The Precipice

Well, I have just checked in to Virgin Atlantic online and they tell me it is 3 days, 22 hours until my flight. YIKES. I've requested my vegetarian meal and am starting to freak out just a little over baggage, since they tell me I can only bring one carry on and I was pretty much counting on two. This could get interesting, but I should be okay because, unlike for my trip to Prague, I am only bringing minimal toiletries since I know at least I will be able to read the labels at the shops in England. I had this idea that if I tried to buy shampoo in the Czech Republic and I couldn't understand what it was saying that I'd end up with some kind of crazy volumizing shampoo and would never again regain control of my hair. But my mom is helping me pack and hopefully I will somehow, miraculously manage to get my life minus toiletries into two 50lb suitcases.

As much as I am looking forward to this, I am also starting to get nervous and early-onset homesickness. I already know I am going to miss all the nice things about home, and it has just hit me that despite all my previous travels , this time I really am going to be on my own.

However, as I was contemplating leaving this place for a while, I started to realize how changed I am from just a little over two years ago, before I did any traveling, I realized how much studying abroad, both in London and in Prague has changed my life. When I first went to London in the summer of 2009, I had no idea what to expect. One of the requirements for the London course was that we keep a daily journal of our time there. As I pointed out in my first post, I've never been able to properly maintain a journal, but I did write a few entries in that Moleskine book from 2009 (fourteen, to be exact) and I just found it while going through all of my stuff and I found the first entry, from the day I bought my plane ticket to London. I've cut most of the more boring bits out for this entry, but I think it was oddly prescient:

From 4-30-09

"...I think I may be a little more excited about this trip than some others, since I haven't left the United States in over a decade. I'm not as well-traveled as most of my peers, and it's as if a whole world waits for me out there- and it does. It's just the most fascinating thing, that I am on the precipice of a life changing experience, I have an inner world-traveler inside me somewhere, and she is going to get to come out soon. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervous...but then again, I'll be damned if I'm not going to have a fabulous time...I have this grand premonition of falling in love, Maybe with the city, maybe with a person, maybe with a painting, or maybe with the bit of world I see. But, like I said, I realize that I'm on the verge of something exciting and wonderful, kind of like this journal, it's just the beginning now but hopefully, if I apply myself and work at it, it will be so much more full and complete at the end, with more adventures than I ever imagined...."

Well, it's safe to say that I pretty much failed at filling up the journal with more adventures than I ever imagined. After reading through this old, neglected journal I saw the last entry I wrote from my plane at Heathrow airport on my way back home that summer, and I laughed out loud when I read it:

From 7-18-09

"I am sitting on American Airlines flight 105 to JFK right now. I can't believe I was so shitty about keeping a journal. Well, yes I can, but I really did hope I wouldn't be."

I kid you not, and I am only including this because if I publish all this online, and delude myself into thinking that other people actually read it, maybe I will feel obligated to keep it up and be better about it. Even though I have a lifetime worth of memories from all my travels, even reading back on my dismal journal from that first summer made me smile and made it all come alive for me again, and I would love to have that forever, both for myself and to share. Now I want to make good on my 2009 promise, so the moleskine will be taking another trip across the pond with me.

But back to my point. Even then, I knew I was standing on the edge of something, that so much of who I would become hung in the balance of what I was about to experience, and I can hardly believe how much I have changed since the spring of two years ago. Once self-conscious about my lack of traveling experience, now I have gotten to travel more than most grown adults I know, the "inner world traveler" that I knew lurked inside me has most certainly come out, and she is hungry for more. As for the premonition of falling in love, I think I can certainly say that I fell in love with England, I fell in love with London, I fell in love again with the people I knew, with the people I met like June and Karen and their wonderful families, and I fell in love with the thrill of adventure. Still haven't fallen in love romantically, but maybe I need to have these individual experiences first. I can not get over how much that first trip has, in fact, changed my life. If I hadn't gone to London, I might never have reunited with June and Karen, whom I have grown to love so much. I might never have gone to Prague, and gotten to see more of Europe than I have of my own homeland. I might never have stolen a beer glass. and I almost certainly would not have been drawn to the UK Fellows program, felt the need to go back to England, and I might never have awakened my curiosity for the world beyond Long Island.

Although, as I have said, I have had a lifetime's worth of adventures already, I want to savor every drop of this moment now, because I know that once again I am standing on the precipice, and who I will become once again hangs in the balance of what I will experience. For so long after I got back from my full semester in Prague, after traveling to 11 European countries I kept thinking back to the moments when I was sitting in JFK, waiting to board my plane, before I knew that I was about to have the most incredible 5 months of my life. Part of me wanted to go back and live in that fairyland forever, just to do it all over again, and part of me wondered if it had all been just an incredible dream.

So here I am, back in the fairyland and I'm going to be pinching myself the whole time, to remind myself that it's real.

The Prep

I have never, ever written a blog post before, so please forgive me. I'm fairly annoyed with myself for not doing it the last time I traveled abroad, and I am even more annoyed with myself that I never kept a journal during college. Since I'm a fresh graduate and I am embarking on a new and exciting adventure, I figured I would try to keep one of these things not only as a personal memento of my travels and experiences, but so I can share these experiences with friends and family since I am never quite able to articulate my thoughts when people inevitably ask me about my adventures. When I was studying abroad in Prague, it usually went something like this:

Mom: so, what's new?

(me, thinking: hmm... since I last talked to you I flew to Stockholm, walked around the Swedish capital, stayed in a hostel on a boat, went to a bar made completely out of ice, spent way too much money shopping, saw the Swedish royal palaces, tried lingonberries, stole a few more beer glasses for my collection, and back in Prague I finally went inside that 500 year old church i've been looking at all semester, got good and lost on public transport and used my unparalleled map skills and lousy czech skills to find my way back to center, figured out how to get to my 5 favorite places without the subway or the tram, and I still see a castle every single day)

Me (out loud): Oh, nothing much. Sweden was cool, I bought a sweater. I'm running low on ramen noodles, I should go to the market today.

and after I came back, it usually went something like this:

Someone else: So, you just came back from a Semester in Prague? How was it?

(Me, thinking: it was incredible. amazing. life changing. wonderful. HOW COULD ANYONE NOT STUDY ABROAD? I saw so much, I learned more than I have in any other semester in college even though I rarely went to class, I had the opportunity of a lifetime and wish I could have made it last forever.)

Me, out loud: Oh, it was great. I loved it.

So, there you have it. I'm going to try to keep this up not only to make you jealous, but, in case you are curious, to try to convey a sense of what it really is like, and also, if you or someone else asks me after, maybe I'll be able to recall a good anecdote or come up with a more substantive response than "oh, it was amazing."I know that probably not all of my posts will be upbeat and perky, I know I am going to get homesick and miss my parents and my friends and my bed and my car and a currency I understand, but I really am SO excited and I think overall it is going to be a great experience. However, be forewarned: I am not good at maintaining these things. I think my record for a diary is 1 month. I'm not promising to update this daily or even weekly, but if I can get a post or two in per month I'll be very proud of myself. But once again, doing this goes against my nature. If you are curious and want to hear more, please pester me to post more often. and I mean PESTER. go ahead, be annoying (or else I might not do it).

Anywho, here's the plan: in 8 days now I'll be flying across the pond to England, where I'll be working as a History teaching fellow at Millfield School in Somerset, England. Since most people have asked, I got this position through the University of Virginia, which has a "UK Fellowship" program. Basically, UVA has a deal with several schools in the UK that agree to take a UVA student on as a teaching/coaching fellow for one year. I applied, and interviewed through UVA then they picked the finalists, sent the finalists information over to the UK schools, and those schools picked who they wanted based on application/ what department they could use an extra hand in (i.e. if Millfield had needed someone to teach Physics, I'd be unemployed right now) and somehow, luckily, Millfield picked me. I'll be working in the history department as an assistant teacher, will be an assistant coach on one of the sports teams, and will be on duty as a tutor one night a week in one of the dorms. I've told some people that the UK Fellows program is basically like Teach for America but instead of teaching to underprivileged Americans, I'll be teaching to the (mostly) very privileged of England. So yeah, that sounds bad, and, for the record, I am a VERY proud American but I still cannot wait to go and I feel so grateful to have this opportunity.

and it is ticking ever nearer... I had my graduation/ going away party this weekend and I got to see lots of friends and family whom I haven't seen in far too long. I had a great time at the party, and I think (hope) everyone else did too. and even though planning the party gave me several headaches, now is when the real stress begins. I have an entrance clearance visa and a plane ticket, but now it's time to pack the bags. I'm going shopping for work clothes tomorrow with my mom, then I'll begin to try to pack my life into 2 large suitcases, head across the ocean, and teach high schoolers as I pretend to know what I'm doing.

So here goes nothing...