Hi from Manila! I flew here straight from Dublin, and am continuing my journey with an internship at the U.S. Embassy. It’s much hotter in Manila, and somehow rains even more. It’s truly a cosmic shift, flying from Western Europe to Southeast Asia, from Europe’s most expensive city to a developing megacity with over five times as many people as all of Ireland. That said, I think at a certain point the difference between places and things fades into a motion blur. It’s not that I don’t care about leaving places, or that nothing I leave behind matters to me, but having spent most of my life moving around, I process departures before I even arrive. Like I said before, end of a job, end of a summer, end of a story.

I’ll probably never be in Dublin, or Ireland as a whole, ever again, or at least not for a few decades. It’s both far from and unconnected to everything in my life, except one Irish-American dual citizen friend. Virtually everything I saw and did there will be sequestered from the rest of my life, which is weird to think about. Experiences which exist in isolation like that tend to be pretty influential in ways you only realize after the fact. Even now, I’m in Manila unconnected to my “real life” stateside, so I’ll have a lot to process when I get back to planet Earth.

To be completely upfront, I don’t plan on rerouting my career path towards housing law. I appreciate everything the Legal Unit at the Department of Housing did for me, but I know this was a one and done deal. But I didn’t come to Ireland thinking it would change my professional life in that way. First and foremost, I want to highlight what this experience meant to me personally. I am extremely privileged to have met so many great people, not just from Pitt, but from UT Knoxville, Colorado State, UVA, and so many others. If you guys are reading this, you know who you are. All love. I’ve noticed I’ve always performed better academically after returning from an internship. I think something about tasting “the real world” pushes me to work harder to achieve that. I’m hoping that trend keeps up through my senior year, when I’ll be putting my first full-time job applications out into the world. It’s hard to say now how I’ve grown academically without putting it into practice. However, I’m hopeful. My time in Dublin was probably my first interaction with college that I’ve really enjoyed, and puts me in a good frame of mind for my last year of college. Professionally, I’m extremely grateful for the mentorship of my supervisors and teammates at The Department. Despite being extremely busy with an unprecedented housing crisis and substantial housing related legislative efforts, they found time to not just direct me, but meet me for coffees, lunches, and offsite trips, a model in how to properly lead subordinates that I hope I’ll be given the opportunity to replicate.

When I come back to Pittsburgh, I’ll certainly bring a newfound appreciation for large beverages, abundant water fountains, and 7-11 hot dogs, not that I don’t appreciate Centra sausage rolls. I’ll also bring a profound appreciation for all the work we never see. In the Department of Housing, I saw a fragile and flawed, but deeply necessary system held up by true professionals who knew they would never get a statue in St. Stephen’s Green or a plaque on O’Connell Street. Humble competence has been a trait I’m fortunate to have seen demonstrated throughout my life, and every time I see someone quietly do their job excellently, with no expectation of exceptional reward or recognition, I’m inspired, and Dublin was no exception. I can only hope to uphold that virtue in my academic and professional career.

As I said a million times in Dublin, the wheel in the sky keeps on turning. I’ve already swapped the LEAP card out of my wallet to make room for peso notes, (the orientation lied to me. Nowhere in Dublin was cash only. Manila on the other hand…) put a new badge on my lanyard, and gone from the 39A bus to a jeepney. In three weeks time, I’ll be back on Fifth Avenue walking towards Cathy, sipping on a Monster Energy from Side-Aid. The circumstances we find ourselves in never last, but the lessons we take from them always do. It’s been a good summer.

Edward Paras, signing off.