I have been at the University for exactly one month today. So I've been here long enough to get over the initial excitement, the initial homesickness, the initial impressions. It feels slightly more like this is real life now. Slightly.
My flatmates/the world as I know it here in my bubble at the University of East Anglia, have discovered -- or perhaps I have discovered what has actually been known for a while -- my inadequacy in all aspects of the kitchen, ie. cooking, decision-making related to cooking, etc, cutting food, etc.. So okay, maybe I have a phobia of the kitchen, created by some long-repressed past trauma: when I was little I tried to look at the hamburgers that were sizzling on the stove top (first fat chick move age five, take note) and I burned my chin on the pan.. So yes, now whenever I approach a cooking related situation my chin hurts, it's true. Psychological trauma aside, in the spirit of having my best interests at heart, no one seems content to let well enough alone and allow me to eat pasta with Tesco's "pasta sauce" for days on end. Eventually, I've given in and applied for the help of my mother via skype. I'm going to really actually try, and I'll update at the end of the week with results.
Some areas I have been more successful in include writing - my creative writing class is excellent. Last week I spent much of class describing a toothpick on display in the basement of a character who obsessively collected objects that an unknowing man of her dreams had touched or used. Also an eccentric board game inventor who confesses to a priest about illegally downloading celtic music, but not about lying to his girlfriend. Our upcoming assignment due in a few weeks is a few thousand words of interior monologue, which I am looking forward to with a kind of strange excitement like I'm plotting doing something wrong. This sensation doesn't say much for my sanity, but I'm enjoying it.
Also I'm fascinated by having so much time, and getting to figure out what I want to do with my time when it's my own. For most of my life, I have I spent my weeks in always in Massachusetts, always in class, always swimming, working at the Boys & Girls club, doing Arlington, fulfilling my townie dreams, etc.. The demands on my free time come from the friends I want to spend it with, which means I don't usually think about what I want to be doing as a separate thing from what everyone else wants. This might be coming off wrong and sound ungrateful, but it's been so different for me to figure out what I want by myself, and I really like it.
In less self-reflective news, I'm getting to read J.D. Salinger's letters that are archived here on Wednesday, his real letters. Yeah bro!! I booked my trip to Scotland to visit Becca in March which will be completely amazing. And, there's Harry Potter themed club night at the LCR this week. Picture the night the sixth movie came out and we rolled up to AMC Burlington in a mini van, me wearing my mother's graduation robes from when she received her Doctorate in Library Sciences... times a million. Yes, yes yes.
I have no other news for now. xx
Lisaaa!
ReplyDelete1. I liked your London entry. I literally think I'm singlehandedly supporting their national economy right now. It's painful.
2. I understand what you mean about figuring out what you want to do as a separate human being so much. It's been one of my struggles since I've been here, to make sure I get do the things I want to do. We'll get better at it :)