deux semaines après

So, I'm over two weeks into this new adventure and am feeling decidedly less freaked out about it. Though I really don't have many (read: any) real friends yet and I've resigned myself to the fact that 95% of my weekends will look like something like this...

what've we got here...
1. The Origin of Species
2. The Works of Sir Walter Scott
3. The Vindication of the Rights of Men / Women
4. Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads
5. Collection of Coleridge
6. Wordsworth's The Prelude
7 and 8. The complete works of Percy Shelley / William Wordsworth
9. an old book of 17th century poetry from my undergrad that I will have no use for. Goddamit.

... At least I feel good when I'm reading and studying. I mean, it's hard to tell since it's only been a week, but I have to admit that I don't feel too terrible about spending 4-5 hours in the library every day. It's no Copley but it's got that lovely old book smell and it's peaceful and it even overlooks a duck pond! I trudged through Wordsworth's The Prelude and Shelley's Alastor; Or, The Spirit of Solitude today and afterwards I felt a sense of accomplishment that I haven't really felt in a long while, something that I think I've been missing (an intellectual challenge? Is that what that was?).

It's all well and good to be exiling myself to the library everyday and staying inside my head about these books but the real challenge will be the lectures and trying to keep up with all these yuppies. Most of the people in my modules just finished their undergraduate degrees two months ago so I feel like an old fart who's out of touch with most of the online resources and research journals. I only have vague recollections of reading The Picture of Dorian Gray in freshman year. No wait, or was it sophomore year? Actually no, I think I'm thinking of Moll Flanders... 

Crap. I'm really REALLY hoping I'm not totally in over my head on this.

étrangère à nouveau

So here we are. At long last, I'm sitting in my new (but actually quite old) house writing a blog from the UK. I wish I could say I was filled with excitement and optimism about this new adventure but it's hard to shake the feeling that.... Oh yes, I've made another huge mistake.

In truth, I've been waiting to do this big relocation for ages, having decided on doing it within my first six months in France. I've been preparing myself mentally since May of 2012, until I was told later in the summer that it wasn't possible and I had no choice but to defer my acceptance. Though devastated at first, I came around to the idea that delaying one year had it's benefits (spending more time with Jon, duh)

This summer though seemed to drag on and on as work was very slow and I always knew at the back of my mind that come September, things would be a-changing. I tried hanging on to every fun moment, the sunny Toulousain days that I knew I'd miss terribly, savoring the pastries and cheeses, sleepy Sundays at home. Excited as I was about changing things in my life, I anticipated the inevitable settling in period and then slowly and very surely, a pit in the seat of my stomach started growing, getting the better of me over time.

After spending two weeks with my mom--one in Toulouse and one here in the UK getting set up--I'm now finally HERE! And alone! And as amazing and life-changing and totally worth I'm sure it will be... Right now.... It's depressing. It smells weird. There was a spider in my bed, which is not, in fact, my bed but I have to sleep in it nonetheless.

Tomorrow I have an induction meeting where I'll meet people and get my bearings and I hope that, little by little, I'll be able to chip away at this heavy pit until I feel a little more normal. Little by little.

ce que j'ai appris à lisbonne

What I learned from spending one week in Lisbon, is that one week is just enough to leave you feeling like the time was abruptly yanked from under your sun-tanned feet and was over just after the realization that you could give up everything now and just live there forever.

Next time, definitely more than one week. I'm going back, and soon. Até logo, Lisboa!

j'ai fait une grosse erreur.

I'm leaving for a new adventure in approximately two months and as I tend to do when I get anxious and stressed in the face of a big change, I put off anything and everything to do with making the change possible. To fill you in, I'm going to be doing a Master's in English literature starting at the end of September in the north of England. Naturally then, I have yet to purchase plane tickets, confirm accommodation, take care of admin stuff, choose modules etc etc. At this point, I'm not really sure whether I'm more nervous because I haven't done anything yet or because doing it makes it more real. The few times I've sat down and searched for places to live or how to sign up for such-and-such, it only takes a couple minutes of looking on google maps street view or browsing course descriptions for anxiety to set in. I hastily close my laptop as the cursor hovers over unfinished emails and I resign myself to reading robot stories on my kindle. 

Thinking back to how long it took to adapt to life here, I remember how stressed and weary and scared I was those first six months. Though moving to an anglophone country seems decidedly easier to take on, I still have this dreadful feeling that I can't really know what I'm getting myself into until I'm really in the thick of it. I envision myself having a biiiig Gob moment. 

"get rid of the seaward!"

Except that the official acceptance letter has been mailed and this is happening, FOR REAL this time (echoes of all the whinging I did last summer about my not being able to go). In the wise words of Dan Savage, just gotta ovary-up and do it! YES! Doing it! Right after this chapter.