On Being Alive

I don't have anything to report, not really, so if you're looking at this and expecting a long in depth description of the nothings that I did while I wandered around in Cardiff on Wednesday, you can stop reading.  The problem is, I have again found the problem of having little to say about the trips I make.

Okay, so Cardiff wasn't meant to be a big excursion.  I didn't leave the St. David's shopping area except to go to the national museum.  And while that was interesting, there's not much to say.  It was a museum.  Better than I'd expected, not as good as the Natural History Museum.

I suppose the only thing to say about Cardiff really was that I thought it would be a good idea to wear Converse sneakers.  I figured it wouldn't matter, since I was only shopping, and I wanted to look a bit more fashionable.  Much as I love my sketchers, they're not exactly what one might call "fashionable."  So now I'm sitting in my living room, feet elevated, arches wrapped, wondering if tomorrow I'll be able to walk to the store and buy taco shells for cinco de mayo.  Such is life.

But I feel like writing a blog, feel like sharing with you the interesting thing that has been happening in my brain lately.

Earlier in the year I was staring some serious financial difficulties in the face.  Now, I am happy to report that I have saved enough to make, not only a trip to Germany to visit Lea, but also to stop in London and Paris along the way.  The tickets are booked, the hostel search has begun, and in less than a month I will be Europe bound.  It's more exciting than I can possibly put into words.  But it has also led to some interesting contemplation on my part.

For years I was sort of wandering through the education system, listening to teachers who liked to tell me that I wouldn't get anywhere, and maybe with the attitude I had, they were right.  But I wouldn't have had that attitude if I had more confidence, and constantly hearing about my continual failure wasn't exactly bolstering my confidence very much.  I was a dreamer, and dreamers have trouble paying attention to things they are told they have to pay attention to.  Sure, every so often we were given interesting books to read, poems to write, drawings to make.  I didn't hate all of school, but when a math problem was put in front of us and everyone else was determinedly scribbling away on their papers while I sat there completely baffled, I wasn't exactly a fan.  When the questions were about how George has ten apples and Miranda has eight pears and Bernie has six lemons, so how many sandwiches can their mother make?  And the answer is sixteen.  Just sixteen.  How the hell did they get that answer?  You can imagine why I struggled.

I went through school believing that, if I was lucky, I might snag a job.  If I was lucky, maybe I might marry rich.  Because if left to my own devices, I would be living with my parents until I died.

I finally dragged myself into an amount of self confidence at continuation school, where the teachers never once said I was a failure, even though I was literally there because I was a failure.  No, those teachers were the ones who smiled when I got confused and asked me to explain the problem as I understood it, and then help me to understand it properly.  These were the teachers who gave me credit for the work I wanted to do, the work I was good at, but still pushed me to do more, to do better, to do everything and anything, and who encouraged me to reach for something better than a job I could get, or marrying rich.  According to them, I should get a job not only that I could get, but that I wanted to get.  And marrying rich?  Really?  Don't be so prosaic.

Because of them, and because of the confidence they helped me find, I'm sitting in the living room of my apartment in Swansea, Wales.  I have a trip to Europe in less than a month, I have a manuscript finished, another started, and six more in my brain just waiting to get out.  I'm wearing a dressing gown I bought at Primark, and I say things like "naught" in everyday conversation.  I had a breakfast of a scone with clotted cream and strawberry jam (probably why I needed to go to cardiff in search of a new jacket, since my old, light weight jacket no longer fits.  Again, such is life).

Whenever I say that I owe this to my old teachers, people say I should give myself more credit.  And I do, I am not in any way saying that I'm not here because of me.  I am here because I have worked hard every day for the last eight or so years.  I am here because I put my nose to the grindstone, and though I've spent some time deciding what I want to do, I am here because I pulled my grades up and dedicated my mind to study and work.  I'm here because I believe in myself, and I would never have believed in myself if someone else hadn't believed in me first.  So do I believe that my 12th grade teachers deserve a bit of credit?  Definitely.

The thing is, now I'm sitting here and thinking about this trip I've planned.  I am going backpacking in Europe.  Not an extensive trip, but a trip nonetheless.  I'm in hostels for six days and on planes, trains, and automobiles (read: busses) for 36 hours in total.  I am twenty five years old, studying abroad, attending a real, big kid college, with international friends, running for president of an English Honours Society, have written a novel, going to write more, and going to be published (come hell or high water).  After a quarter of a century of being alive, I finally know where I am, and where I'm going, and that it's where I want to be and with the people I want to be with.  I have one best friend whom I love more than life, with whom distance will never matter, another best friend whom I love more than life, and with whom time will never matter.  I have a family that supports me, faith that strengthens me, a mind that will never fail me, and a hope that sustains me.

And now there's this little girl who pops her head up every so often and looks at this life.  There's the sixth grade me who didn't think she was worth it, who sincerely believed everything that witch of a teacher told her, and she sees these things that I'm doing, and she weeps.  Someone please go back in time and tell her how her life will turn out.

I am going to Europe.  I am going and I'm not looking back, not considering the money that I'm spending, the debt I'm potentially accruing because I know that it's worth it.  I'll return to my school and write my book and finish my degree and go to grad school and get a phd and become a professor and I am never, ever, ever looking back at those teachers and those jerks who used to say that I was nothing.  I wonder if they feel big, if they feel stronger for their criticism, if making themselves feel better and stronger than a small, lost little girl, has given them strength, and if by reclaiming my birthright, I am also reclaiming that strength.  I wonder if they'll see this blog and think that they've done right by me, convince themselves that all I needed was reverse psychology and that a drive to prove them wrong was what gave me strength to begin with, and in that way, they'll convince themselves that they had a hand in this strength that I've found.  On the off chance that they do read this, I want them to know that they're wrong.  That if it were up to them, I would be working at Noah's bagels in my home town, asking if they want lox on their bagel, or just a hefty serving of misanthropy on the side.

But I'm not.  I'm a student at a university in Wales.  I am a student at a university in California.  I am a student studying English, chewing Chaucer for breakfast and Chinua Achebe for lunch.  I write blogs and novels and poems and I speak with the strength I have found in myself and read in Maya Angelou, Sandra Cisneros, and Toni Morrison.  I am a person who is capable of standing up for what she believes in, then buying a ticket to Paris.  I'm a person who isn't afraid of failing anymore, you can't scare me with your threats, because failure is just a lesson and a lesson is just a day in this life.  Life is risks, and risks fail, and without those failures we never learn.  So let me fail, let me learn, and in learning, let me live.  I'm tired of just being alive.  I want to live.

I'm going to London.  And then Paris.  And then Berlin.  And from there?  Who knows.  But for now I'll look forward to that trip and imagine the days after it, when I will look back, smile, and remember that life is made up of moments and moments have to be lived.  So if you don't see me, look to the horizon.  I'll be there.  Don't worry, I'll write.

School blues

Oh, school.  Ooooh school.

The reason I'm here.

I'm signed up for three classes this semester: Grammar, Postcolonial Literature, and Chaucer.

If you know me at all... that's a pretty hefty list.  I am not a medieval literature person.  I am not a fan of Chaucer, I don't think he's funny.  I just think he's confusing and hard to read and going to lead to a very very big essay at the end of the semester.

Grammar...  Grammar sounds like good times, right?  It's just grammar!  Ali has great grammar, so this should be totally easy, right?  WRONG.  Any English student who is reading this  and has taken a grammar class knows how difficult a class it is.  It's like grammar to the max, grammar to the end of time.  The professor has just thrown all of this information at us on slides that only half explain what the hell we're supposed to be learning, so we're frantically trying to take cohesive notes and then suddenly the slides are gone and we're onto a new word class.  And then on top of it, she throws an exam at us in the third week.  What?  I have three grammar textbooks open next to me and a sneaking suspicion that a poor mark is in my future.  Commiseration in the comments, please, ladies?

Postcolonial is the most interesting class I'm taking.  We're reading seven books this semester, the first of which I'm meant to give a presentation about on Friday.  She told us not to worry about it, it's no big deal.  Then when I went to talk to her about it, she told me to treat it as a term paper that I will be presenting.  I asked if she meant that it should have something akin to a thesis whereupon she said, and I quote, "Oh, right.  You're American.  So you don't really know how to write a term paper."  I may have thought something very not nice to her at that moment.  As someone who hasn't gotten below a high B on any term papers here yet, I take that as an insult.  Plus, you don't know me.  Where do you get off informing me about my capabilities as a student before you've ever seen my work.  So in other news, I basically have to put on the best damn presentation that teacher's ever seen or walk home with my tail between my legs.  And of course, my presentation is the day after my horrible grammar exam.  Kill me please.

Interestingly, I opened my email after starting this blog post to find an apology from her. So that's something, I guess.  I'm going to write back and ask for a meeting on Wednesday and I have a revision session planned with the other girl giving a presentation on Friday, so I think I'll be able to muddle through it.

But aside from that presentation, it is the most interesting topic.  The class examines the effect of colonization (or, as I'm supposed to spell it here, colonisation) upon those colonized.  Among the books we're reading are Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (that's the one I'm presenting on) and Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga.   I've only just started Nervous Conditions, although on top of everything else, I'm supposed to have it finished by Thursday (did I mention, "kill me now"?), but I have finished Achebe's book, and I do love it.

Anyway, I did promise a second blog about classes to follow my blog about my birthday, so, as promised.  I have another one I want to write about traveling and sightseeing, so there is another blog on the horizon.  I would say check back next week, but... maybe give me another week or two before I post anything else.  I'm pretty much going to be sleeping at the library this week...

A London Advanture

People talk about falling in love all the time.  They talk about the way your heart leaps, the way that it flutters in your chest and the gut wrenching leap of excitement when you are given a surprise, albeit wonderful, moment of unexpected joy.  They talk about smiling all the time, the feeling of supreme contentment that fills you to the top until all you want is to sit and watch the world go by.

Twice in my life before now I have felt that rush, that thrill, of love.  The first time was with a boy a long time ago.  The second time was with San Francisco.  And now, now it is London.

Okay, so I literally just wrote a love letter about London.  That's weird.  Well, that's me.

In all seriousness, though.  I fell in love with San Francisco a long time ago.  I just enjoyed it, walking around, being surrounded by the most fascinating people from all over the world.  If for one moment I believed that I could make a life for myself in San Francisco, I would be back there in a heartbeat, searching for a house in the Nopa area, going for runs in Golden Gate Park, skipping rocks on Baker Beach.  But San Francisco and I were never meant to be.  And weirdly, it wasn't even about the money.  Sure, it was expensive, but I worked hard enough and I was focused and careful enough, so I was fine.  For one moment in my life, I wasn't concerned about money.  But for the love of all that is holy, I hated the people.  Not the everyday people walking past me, I loved them, irrationally.  I loved their stupid hair and their ridiculous clothing and their weird accents and bad smells because it meant that I was in San Francisco.  I loved them in the way that you love an ugly dog who bites when it's scared but cuddles you the rest of the time.  You love it because, on some level, deep down, it loves you too.

Well, I didn't expect to fall in love with London.  Not really.  I liked it well enough on my first trip, when I went to Kensington Palace and snapped photos of it from the open top of a tour bus.  But really, that was a view from the outside looking in.  It was like looking at a painting and admiring the landscape.  How lovely, you think, as you pause to gaze at it and acknowledge the work that went into it, and then you move on to the next painting in the exhibit, and you don't think much about each painting, you just let the overall effect of the thing rush over you.  Well, that was my first trip.

But then I went back.  This time I went with a friend, and this time I didn't take a bus tour, or wind up sick as a dog on my third day.  I also stayed in a much nicer hotel.  Don't get me wrong, the first hotel was nice enough, but for what I paid? Maybe not as nice as it could have been.

We stayed in Earl's Court, very near to the tube station.  It took a moment of remembering San Francisco and New York to get a hang of the underground, but once I'd figured it out it was cake.  The first day we arrived we settled into the hotel and set up our happy little Christmas tree.  Then we hit the shops.  Of course: London? That means shopping, right?  Well, it was raining and we weren't familiar with the area so there was a lot of wandering and admiring of the Christmas decorations and not a whole lot of actual shopping.  We did get to see Hamley's and Selfridges, even if we didn't really buy anything.

Then unfortunately when we started the second day we were both pretty exhausted, so it was a fairly lazy day.  None of the museums we were hoping to see were open and the Botanical Gardens were booked until kingdom come, so it was just off to Buckingham Palace where we got to see the tail end of the changing of the guards.  We were going to walk to Kensington from there (where did I get the idea that THAT was feasible??) but then this sort of downpour happened.  I don't think my friend appreciated it as much as I did.  To him it was just rain, whatever, get out of it for the worst of it, then move on.

But I was fascinated.  We were walking through Green Park when it started drizzling, and by the time we's reached Hyde Park Corner it was pouring.  I mean, it was a proper downpour.  Only, this was in London, so it was sideways.  My rain coat is only a short length, so I wanted to get out of it.  We made for a War Memorial, heads ducked against the onslaught, so I didn't immediately see what was inside.

For one thing, there was a war memorial inside, truly amazing with beautiful sculptures of soldiers standing on a plinth beneath an open sky.  Okay, there's one problem about what was inside, it turned out not to be fully covered.  There were pillars and a bit of a roof, but it was open in the middle, so not much against sideways rain, but it was good enough for a moment.  It was also freezing inside.  Unfortunately, it wasn't just the rain that was against us, but the air itself was frigid.

But there were also people inside.  The whole place was packed with other people sheltering from the storm, and in that weird way that we sometimes find ourselves connected to total strangers, here was this group of people from all over the world all sheltering together in a war memorial of all things.  And everyone was looking around, in awe of this mighty weather, of the extreme power of torrential rain, not only to soak you to the bone in icy water, but also to bring people together.

Of course, it was also a problem, because there wasn't much space for us to stand and anyway, it seemed silly to expect it to stop when the rain was predicted for the whole week.  So we waited out the worst of it and then soldiered out into the downpour again.  It took about two minutes more of walking to have me soaked to the skin from the waist down, and about a minute after that before the rain completely stopped.  Of course.

The next few days were still good fun.  We briefly saw a christmas market, shopped on Oxford Street some more, rode the tubes, ate at a pub.  Twice.

Christmas was good fun.  Once we got past the fact that everything was shut and nearly all the tours were booked for the day, we started making plans.  Even the tubes were closed!  We had to call for a car, which cost £25 one way.  Still, we went on a walking tour that went to several of Charles Dickens' most popular locations all while learning about his life and writing.  It was interesting, if freezing cold and a bit dull.  Then we went back to the hotel and had christmas tea at our hotel restaurant, which was surprisingly good, although the poor woman working didn't know what a yorkshire pudding was and referred to it as "a little pie," which was a bit misleading.

On boxing day we were misinformed that the Natural History Museum would be opened, so we decided to go there.  I was crushed when it was closed, but we decided to go to Sherlock Holmes instead.  Then on the way there we decided to swing by Kings Cross and see Platform 9 3/4.  So long story short on that front, London basically closes from Christmas Eve until the day after Boxing Day, because even the train station was closed.  Sherlock Holmes wasn't, though, so we went in that direction only to find a line as long as the street which wasn't moving.  Instead we went and spent tons of money on silly souvenirs and wandered down to Westminster where I bought a gargoyle and named him Watson.  He's on my bedside table looking so adorable I can hardly handle it.

After that we went on a Jack the Ripper walking tour which was sufficiently creepy, and much less cold than Charles Dickens, since I came prepared in layered stockings, four jumpers under my coat, earmuffs, a hat, and a tightly tied scarf.

That was basically the end of the London Adventure, to be honest.  My friend left for the airport around six-thirty in the morning and I went back to bed until ten.  Then I packed my bags and checked out with my eyes set on Natural History Museum and the Victoria and Albert.  I waited in line for NHM for about half an hour, but it was worth it in the end, although I missed the dinosaurs because the room was so claustrophobic and the line ridiculously long.  I knew if I waited I wouldn't get to see any of V&A, so I skipped it.

V&A was lovely, though I was so tired at that point that I was getting confused about what was where.  After about thirty minutes of aimlessly wandering I realized I hadn't eaten anything other than a handful of christmas candy, so I headed for the dining room and decided to have tea.  TEA.  In the V&A.  Earl Grey tea and a raisin scone with cream and strawberry jam.  It was delicious in the way that I could actually feel my coronaries constricting.  I felt so proper, sitting at my table reading my pamphlet and having my tea.  While I was walking it to the table after ordering, a woman pulled her daughter out of my way and said, "look out for the nice lady with her tea" and I just couldn't help but smile at the idea of having tea at the V&A.

Once I'd had something to eat, it was a bit easier to figure out how to maneuver the rooms and exhibits.  I can't decide if the Ironworks, the stained glass, the pond, or the ancient history room was my favorite.  I think probably the pond, which I cannot explain, but I'll post my flicker account once I've uploaded photos so you can see it.


The weird thing is, after all this, I hadn't actually done all that much in London.  Still, as I climbed onto the bus I knew that sudden and gut wrenching feeling, like I was being taken away from a lover.  There's no real way to describe it other than to say that somehow, somewhere in the day to day goings-on of my vacation, I fell in love with London.  I could see myself in a few years sitting at a Costa and writing or standing on a tube, fighting my way through the doors to the exit with the quiet background chime warning me to "mind the gap."  Of course, I won't, because in the same way that I know San Francisco and I aren't meant to be, I know that London and I aren't meant to be either.  This year is wonderful and I wouldn't change a thing. If I had the option to relive this last year, I wouldn't do anything different.  But I can't stand being so far from my friends and family, from California and San Francisco and redwood trees.  So as much as I love London, it is more of a winter fling than a deep abiding love.  I'll always remember my times in London with fondness, of the Globe Theatre and Oxford Street and walking tours.  I'll look back in fondness, but I will never regret leaving it either.

Anyway, I think that is about all there is to say on the subject of London.  I have several other blogs queued, so keep checking back.  I'll post when my flicker account is up and running with a link, so you can see all my lovely travel photos so far (spoiler: there aren't that many, since google+ apparently decided that it wouldn't actually upload any of them despite autobackup, and my phone crashed, so half my photos are just gone).

Until next time, my fearless followers!

On Oceans (Scroll down for photos)

For the entirety of my adult life, I have lived by the ocean.  It isn't something that I did intentionally, but rather, it just happened.  I chose a college in Santa Cruz, not for the beach or its proximity to it, the ocean wasn’t part of my planning at all.  I was going for the school, for the program, and because of friend of mine said she would go with me.  When that friend ended up going somewhere else, I had already begun making plans.  There was no backing out at that point.  Cabrillo wasn’t just my first choice, it was my only choice.  In all honesty, the reason I chose Cabrillo probably had to do with the fact that it was a junior college I knew about that was away from home.  Mostly, that it was away from home.

And then after Santa Cruz, it was San Francisco, not for any particular reason either, other than that I wanted to live in a big city.  In California, that means Sacramento (ick) or Los Angeles (double ick, especially when you consider the proximity to family.  There’s this urge that happens when you’re young to get as far away from any blood relation as physically possible.  Also, I hate LA).  That left San Francisco.  And at this point, yes, the ocean came into my thinking.  Id been living on the coast for three years, it was important to me to maintain that bond.  Because theres something that happened to me on the ocean. 

I had moved to Aptos, to a small apartment about a ten minute walk from the waves.  Over the past two years, I had formed a bond with the ocean.  Any time I wasn’t feeling particularly good about myself, anytime I was down or lonely or upset, or when I just needed some time in my head, I would go to the beach.  Usually Seabright, because of its proximity to where I was living.  I walked to New Brighton a few times while living in Soquel.  I biked to Capitola a few times, when I was actually biking.  It was just there, not something we did very often, just something that was open if I was bored I had an afternoon off, or I had that constricting feeling in my chest like I just needed to get to the ocean. 

But one day, after I had moved into my apartment in Aptos, I walked down to the beach.  There were two paths you could take, one which followed the cliff to Seacliff State Park, and another path which snuck down the side of the cliff, switchbacking across a cordaroy path of broken stairs and rocks beneath damp trees and greenery so fresh and beautiful, you might forget that there were roads not two minutes away from you.  I was afraid the first time I walked that path, not sure where it was leading or who else might be on it.  A few runners went past me. 

But eventually (and by eventually I mean after about three minutes) it let out onto a bike path that in turn led to Seacliff beach.  It wasn’t a particularly sunny day.  There may have even been a bit of fog, though that may be the fog of a memory almost four years old.  I remember the sky was orange and pink, and that the tide was so far out and the beach so flat and smooth and glassy that you could see the reflection of the sky in it, so that the whole place was awash with red and gold.

I skipped rocks for awhile, my shoes and sweatshirt discarded some fifty feet away, forgotten.  I collected rocks, filling my hands until I couldn’t feel them for the cold, and I flung them into the ocean and watched as they skipped and jumped across the choppy water.  I learned to time my tosses so that they perfectly coincided with the flat of the wave, so that the rocks wouldn’t be swallowed by waves.

I rolled up my jeans and wandered into the water, letting it touch my toes, keeping it below my ankles.  And then up to my ankles, then the back of my calves, then my knees.  Up to my thighs.  I waded in until I was waist deep in the ocean, not caring that it was freezing, or that it was getting dark and therefore colder, or that I was fully dressed.  Not caring that I couldn’t swim, or that people were watching.  Because for some reason, each wave that crashed against my legs felt like a touch from some unknown… whatever.  Felt like arms welcoming me home.  Felt like love and comfort. 

That was the beginning of it.  From then on, I went as often as I could.  I don’t think there was ever a week that passed when I wasn’t down at the waters edge, skipping stones or just walking.  I tried running for a bit, but, less face it, that was a ship I was never meant to sail.  Harbor porpoises were my constant companion as well, their little fins peaking out like little waves from another world.  Sometimes even dolphins would show up, moving through the water.

I remember saying goodbye to the ocean, as well.  I went in shorts and a bathing suit, I threw myself into that water like a lab chasing a ball.  I felt the water around me like a blanket, holding me and wishing me well, sending me off. 

I went to the ocean in San Francisco after my first week.  I thought I would feel that kinship again.  I hoped I would, anyway.  I knew I would need it.  I had come to rely upon it, upon that constant companion of the faithful ocean, always there for me.  I went to bakers beach, took off my shoes and walked down the freezing beach to the waves.  I let it touch my toes. 

But it wasn’t the same.  It was just water.  There was not that familiar feeling of being greeted by an old friend.  Only the sound of the waves, the cold of them.  The water felt greasy, it smelled like oil, and it made foam that I didn’t even want to touch.  There was no soul. 

I didn’t go the ocean very often while I lived there, only occasionally if I was going for a walk and my feet carried me there.  I went to the bridge a few times to watch the dolphins.  My favorite game was to stand at the railing and wait for a tourist to approach.  Once they were close enough, I would beckon them over and point at the dolphins frisking down below.  Then, once I had heard their excited murmur, I would walk away and not look back. 

And then I moved to Chico.  Landlocked.  Yellow.  Soulless in a way, though nowhere near as bad as Baker beach had been.  I took every opportunity I could to visit the ocean, even Baker Beach, anything for a view of the sea.  Anything if I could just glimpse a view of that friend I had come to know so well, only to abandon. 

And now I am here.  In Swansea. 

I went to the beach for the first time a week or so ago.  I just walked down after class, wearing sneakers and long jeans and socks and a backpack.  I took my shoes off, even though it was freezing, and stuffed my socks into their toes.  I walked down to the water, which was at high tide.  I had noticed while walking past that when the tide goes out here, the beach grows almost a quarter of a mile.  It is massive, a wide expanse of sand and shoals as far as the eye can see. 

But on this day, the tide was in.  It was only a few moments before I was standing at the waters edge.  I wasn’t sure what was going on.  Everyone was wearing shoes.  Maybe it’s the Californian in me, but I couldn’t understand.  I wondered vaguely if there were some biting insects that might hurt me.  But I didn’t care enough, I just went on barefooted, feeling the shells under my feet, the soft shift of sand beneath me. 

I walked to the edge, right up to the very line where the water met the land, and then I stepped forward. 

The waves rushed towards me like open arms, wide and welcoming.  It didn’t matter that it was freezing.  It didn’t matter that I had never been to this beach before.  It only mattered that I was home, and this beach was welcoming me.

View from the road.

Halfway across the beach looking towards town.

Halfway looking towards the ocean.

Shoals

Some sort of weird kelp, it felt almost like fabric.

Clam diggers make these all over the beach.  If you look hard enough, you can see where he set the bucket down, lower left hand corner.

More shoals.

T-28 Hours; On Packing

I hate packing.





That is all.

T-16 Days; On Being Serious for half a second

I just read back through a few of my previous blog posts, mostly because I have given the URL of this blog to the first person who isn't related to me.  I'm terrified, because I've never had a blog before, and I don't know what people will think of it, but hey, write stuff.  Scribble a little every day, that's what Anne Lamott taught me, and I am, for once, following that advice.

These posts, I've begun to realize, have also helped me to document some of my life, which I am so good at NOT doing.  For being a writer, that's pretty much like a dog saying they don't much care for fetch.  There are those of us who struggle with daily journaling, just as there are dogs who struggle with fetch, and some dogs who just don't fancy it at all.  That's not entirely the case with me, I do like journaling, but without perspective I always have the trouble of coming back and finding what I've written to be trite and uninteresting.  Who cares about the simple everyday goings on of a twenty-something with no social life?

Sure, there are those twenty somethings who have entirely interesting social lives, who go out and do things and can tell you all about sex and the big city, style, intrigue, drama, gardening, painting, and whatever manner of hobbies that they happen to possess.  Even my revered Anne Lamott writes about writing.  She gets away with it, because she's a published writer and when she writes about writing its interesting and informative.  When I write about writing it sounds like a squirrel on crack with a pencil telling you to write a term paper on the merits of squirrel barking.  Or that weird double tap thing they do when they see you looking at them.

Please consider the last portion of that paragraph as an example of why I do not write about writing.

The thing is, I never know what to write about.  And here suddenly is a reason for me to write, every day, without end:  I am following my dream.

In reading through those past few blogs, I've remembered little moments I would otherwise have forgotten, remembered feelings I would have never thought about again.  Almost sixty days ago I was terrified that I had written such a low number in  my countdown, and now just look, sixteen days to go.  I have a visa, I have plans, I have money, I got through a whole month of working a boring day job, I am ready to plunge forward into the great beyond that is a Study Abroad Year.

So here I am, writing to you about the weirdness that I am and the wilds that are to come.  Hopefully I'll be able to tell you about all the good friends I am making, the slightly pompous locals who turn their noses up at foreigners, the kind locals who are willing to explain the me what a TV license is and how I can get one, the weird food and good beer, the sheep, the downs, the highlands, the moors, about everything English, and then everything German, French, Italian, Spanish, Czech, Swiss, and Dutch.  Hopefully I'll be able to take you along on this crazy, slightly by-the-seat-of-our-pants ride across the country to New York, from New York across the Atlantic Ocean, through London across the English Countryside, to a little city called Swansea.

The next year for me is fraught with exciting potential, terrifying possibilities, and maybe, occasionally, a good blog post.