My Goals and Expectations for Studying Abroad in Galway, Ireland
Hello. My name is David Fenske. I am a Junior at Martin Luther College, double majoring in secondary English and Spanish Education. If you’ve never met me before, here’s a quick biography of who I am:
I was born and raised in Brookings, South Dakota. I attended Great Plains Lutheran High School, and after I graduated, I studied Agricultural Business at Iowa State University for one semester. After a change of heart (and a calculus class), I realized I needed to change my path. I decided to transfer to MLC at the start of the Spring 2022 semester. Since then, I’ve loved my experience at MLC and developing the skills to become a called worker. Here’s a not-so-brief list of my interests (in no particular order): Reading, writing, literary criticism, exegesis, weightlifting, discovering obscure music, fishing (if they’re biting), baking, snowmobiling, target shooting, good conversation, telling stories, studying, learning Spanish, being in nature, teaching, and philosophy.
That said, am I scared about my study abroad experience in Ireland?
No.
Am I nervous about my study abroad experience in Ireland?
Yes.
I should expound on this. Essentially, I have no fear when it comes to studying abroad; I studied abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the summer of 2023. I also know that God will guide and protect me on this journey (read Romans 8:28, Isaiah 41:13, Jeremiah 29:11, etc.). The combination of these two things gives me confidence that I am capable of studying abroad and eliminates my fears. But that doesn’t mean I’m not apprehensive about certain aspects of my upcoming experience. Although I’ve studied abroad before, I’m stepping into a completely new world and culture. I will be far away from anyone I know (my nearest friends are about 500 miles away from me in London). I’m also celiac and lactose intolerant, making locating food that I can eat somewhat tricky at times. However, I am contemplating beginning a carnivore diet, and the idea of that is alluring because it would make my life much simpler and reduce the risk of me accidentally becoming sick from eating something.
Additionally, I won’t have the luxury of being able to worship in a WELS church on Sunday mornings or go to daily chapel services. In fact, there’s only one Lutheran church on the entire island of Ireland (located in Dublin), and they still have their church services in German! This means I will have to be much more disciplined in my relationship with God, a challenge I’m ready to face head-on (more on that later). Finally, I am nervous about my host university’s class structure and style. It’s no secret that MLC gives an exorbitant amount of homework compared to other colleges in the US. However, I don’t mind the homework too much because it keeps me on track and engaged with my classes. According to my research, they hardly have any homework in Ireland, and learning is a much more independent process. This challenge makes me uneasy because I must be much more disciplined to ensure I study enough and stay engaged with my courses. Consequently, I will have to be more of an active learner than a passive one.
I have been asked to write about my goals and expectations for my study abroad experience in Galway. Before I get into that, I should address two things.
- What is my overarching philosophy towards studying abroad?
- I am a firm believer in the idea of continuous improvement, especially concerning the self. I desire to improve myself each day that God gives me on earth. My philosophy towards studying abroad embraces this idea of self-improvement. I will continue the things I do for self-improvement, simply in a new location. This is contrasted with the (in my opinion, weaker) thought that I should study abroad to become a better person. I know there will be tremendous benefits and blessings that flow from my study abroad experience, but rather than try to define or describe exactly what those will be, I’d rather take them as they come. I believe that it would be a floccinaucinihilipilification to try to definitively predict what benefits I will gain from studying abroad before I’ve experienced anything. I will focus on the things I know I can control to improve myself and simultaneously reap the (currently unknown to me) blessings of studying abroad in Ireland. I’m excited to live with the ambiguity of not knowing what lies ahead.
- How do I define “goals” vs. “expectations”?
- In seventh grade, I was asked to write goals for the first time. My homeroom teacher, Mr. Kirchner, taught me the concept of SMART goals. SMART is an acronym that stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Writing SMART goals is hard, but it distinguishes between wishing and doing. Therefore, this is the definition I use for goals.
- In my opinion, expectations are different from goals simply based on specificity– expectations are my vague desires of what I want to occur in my study abroad experience. Unlike goals, I cannot predict or naturally attach quantifiable requirements to expectations.
Now I feel I am ready to disclose my goals and expectations for Ireland and their explanations.
Previously, I mentioned “the things that I do for self-improvement.” These are relevant daily expectations I have for myself, regardless of whether I’m studying abroad or at home. They include journaling, voluntary reading (i.e., reading for fun), reading my Bible, prayer at the start and end of the day, basic hygiene, physical exercise (weightlifting three days a week & walks), and intentional conversation with others. All of these help me keep my sanity and give me a sense of purpose, even if other things in my life are awry.
What are my goals for myself during my study abroad experience?
- By the end of my time in Ireland, I will receive an A (or the equivalent grade) in all of my classes.
- By the end of my time in Ireland, I will be able to bench press 70 kilos for 5 reps, back squat 90 kilos for 5 reps, and RDL 115 kilos for 5 reps.
- By the end of my time in Ireland, I will have made at least two friends from a country outside of the US.
- By the end of my time in Ireland, I will have traveled to at least four European countries.
- By the end of my time in Ireland, I will have read at least 8 books for fun (see my reading list at the bottom of the blog).
What are my expectations for myself during my study abroad experience?
- I will become more resilient and adaptable to complex situations with various elements out of my control.
- I will become more self-aware and strengthen my ability to self-reflect.
- I will become better at both inter- and intra-personal communication.
- I will learn how I could potentially integrate elements of the Irish educational system into my future classroom.
- I will learn more about the history and culture of Ireland, potentially altering my worldview and the way I think.
- I will be ready to witness my Christian faith to those with whom I develop relationships within Ireland.
All in all, I am incredibly excited about my opportunity to study abroad. I cannot wait to gain new experiences and add new stories to my repertoire. May God grant me the strength to live each day for him. Please pray for me and others studying abroad this semester.
One final musing for you to ponder: If something won’t make a great story someday, is it worth doing?
As promised, here’s my personal reading list for the semester:
- Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
- On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King
- For Whom The Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
- Pastoral Song: A Farmer’s Journey, James Rebanks
- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
- Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
- Wise Blood, Flannery O’Connor
- One Child, Mei Fong
Peanut Butter Marmalade
Above: a compilation of friends, new and old
This past week, I went to Paris and it really gave me an appetite for watching the movie Ratatouille (a very American reaction to Paris, I know). The movie is about a lot of things. The most obvious themes are the importance of art and that art can come from anywhere. This time around though, the side plot between Remy and his dad particularly struck a chord with me. Remy does not want to live the life of a rat. He wants to cook like humans do, but being a rat, he cannot pass as a human. It highlights his perceived absence of identity as neither rat nor human, and a tug-of-war between Remy’s origins and his current status in life. Can he really be both things at once? Just before leaving America, I felt like there was something outside small-town life that I was missing. I didn’t exactly know what it was, but I thought that before I went on with my life, I needed to know if there was anything out there that I’d need to be “more fulfilled.” I thought, what if on the off-chance I have a “Remy moment?” The strange part of it was though, that unlike Remy, the life I was currently living made me anything but unhappy. I knew how joyful teaching makes me, how passionate I am about literature, how satisfied I would be working with kids the rest of my life and how great of friends and teachers I have. As it turns out though, there was something I was lacking. I was missing the thing that Ratatouille’s hardened critic, Anton Ego, so desperately craved: perspective. Yes, I have experienced an innumerable about of blessings abroad, but to me, the biggest of those, was the realization that I already have everything I need.
All that said, the experience of studying abroad is one that I would recommend to anyone who has the chance. It was a roller coaster. Before you go, you think you’ll never want to leave. When you get there, you want to leave as soon as possible. About a month in, you don’t ever want to leave. Then finally, you get to where I am now– a strange amalgamation of the two feelings, that doesn’t feel divided half and half, but like you’re fully committed to both ideas. Though, I suppose (to incorporate one final Ratatouille parallel) that is why Remy opened his restaurant to both humans and rats, to bring a slice of what he’s learned back to where he started. So what will I bring back home? Well for one, as much food as I can fit in my bag. I’ve grown very attached to marmalade, although I was initially turned off by the fact that it tastes more like orange rinds than it does the actually good part of the orange. Recently, I’ve been eating it on a peanut butter sandwich. Mind you, British people don’t eat peanut butter and jelly. So a peanut butter and marmalade sandwich might be a creation specific only to Americans living in the U.K. I will most likely start to call dudes “blokes” and say “cheeky” less and less ironically. I think, more significantly for me, I won’t be so terrified of finances. Being abroad really forces you to be careful with every cent (pence) you spend. I’m proud of facing up to my fear of money and being intentional about budgeting. That said, I threw a lot of pointless dollars down the drain: missing a train, missing a flight, falling for tourist scams, booking tickets to an ABBA show thinking that the real ABBA would be there (it showed their faces on the poster!!). I’m actually embarrassed to say out loud the dollar amount of ill-spent money. So if there is anything I would have done differently, it would be to always make sure to know the exact details of what I’m purchasing; and on top of that, that I arrive to whatever I have booked with plenty of time to spare. The public transportation is not consistent. If you are making a trip into central London, give yourself at the very least 30 minutes of extra time and have alternate routes in mind.
To any students who know they are studying abroad, I pray the Lord’s blessings on your trip. Hopefully, you see his hand throughout your trip as much as I did. Find a church (if you are going to Roehampton, Community Church in Putney is super close and welcoming), find like-minded Christians, find community service opportunities, and speak openly about your faith to those who aren’t like-minded. Doing this has allowed me to witness some really special lightbulb moments. The best feeling is to hear them coming back to you with questions about the Bible and having the privilege to answer them. From my experience, I have actually felt less alienated expressing my faith to unbelievers here than I have in America, because Americans are just so darn stubborn. As one final piece of advice, go easy on yourself. Your self esteem is really going to be tested after every stupid purchase, every time you looked like a dumb American in public, and every time you feel alone. Take a deep breath. Call your mom. Eat a comfort food. Watch the American Office. But also know that it’s important to be uncomfortable sometimes. Watch an episode of the British Office instead. Take a solo trip to Scotland. Try haggis. Get invested in Royal Family drama. Go in eating peanut butter and jelly and out eating peanut butter and marmalade.
I can’t wait to see you all on campus again!
Blessings, Joe.
What now?
So I’ve lived in a foreign country for three and a half months. Add that to the belt, I suppose. Naturally, reflection is due for this huge experience in my life.
I think I am most proud of traveling alone. My classmates here all had different ideas and places they wanted to see, and so did I, and after I did a group trip with a few guys, I quickly realized that I can’t keep doing this every weekend or else I would never get to see things that I was interested in, so I planned a bunch of solo trips and pretty much traveled by myself. It was difficult at first to get used to all of this time on my own, but it was worth it because I did succeed in meeting the people I wanted to meet and saw the sights I was most interested in. I read a lot. For fun, not for school. I mean, I did that too, but traveling is the perfect time to read in my opinion, and I have finished about ten books in this semester.
Traveling alone was a challenge, and if I would do anything differently, it would be to bring someone from MLC along. The school here is something that I am not used to, and it would help if I had someone from my other school to connect with and to vent with sometimes. I was able to visit another MLC student twice this semester, and that was huge in terms of my metal health, you know, to be able to share our thoughts about life outside the U.S. with each other. He also is a good friend, so I appreciated being able to have someone with the same sense of humor as me. Sorry to get off track, but I really enjoy making people laugh and I could never really figure out how to do that here, so like I said, I appreciated being able to see my friend greatly and have a few laughs.
Something that I would incorporate into my life back home is showing appreciation for my family and friends. I am sure that I did an okay job at that already, but I would like to overflow, so to speak, with gratitude for the faculty at MLC, my family and friends who encouraged me to go through with this. I missed all of them, and they probably miss me. Attending a public university really showed me just how much of an impact MLC had on my life, and I don’t ever want to take that for granted again. I must admit, I have been quite horrible at staying in contact with my family in college and high school, and I have been trying to do a better job at that here in Berlin. I would like to also take that back with me, since my family is pretty far apart as is, a phone call every now and then would go a long way to maintain my relationship with my family.
I am grateful for my parents. They made sure I began working pretty early, all through high school and that I didn’t have a whole lot of ways to spend my money the first few years I started working, and I was able to save a lot of money because of my parents. It really helped me enjoy my semester here, since I never had to worry about money. Granted it was my own money, so I was careful not to just throw it away, but in terms of traveling I could pick a nicer, more comfortable option and I could also try lots of different foods, all without too much concern for my wallet.
God has given me a very laid back temperament, which has come in handy when I talk to my fellow American students as well as the locals of the places I have gone. I ended up making some unlikely friends and actually enjoyed my relationship with them. I also was made aware of the lack of meaning in the world. I could tell a lot of people that I met needed something more, something meaningful in their life. It’s clear to Christians, of course, since it’s written out for us in the Bible. It’s really difficult to see this, especially when you know the One who gives our lives meaning, and others don’t. I guess, in a sense, it is actually nice to see this crisis because I know my work is cut out for me and I know I will have lots to do after the seminary. But still, it was sad to meet people, who I could tell were very troubled. This is also something that supersedes any sort of cultural barrier or political boundary. I guess that I have seen God’s hand in abundance of work that needs to be done, either by me or whatever means He chooses. This also is something I want to take back with me: the news that people everywhere need to be told the Good News. Of course, we hear this every day at MLC, but it is something completely different when you actually experience the true size of the harvest field. It’s more massive than I ever could have imagined, and I’d like to let my classmates know too.
There are so many tips and lessons I could give to other students which would be relevant and important. Just do it. Don’t worry. Denke nicht, tue es einfach. I had my doubts and fears too, but I have never felt more alive than when I first set foot on German soil. I was tired, hungry and probably smelly, but absolutely in love with life. I have been working hard toward this goal for the last few years, and it was awesome to see it come to fruition.
Now I will have to deal with a new question: What now? This was a huge project of mine, and now that it is coming to an end, I am not sure what will come next for me besides five more years of school.
Me on the wall of a Roman Fort, Joe and I eating beans for breakfast, Philosophe Joe, and Neuschwanstein Castle.
Essen und Fressen
Before I get to what I would like to talk about, that being food here, I have to explain the title. My grandma didn’t speak German, but before every meal, she would always say, “It’s time to eat! Essen und Fressen!” Both words mean, “to eat” in German, but “essen” is the word used to describe people eating, and “fressen” is to describe animals eating. In other words, when my grandma said this, it was always sort of a joke making fun of us, like some in my family ate like people and others like animals. It also highlights the differences in languages in a humorous manner.
Ah yes, food in Germany. I have really enjoyed it. One of the things I wish America had was Döner. It is a sort of sandwich, and the meat can be either beef or chicken, cooked on a vertical spit (similar to shawarma), shaved off the spit with a knife, and it all goes in a bread pocket with salad and savory sauces. I could definitely eat this for the rest of my life. This is a very unique part of German culture, since Döner came with the influx of Turkish immigrant workers after the World War II. It was popularized by the Germans, but comes from the Turks. A decent comparison to this food phenom would be pizza in America and Italy in the sense that America really took pizza and made it its own. There is pizza in Italy and Döner in Turkey but (I’m told) that there isn’t a whole lot of Döner places in Turkey, and the pizza in Italy (I’m also told) is not quite like American pizza.
Another aspect of German food is their sweets and baked goods. I was always more of a savory guy, not much of a sweet tooth, but in Germany, their sweets always hit the spot and I never feel bad eating baked goods. Part of this change is due to the fact that much of the bread here is very light and probably healthier than the U.S. Another reason why you can see me eating a lot of candy in Germany is because they use cane sugar in most of their sweets, as opposed to high fructose corn syrup in many American candies. It makes a huge difference! Cane sugar just taste better and more real than the other stuff. Even the sodas (pop) use cane sugar, and they are all way more delicious than what I am used to in the U.S.
One drawback is that meat is very expensive in Germany, and sometimes people will just skip that part at restaurants or at homes. It took me some time to get used to this, but I realize that not much meat is needed in a healthy diet, and I think that Americans, in many areas of life, go overboard with it since we have been incredibly blessed with a fruitful land. I would say that the food of Germany (and a few other things) has taught me how wasteful Americans can be sometimes, and I never really thought about it before.
All of the Lights (In Here Baby)
Happy Christmas! Or if you are reading this in America, Merry Christmas! Without the Thanksgiving buffer, I’ve been hearing Mariah Carey echoing through pedicabs across London since the minute Halloween was over. They do have Black Friday here, though. How could you turn down a marketing opportunity like that? Still, the minute those first Christmas lights turn on overhead the streets of central London on November 2nd, Christmas season is officially a go, and there is no longer a place for Ebenezers to hide. I had the privilege of experiencing both Thanksgiving and Christmas in one weekend. Last Saturday, I spent Thanksgiving with the families of Ben and Abby Hillmer. There was a welcome mix of British and American folk, which led to my second take after hearing “what kind of pie is this?” being uttered about pumpkin pie. Regardless, the pumpkin pie received raving reviews from the first-timers, such as, “it’s like baby food, but good baby food.” I honestly couldn’t describe pumpkin pie better myself.
The next day, Abby, Ben, and I hit the streets of central London on a mission to conquer as many Christmas markets as humanly possible. To distill this trip into a digestible format, I have ranked these markets from least great to most great (this will come in handy to anyone visiting The Big Smoke this holiday season).
6. Southbank- Despite being the nearest market to Big Ben and the London Eye, this is pretty standard market fare. However, here you will find the best ever spot for a Christmas picture in all of London, according to my extensive research. Abby and Ben pictured above make a wonderful example of this.
5. Jubilee (Best Art and Prints)- Don’t stand around waiting for the street performers to do something cool after they talk about doing something cool for 20 minutes straight. Do stand around wondering if you should give into your bizarre urge to buy that David Bowie collage made of comic book scraps.
4. Trafalgar Square- When we passed the stand of “chocolate kisses,” we all mentally agreed that we had to explore these intriguing balls of chocolate. What could be inside? These bad boys put Hershey’s to shame with a face-full of marshmallow fluff stuffed inside their hard chocolate shell. Depending who you are, these will be either the least or most appealing things ever.
3. Covent Garden (Best Decorations, Most Crowded)- Look at those bells! So big! Look at those ornaments! Also big! Weigh out the risk of snapping some pics of those massive ceiling decorations (pictured), if it means stopping the entire flow of foot traffic behind you. Get that Instagram content fast or face the mob!
2. Christmas By the River (Best Food)- The fact that this market is almost entirely food is both a blessing and a curse. From rainbow-colored burgers to fried bananas, the amount of options can be a bit overwhelming. My advice is to divide and conquer. Everybody gets something different, everybody shares (the caveat: this does not work with greedy people).
1. Leicester Square (Coziest, Most Christmas-y, Most German)- If Leicester Square’s dubious West End ticket resale stands or probably-a-money-laundering-scheme American candy shops didn’t tickle your fancy, Leicester’s Christmas market is sure to! Whether you are craving an authentic German bratwurst or just a whiff of that impossible-to-describe, but universally known “Christmas smell,” this gated-in market is the place for you!
I wish you all blessings this Advent season!
Cheers, Joe