back bohemian lifestyle of college life. At the same time, I am disgusted with the lifestyle of excess represented by Rainbow Court. It is not healthy to get drunk more than four times a week. So far, in the past three weeks, two girls have had to go to Accident and Emergency to deal with serious life-threatening problems caused entirely in one case and partially in the case of my flatmate last night by alcohol abuse. What I need is an environment that offers a happy medium between anarchy and structure. I realise now that that environment is Castlewhite, where I have been living for two years. There is such a diversity of residents in Castlewhite from Muslims to alcos to academics and more. However, for some reason the overwhelming majority of Irish people who do J1s are alcos (the worst of whom seem to be females interestingly enough) who come to experience the US in a drunken stupor and scream hiphop lyrics in unison outside my bedroom window at 2AM. I was shocked by the fact that I am the only person in Rainbow Court that I know of who bothered to bring a guitar and yet in the American apartment complex you couldn’t move for all the guitars. I’d say I probably saw about six or seven of them in the space of ten minutes. Where are all the Irish guitarists? Why do they stay at home?

CHURCH

Let me finish today by describing my latest religious foray. I went to a black church today that was recommended by Ms Lucy (a JohnnyR manager). I was the only white person in the whole place! I arrived 20mins early and there were about twenty people present having a discussion with the priest (who dresses like Irish priests do) about marriage and divorce. I was handed a pamphlet by an usher which outlined the topic of discussion in case I wanted to make a contribution on the issue!;) People were just sticking up their hands and offering pearls of wisdom on the secret to a good marriage and listening to the priests advice. It was like Ms Kelleher’s (my secondary school religion teacher) dream class. In fairness to everyone there, they looked less surprised to see a white face than the Methodists were to see me wearing an NFL jersey to mass. They were very welcoming and lots of men came to shake my hand saying things like ‘Hello there young man, welcome along, we’re very happy to have you’. One of them even gave me a quick hug much to my surprise. The church was a bit smaller than the other ones I’ve been to. Once mass started, ‘visitors’ were asked to stand up. There was me and one other guy. The other guy wasn’t from Myrtle Beach but I’d say we wasn’t from that far away either. Then we had to introduce ourselves into a mike in front of the whole church. Can you imagine me announcing to a big room full of black faces that my name was Eoin O Muimhneachain and that I was from Ireland. Well that’s exactly what I did and even though I’m usually perfectly comfortable speaking in public I confess I felt a little awkward because I felt that surely everyone of the people in the congregation must be thinking ‘what is that boy doing in here?’ even though I knew they would never say such a thing out loud. When I sat down the guy in front of me gave me a high five. In fairness to them they did a great job of concealing their surprise and were far more welcoming than any of the white churches where I attended Sunday mass.

So what was it like? Well the choir sat behind the altar and they had an organ, drums, bongos and a baby-grand piano. The organ was not like any other organ I had heard but was a bit like a cross between a jazz organ and a church organ. They turned it up really loud when they sang so that it was at the same volume if no higher than all the voices of the choir combined. When the preacher spoke, sometimes they would play it quietly in the background. Sometimes there were solo singers. All the performances were very entertaining and exactly as you’d imagine them. If you’ve ever seen one of these black churches on TV then this was actually exactly like on TV (except real life and probably not as cartoonish). It was very interactive and after every line the preacher said, random people in the congregation would murmur (and later on in the mass they would shout out) random comments such as ‘Yo talkin’ preacher!’(which apparently indicates approval), ‘Jesus!’, ‘Lord!’, ‘Yes!’ etc. I’m telling you it was exactly like on TV. Old ladies would clap along to the hymns and everything. There was even a person with a fan despite the perfectly adequate air conditioning. Sometimes they would even raise their arms and throw their head back. At one point during his (very long) sermon, the preacher got totally possessed and started screaming stuff about Jesus like mad and eventhough it was difficult to understand whether he was actually saying anything of any relevance, the congregation got really exited too and started screaming random interjections of approval and clapping. Then the preacher developed a real actual rhythm to his speech and the drums and organ did a BANG after each phrase and it nearly turned into a rap. It was really weird to be sitting in the middle of all that bedlam. It was also by far the most interesting service I have been too in my whole life. The whole thing was a lot less staid and formal than the other masses even though everyone still dressed up fancy. Arriving 15mins late was no big deal and you could get out of your seat and sit beside someone else in the middle of it or go out to the toilet or whatever. I guess that developed from the fact the thing lasts two and a half hours. The first hour and a half flew though and it only felt like half an hour.

So insightful observations? OK: Well it seemed like there was a greater sense of community here than in the other churches, people passed around their babies from seat to seat for different people to hold throughout the service so it seems like they all know each other really well which is not true of the other churches. The preacher was able to name lots of people out of the congregation and referred to them all as Brother X or Sister X. It really did feel like a big family...which made my presence all the more conspicuous. Also I felt that the church played a much larger role in the parishioners’ lives than the local church does in Irish parishes. They have a committee with members in charge of certain community betterment departments like children, married couples etc. They take responsibility for issues in the parishioners lives that have nothing to do with religion. For example, during the service the preacher gave the person in charge of children the job of organising a seminar for all the children on healthy eating. He said this because he noticed that his younger parishioners were gaining too much weight too quickly for their age. I think that is absolutely brilliant. The church is really dealing with pertinent issues in the environment around them and it seems that it is doing it purely because it cares about its parishioners which is refreshing. It is also heartening to see that it has the requisite human resources to do this. I think this might be because perhaps, there is greater separation of church and state here and because the government here is so anti-socialist, it refuses to take anything more than a limited responsibility for a lot of the looking after vulnerable people that needs to be done and therefore churches fill in for them instead. That’s all well and good if you belong to a particular church but if you don’t have any religious beliefs and are a disadvantaged member of society then you’re screwed. One thing I cannot understand about all these churches is why they still have an effective apartheid. Why do people choose the place in which to praise exactly the same god based on the colour of their skin? I have yet to find any justification for this and it is utterly incomprehensible to me, particularly because I am used to attending the non-denominational services in the Honan Chapel in UCC where Irish, American, African, Malaysian, Pakistani and more all come together and praise God in the same room. That said, I walked in that door today with my glow-in-the-dark skin and I was whole-heartedly welcomed so maybe we just need everyone else to reach out and do the same thing.

So the verdict for Mt. Olive church (that’s the one I’ve been going on about for a page)? Kickass but really long. I’ll give it 4stars. Next week: Trinity Episcopal Church! And I’ve found the Catholic church so I’ll be going to that at some point too to compare it to the Irish Catholic church. Until then...random closing statement!;)

On Wednesday night I went to an American night club for the first time. The only club Irish people go to here is really Club Kryptonite. It’s all green inside. It’s very similar to night clubs in Ireland with a few small exceptions. They have lasers which are cool and I don’t know why they don’t have more of them in Ireland. The music is even worse than the Irish clubs - it’s nearly all hardcore dance with each tune sounding exactly like the one before so that you’re not even sure when one ends and another begins. Also the dancing is a lot more suggestive shall we say - Americans seem to be more liberal on the dancefloor. Suffice to say that it feels like you’ve just walked into a hiphop video. Overall it was just as mediocore and predictable as a night out clubbing in Cork. They let you in if you’re 18 and put marker on your hand to show that you’re not 21 so you can’t buy alcohol.

Anyway the search for work continues. I have a day off today and I’m going to relax after two days of trudging pointlessly from shop to shop to restaurant to bar. The system here is far less efficient for the jobseeker than the Irish system. In Ireland you print off a few dozen Cvs, drop em into anywhere you want to work and wait by the phone. Here you walk from shop to shop, ask if they have work, whereupon they reply ‘maybe, probably not, here’s an application form now go away’. Then you spend an hour filling in an unnecessarily complex form that you’ve been told will probably have no result. Then you multiply this process by 50. I haven’t filled in any forms. Some places have an A4 pad that shops can buy that have standard application forms instead of lined paper. You end up writing the same stuff over and over! This is what a CV is for! A few places take your name and number instead (I think those are the places that actually want people to work there) and say they may call you in the next few days. One restaurant was very promising so I’m going to halt all job serching until I hear from them. If I don’t I’ll go back and remind them of me. If worse comes to worse I got one offer of $6 an hour in a knife/gun/beach accessory shop which is right beside rainbow court but it’s actually a really depressing place to work with not a lot of activity and I want $8 an hour. I tried a sweet shop (they actually make some of the sweets in the shop) that an Irish fella who works there recommended. He gets $8 an hour plus $12 overtime and works 10hours a day bringing home around $90 a night. It would have fulfilled my lifelong dream of working in a sweet shop which I have wanted to do since being a small child. But they said they were full but gave me an application in case someone quits. Who would quit in such a cool place! I had a little more success in a Fudge making shop. Everyone working in there is black and they make the fudge in front of an audience and they talk to them like preachers and get the audience to do a call and reply thing while they make the fudge. It’s like a church or something. When I asked for a job, the guy asked what age I was and then told me to sing a song. I was rather taken aback by this but he explained that they had a policy that everyone had to sing while they worked. That sounds really cool - I hum away while I work anyway. So I sang two verses of a Sam Cooke (an old soul artist) song for him which seemed to impress him. He said the manager would give me a call and interview me in a few days. When I asked what the pay rate was, he said it was negotiable. If they agree to pay $8 an hour I would work there. But my first choice is an Italian restaurant. The owner in there first said they didn’t have any jobs but when I told him how much I was making in Johnny Rockets, he felt sorry for me and said he’d try to find a place for me. He said the servers often make about $100 a night. I scoffed and said that’s what everyone says. He understood my skepticism and took me out the back to hear it from the waiters’ mouths. They all told me how much they had made the night before. The best was $140 and the worst was $70. It averaged at around $90 a night. I hope he calls back. He was really nice and genuine and a breath of fresh air after having walked into about 30 other places where they were rather dismissive. If he doesn’t call back, I’ll go into him again on Monday and remind him. In the meantime, I made $49 last night which is my record so far. I feel really rich now so I’m going to buy a few things like bread, ice cream, toilet paper and chicken nuggets while I can afford to, go to the cinema with my flatmate to see Superman and go to a party with some Americans. It is my day off after all.

I will miss Johnny Rockets whenever I do finally find somewhere else to work. Everyone in there is really sound. I’ve got to know so many people there, Irish and American, and yesterday one of my colleagues called me ‘Boo’, which I understand is a colloquial term of endearment here. It was a touching moment. There is no better way to get to know someone than to spend eight hours a day working beside them. They realise they have to spend the whole day/night with you and will probably have to do so on a regular basis so they make an effort to get to know you. Working in a country is the only way to get to know what it’s really all about. I’ll keep in touch with someone of my colleagues after quitting but I’ll still miss the camaraderie of working with them. Enough sentimentality. I have to go put on the dinner. Good luck to ye!