je viens... d'où?

So, here we are in week six of my master's program, already wondering how soon I'll be able to discern the light at the end of the tunnel. The thing is, while I enjoy one of my modules immensely, the other one can suck it as far as I'm concerned. This makes it decidedly difficult to get motivated for spending several hours in the library reading political pamphlets and various discourses that just don't interest me. Plus, there's the fact of being alone pretty much... All the time.

And with all the hours I've spent either in the library or my bedroom staring wide-eyed at my kindle, I'm not sure how much of my objective I'm actually going to end up accomplishing. That ultimately being, to live in the UK. I think that walking through the same park on my way to one of two buildings that I frequent shouldn't really count as "living" in a place, nor does occasionally going to the co-op to stock up on my favorite gummy treats. When does the socializing part come in? In a program like this with a weep-inducing reading list, it's not really conducive to making friends or living socially and to be honest I'm finding it quite a lonely process. Besides the people I chat with on a weekly basis on the seminars or various lectures, you are forced to work alone the majority of the time.

And as far as "living" here goes (if we can call it that), on the rare occasion that I'm chatting with someone new, I'm finding the question "where are you from" more and more tricky to answer. Where am I from?

When I was in France, I could say that I was from the U.S., but had been living in Toulouse for X number of years. So, it was implicit that I had spent my life in the U.S. but my life was now in France. Telling people here I'm from Arizona doesn't feel like the whole truth; it inevitably leads to questions like "how do you like being so far away from home?" or "do you miss the US?" or "where did you do your undergraduate degree?" -- the answers to those questions don't necessary concern themselves with my life in AZ. Is this something that happens to everyone as they grow up? When does your hometown stop being your hometown?

Let's finish on a high note and look at a nice picture of a rainbow I took the other day. I've never known a place where you had to have both sunglasses and a umbrella... At the same time...