So far away

Since returning home from spring break, things have been a lot calmer... in both good ways and bad. I feel somewhat adjusted here and don't want to say, "Oh, look at how different and cute!" every minute. However, this does take some of the excitement out of life. You forget how fun it is to have every moment of the day be something new and different for you. I also think this is why I took such a long break from writing here--it felt comfortable and normal, rather than something I needed to tell people about right away to revel in its strangeness.

My two classes this term have been Modern Irish Poetry and Charles Dickens. I adore the latter, as I love the reading material and have a small crush on the professor (he is just so ENGLISH). At the start of term, I was convinced the MIP professor hated my guts, but she actually liked my essay I just got back and I am allowed to revise it for my final paper. All in all, I'm happy with these classes (even if I'm TERRIBLE at dissecting poetry).

Francie came to visit and enjoyed herself, as did Ann. I've helped put out another two issues of Nouse, one of which required one late night and an all-nighter to put out, but looked gorgeous, so it was worth it. I distributed the papers and everyone laughed at me that I was so nice about it, asking people if they wanted one instead of just shoving it in their face. I have eaten too much curry (the English word for all Indian food) and steak and ale pie. I went to see a movie in mid-May and when I got out of it, I wandered around York for two hours knowing how much I was going to miss it.

Currently, I feel like I have relapsed into how I felt at the start: ricocheting between loving this place (being in Nouse and wondering how I will ever leave them all while they still have each other) and hating it (getting a sucky, sucky grade on my essay while it begins to pour outside and having no umbrella. This is when the sentence "Get me OUT of this hellhole!" crosses your mind). It has been rainy and cold lately and that hasn't helped much. I could see my breath yesterday at 1 p.m., which made me want to laugh and cry simultaneously.

My parents just finished visiting me and I took them to Betty's (supposedly the best teahouse in England. I believe it.), my favorite Indian restaurant (twice... I told you, I'm a tikka masala whore) and Monk Bar, where my dad remembers going to 23 years ago. We went to Haworth today (the town where the Brontes lived) and saw their house (now a museum that reminds me somewhat of the Louisa May Alcott museum in Concord). When we were walking out of the museum, the sun started shining and the Yorkshire Dales were so verdantly green that it looked like a movie backdrop. As we made our way down the windy stone streets, I looked around at the much-too-cute-to-actually-exist houses and stores and thought, "This, I will miss."

It's strange though. As much as I will miss things like pubs, the duck pond and kids that you want to kidnap because they sound so cute speaking in their accents, I know that I will be able to make do without these things. I know I will adjust to not having them, as much as I do love them now.

There is one thing that will be hard, though: the Nouse staff. I know I make such a fuss over them, but they really are the people I have become closest too, and it makes me tear up every time I think of leaving them. If all of us were dispersing across the world, I would be sad, but the fact that I am the only one leaving, that they will all be together next year having adventures and fun without me, is what makes me want to sob in the bathroom during production nights. I will probably see some again--two plan to make a trip to America next summer and one plans to go to graduate school in California--but even then, I will see them rarely. The rest of them I probably won't see ever again. Even just next year, I will be a memory from last year. Though they will remember me fondly, it won't be like being one of them, one of the people who is there for three years and becomes a true friend. I will be that "nice American girl" who crosses their minds only occasionally before more important, immediate things demand their attention.

I feel like I should end this in some "life lesson" or "but it will all be OK in the end" way, but I still don't know how this will turn out, so I will leave it open-ended for now. After all, I still have two weeks here and two well-sized essays to finish, so I shouldn't be talking like I'm leaving tomorrow. But I can feel that "needing closure" desperation starting to set in on me, which is discouraging and makes me feel like panicking.

14 days left. I hope I can do it.