Let’s see…]

DAY ONE

9:15 a.m.: Walking to the gym in sweatpants, a dirty wifebeater, no makeup. Get catcalled by at least fifteen people. Oh, ethnic neighborhood, you’re so charming.

12:03 p.m.: Walking home from the gym in the same gear as before, only now drenched in sweat, get catcalled by about fifteen more people. I finally tell one of them to f*ck off. It feels good. His response? “Someone needs to get laid!” I hate dudes.

11:23 p.m.: At my place of business which is, in fact, a strip club, where I am, in fact, a stripper. A scruffy but jovial old man solicits me for a trip to the VIP room, which I gladly agree to (Guaranteed $160 for a half hour? Hell yes!), but first warn him that I’m not one of those girls that do “special favors” in said room. He says that’s fine and wanders off to get more cash from the ATM.

11:43 p.m.: After about ten minutes, the old man pulls out his dick and asks me to give him a blowjob. I tell him no way in hell; I already said that’s not how I do. He tells me it’s fine, because he has a condom. I tell him he can get the f*ck out.

11:50 p.m.: After five minutes of arguing and an extra fifty bucks for being an asshole, we finish the dance and the guy behaves himself. Before we exit the room he kisses me on the cheek and tells me I’m a lovely girl.

11:04 a.m.: While on the treadmill at the gym, a guy who’s always there at the same time as me stops and hands me a cute little bouquet of flowers and tells me to have a good day. The gesture is adorable, but the dude doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.

3:15 p.m.: My former boss (Greek, gay) sends me a text message asking me if, as per previous discussions, I’ll still marry him so he can get U.S. citizenship. I say sure. I know a lot of people who have done this and ended up falling in love with each other, but he’s gay so…f*ck it, right? He says he’ll call me later in the week.

11:35 p.m.: At a private table at a sh*tty club with my roommate and her friend, being fed Grey Goose by a promoter. Some douchnugget sits next to me and asks me if I’m a model, I inform him that I’m actually a stripper. His eyes light up and he proceeds launch off on a compare and contrast session between my job and being an investment banker, which is what he does. I stare at him for a while and then decide I’m too drunk for this and announce I’m leaving. He asks if I’ll be at the club next weekend. I say no.

DAY THREE

9:04 a.m.: Wake up to a text message from a number I don’t recognize asking me if I’m going to be working tonight. I respond yes; they say they’ll see me there. I decide I really have to stop giving out my number to people at work when they ask for it.

1:13 p.m.: Spend an hour facebook stalking ex-boyfriends/lovers/crushes. Feel very nostalgic.

2:21 p.m.: Make a craigslist personals ad.

10:45 p.m.: Work. No one makes any mention of texting me, but a dude does get a VIP room with me. He instructs me to stand/sit in various positions while he gives me a massage and we talk about his kid’s soccer team for half an hour. At the end, he gives me a forty-dollar tip. People are so weird.

DAY FOUR

3:26 a.m.: Last client of the night is a quiet Asian kid who gets a VIP room with me. He asks if he can kiss me. I say not on the lips. He spends the half hour laying on top of me periodically trying to kiss me on the lips, though I continue to flirtly but firmly (as is the stripper way) push him away. As we leave the room, he apologizes and slips me a fifty.

4:34 a.m.: Check my e-mail, eight people have responded to my ad. They run the gamut from mundane (5’5” Jewish film student) to hilariously unacceptable (Norwegian bodybuilder wearing a Speedo in his photo). Seriously, dudes are f*cking nuts.

11:43 a.m.: Wake up and check my e-mail again, have received a message from an acceptable (by comparison, at least) black jazz musician. I write to him and think about how hilarious it would be to bring my black musician boyfriend with me to my tiny backwoods hometown. I decide I’m getting ahead of myself.

9:01 p.m.: Watch many many episodes of The Office. Masturbate a little. Jim is so hot.

DAY FIVE

11:35 a.m.: Spend the day at an artist’s studio I volunteer at, end up talking to a girl there about doing the Master Cleanse. According to her, in addition to making you feel amazing and allowing you to think clearer than you ever have before, in the weeks following your sex drive is totally off the charts. I decide it’s on.

6:32 p.m.: While at Barnes and Noble looking for the Master Cleanse book, a dude that looks kind of like a younger version of PC from the Mac commercials tells me I’m really cute and asks me for my e-mail address. I give it to him, though I’m hard pressed to say why.

7:55 p.m.: The musician has written me back and there are multiple Jesus references strewn about the e-mail. He will not be visiting my hometown with me.

11:27 p.m.: After exiting a cab, a guy stopped at a stoplight yells, “Hey, mami!” I ignore him, but then a girl in the car says, “Excuse me, miss?” Curious, I look at them. Three Hispanic kids, probably my age, boy driving, girl in the passenger seat, another boy in back. The girl says, “Wanna hang with us?” I decline because I am on my way to meet some friends at the bar, and also because I cannot possibly comprehend why I would take them up on this offer. The light turns green and they drive away, but I am intrigued by the exchange. Where could that situation have possibly gone?

DAY SIX

9:03 a.m.: More craigslist responses. They’re all horrible. Of course they are! Who the fuck looks for love on craigslist?! Social mutants, that’s who!

9:10 p.m.: At work, I’m sitting alone drinking a gin and tonic when a boy sidles up to me. He’s Argentinean and kind of cute. We chat, he gives me the usual speech about how a nice all-American girl like myself doesn’t belong in a place like this, and then he asks me for a lap dance. I dance for five songs, and the whole time he asks me if I like it, if it turns me on. I laugh and say, no, it’s kind of like filing or data-entry as far as I’m concerned. When we’re done I ask for the $100 he owes me and he tries to haggle with me. I finally say I’ll take $80 just because I don’t feel like fighting. He pays me, then asks me for my number. Seriously.

DAY SEVEN

3:12 a.m.: I decide I need to make more money, so I sit down next to a younger-looking guy sitting by himself. We start chatting, and it turns out he’s around my age, Irish, a bartender, and kind of fly. We drink beers until last call, and he looks at me and asks me what next. I say we should have some beers at his apartment, which is in the neighborhood. He tells me to go change and he’ll meet me outside.

4:15 a.m.: We’re walking to his apartment and I wonder what the hell has gotten in to me. Sure, this guy is cute enough and good company, but definitely not anyone I would expect myself to go home with, and yet, here I am. I force my second thoughts to the back of my head.

4:40 a.m.: We crack some Coronas, get halfway though them, and then proceed to have sex. Amazing sex. Hours and hours of amazing sex in positions I’ve never even considered before, and it is definitely not my first time at the rodeo. My mind is blown.

11:03 a.m.: Wake up, have more sex. Even though I’m now sober, it is still mind-blowing. We finish up and I say I should bounce, he tells me to write down my number. He lets me out of his building and I start walking, thinking the world has never looked so beautiful.

11:43 a.m.: I arrive home and announce to my roommate that I’m in love. She asks what his name is. I realize I have no idea.

12:00p.m.: Spend the rest of the day in a fantastic mood literally prancing around my apartment. God I love sex.

Total: Many lap dances, one possible foursome opportunity, one masturbation session, one surprise old man penis, multiple rounds of out-of-this-world sex with one nameless Irishman.

I thought it would be fun to have a change of scenery for a semester, but I had heard many a tale of study-abroad-gone-useless: “I never went to class, I just got drunk all the time”. “I only hung out with other Americans”. “We lived with other English speakers, so we never even bothered to work on our French”.

So I decided to skip the whole semester abroad experience and go all out–after graduation, I’d go to grad school in another country.

I applied to a few universities, one in Dublin, Ireland, two in London, and one south of London in the seaside town of Brighton. Because of rolling admissions, I heard back from the three UK schools almost immediately–accepted! Yes! Having never been to England, however, I wondered how I could possibly choose. So…I flew to London. For the weekend. In a jet lag-induced haze, I wandered the city, taking photos, visiting campuses. I took a train to Brighton and tried to imagine myself at school there. I made my choice. I bought a London guidebook.

On graduation day, I got another letter in the mail. It was from Ireland, and informed me that I had been accepted to the school in Dublin. My well-laid plans were suddenly de-railed–the masters program in Dublin was exactly what I wanted, and the school had a bit more prestige. At the advice of friends, professors, parents, strangers, whoever…I changed my mind.

I moved to Ireland in the Fall.

When I arrived at Dublin airport on a sunny day in late September, my entire life packed in two suitcases, it was the first time I had ever set foot in Ireland. I knew no one, and my program wasn’t supposed to begin for another few weeks. I was entirely alone…

[I'll be chronicling some of the best and worst experiences here, so stay tuned!]

1. Blend in. The problem with studying abroad is that the experience tends to lack authenticity — You go abroad only to find yourself surrounded by more Americans than in America. And these Americans can be fairly “exotic” themselves (in my program there was a tribe of Mormons).

In many cases American students abroad make no bones about their nationality and flaunt it by traveling in large, loud groups, bumping and grinding in discotheques, speaking odd Franglish and buying bottles of champagne by the crate to drink in the streets. My best advice is to stray from the American wolf pack and try to pass as a native. It’s a fun challenge that prompted a man to feel me up on a bus in Paris because he thought I was German. Close enough.

2. Don’t fall in love. I knew my friend Cameron was in trouble three weeks after she arrived in Ireland and in all of her Facebook pictures began to appear a strapping lad named Liam. Needless to say, the semester ended and Liam was one souvenir Cameron could not claim at customs. He remains in Ireland, living with his grandmother and playing football, and Cameron is totally crushed.

Apparently, obtaining a visa isn’t as easy as everyone says it is! Also, I’m no xenophobe, but from my experience, the French men I encountered after – hours were wayyyy sleazy. I’m talking gelled – hair sleazy. So. Beware!

3. Go somewhere different. Yeah, France was a foreign experience and all, but I regret not going “all the way” with my study abroad sojourn. All things considered, it was still American in many ways — besides all the Americans I was with in school everyday, I drank Coke, slept in a nice bed and swam in my host mom’s swimming pool in the French suburbs — not much of a departure from summers in my hometown, except with more croissants. If I had really wanted a working summer, I should have gone to Burma.