(But seriously, no distraction is going on. For there to be distraction, there must first be attempts at studying to interrupt).
Anyway, a lot has happened since August. Plus, today is a very special day - today marks a mere 10 days before my flight leaves for England! So in a show of parallel structure that would make even Strunk and White blush, let's count out the ten exciting things that have happened in the last month regarding my impending year abroad!
1. I got my wisdom teeth out.
It wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting - I just had adorable swollen chipmunk cheeks and laid off the crunchy chips and steak tips for a few days - and the little pain and aggravation it did represent was completely worth it in terms of peace of mind for when I go abroad. Plus, I scooped ice cream for my summer job, and there is nothing so soothing for wisdom teeth pain as nearly unlimited discount ice cream.
2. I finished up my summer job.
Working to scoop ice cream in a tourist town may not have been the most glamorous pursuit, but it was (relatively speaking) a pretty cushy job and instrumental in helping me afford this whole boondoggle.
3. I took GREs for the first time.
I say "first time" because I purposefully took them this early knowing my scores this time around probably won't end up being my final ones. I only studied for and took them this summer because most people take them at some point junior year, and I'll be away doing things that I probably won't want to interrupt with studying for and taking GREs. It would have been nice for this to be my first and last pass, but it isn't the end of the world that it probably won't be. See you again next summer, ETS.
4. I got even more forms to fill out.
Ooooh! Ahhhh! Because I know the forms and bureaucracy of all this is the part you guys really want to know about. Some of them were mildly amusing, like the "fresher's" handbook - and yes, I am technically considered a "fresher" even though I'm not a freshman. "Fresher" seems to mean over there what the infinitely less charming and infinitely more clinical "first-year student" means over here.
5. I found out one of my favorite KPOP groups may be in the UK while I'm there.
Long after "Gangnam Style" topped the charts and then was promptly forgotten about by everyone, I was exploring the world of Korean pop music and liking what I've found. And though I'm a fledgling KPOP fan with very little knowledge under my belt, I cannot express how excited I am that Super Junior might finally be making their way at least halfway across the world to perform in London's Wembley Stadium while I have at least half a snowball's chance in hell of getting to see them. There are no guarantees (after all, they haven't performed in the UK in five years, one of their most popular members will be rejoining them after completing his mandatory military service, tickets will be in freakishly high demand, so on and so forth), but it's still a possibility and therefore just one more once-in-a-lifetime experience this trip may allow me to have.
6. I got contacted by my "Oxford mum."
At Oxford, there's a student family system in place not unlike the tradition of "bigs" and "littles" in sororities and fraternities in the U.S., except the entire fresher student body participates. Freshers (like me!) are assigned older students to be our Oxford "parents" - to give us advice, listen to our existential crises in times of dire need, and get us acquainted with campus life. They're like R.A.s that don't live with you, in a way. After her initial volley of advice (which was primarily oriented towards freshmen), we had a lovely little chat about the fact that we're actually the same year in college. Being a "fresher" is very odd so far - it's annoying in that you want people to recognize that you're a junior in college, but on the other hand, as I pointed out to my Oxford mum, I'm sure I'll be crashing my bike, dropping my books, and getting lost on the way to class with the best of 'em when I finally do step foot on campus.
7. I finally got my reading lists.
Between my major paper in Victorian literature and my minor paper in creative writing, I have a decent chunk of bookage to get through before I arrive. Specifically, I have a bunch of poetry, a handful of short stories, and around 25 novels on my compulsory reading list between the two courses, and that's without dipping my toe into the "recommended" reading. What compounds the awesomeness of this situation is that it seems I was supposed to receive my reading list much earlier in the summer, and that is not the case. So, hello, eight days between me getting back home and leaving! Far from the mere frenzied packing session you were going to be, we can now add near-constant reading to the fun in order to get through as much of this stuff as I can before I go, so I don't show up to my first tutorial as the stupid American kid who didn't do all the required reading three months in advance. Sigh... I suppose making the best of a less-than-ideal situation is just another opportunity to prove how awesome I am, but let's just hope I can pull it off.
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| Mark my words, Middlemarch - I will defeat you. |
8. I ordered British currency.
It was a lot easier than I expected going through my local bank, and it came a lot quicker than I expected. I hope I'm not using up my "that was easy!" quota on all the little stuff, but on the other hand, I will now have currency on which I can survive until I figure out the banking setup there.
9. I pre-packed some of my stuff.
By pre-packing, I mean I took all the stuff on my list, or things of comparable weight and size, and stuffed them into the suitcases I had at the time (one young sprightly roll-y model I used for my last trip to Europe, and a mammoth veteran one which got my parents' stuff back and forth to Paris when they visited in the eighties). Lo and behold, the nearly full bags (missing a few odds and ends, but packed with the vast majority of the stuff I'd need) weighed in at 10 lbs and 36 lbs. Thus, I learned one of the greatest lessons of packing: unless you're planning on transporting lead bricks and bulk toiletries, you will run out of space long before you run out of weight. So on one of our trips to civilization, my mother and I, fearing partly for the welfare of the veteran Paris bag and also hoping to get a bag of equal or greater volume, picked up an updated version to maximize my space and mobility. If anyone's curious how I made my list, I'd have to cite a few sources - namely, The Study Abroad Blog's Ultimate Study Abroad Packing List, the same blog's entry on what NOT to pack, my own regular college pack list, and assorted internet sources gleaned from Google searches like "top ten things I forgot to pack when studying abroad." I can't stress the helpfulness of the first two sources, though.
10. I went to visit my college friends one more time.
About 12 hours after finishing the GRE, I was up and doing my last-minute packing for my flight to my home college. After some really annoying flight delays, my suitcase breaking, and several brief moments of terror in which I realized I had never taken public transportation to campus from the airport, only the other way around, and the process was not always a simple reversal of procedure, I finally made it to campus and cooled my heels for a bit until my lovely hosts wrapped up their afternoon classes. Then, over the next four days, we did all the things necessary for it to truly qualify as a convening of the Pamplemousse Society. These included games of mafia and Cards Against Humanity; going to the campus 'za spot for an incomparable large bacon and pepperoni with P, the only one with whom such a treat can be properly enjoyed; baking and decorating a cake (Avengers themed!) with my crazy cake decorating skills (big thanks to S for acting as my assistant and E for DJing); and staying up altogether too late watching silly movies (in this case, the semi-appropriately-themed Austin Powers).
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| Me and P with our one true love, bacon pepperoni pizza. |
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| Pamplemousse Society, assemble! |
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| One of my lovely cake decorating assistants. And Ian Somerhalder. |
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| ...and the other! |
Well, that concludes my ten-days-to-go countdown. You may hear from me one more time in the run-up to the 2nd, but chances are good that my next post will be from across the Atlantic!
