Red Pant Reflection

Well, I'm 25. It's my birthday, and while the world did not, in fact, end today as the Mayans predicted, I did wake up with a migraine. Thanks, Mayans...thanks.

I also woke to realize that I've been an *awful* blogger this past year (that's right - bold, italicized, underlined, and asterisked). Like a flaky significant other circa 1685 on a sea voyage (to probably kill the Mayans, let's be honest), I promised to write, then didn't, then made a flurry of excuses once you guys got impatient and sad, then teased you with another post, only to act exactly as I did before and drop off the face of the earth (although, again, happily the earth's face is still intact). 

So, now, I say it - because birthdays are for reflection, and truth, and eating way too much cake, and getting sloppy drunk with your best friends (which, in my case this year is Quentin): I have failed at blogging. 

I've always enjoyed writing, I've always enjoyed making people laugh (something I only discovered recently, actually), and yet I've always been terrified of sharing these things on purpose (letting others read my writing, hearing my songs, watching me perform - anything). This blog was a secret attempt to change that, to "put myself out there" as they say. But, then, I got busy and scared and distracted again. This year, though, I really do want that to change - and not only through this blog. This year I want to do things that scare me - at least once a month (we gotta start slow, ya know?). I want to be vulnerable and insecure and unsure, but I want to try - I want to put something, anything, out there. And that starts now, with this blog, on my birthday - on the end of the world day.

As my first "scary" birthday vow to myself, I vow to write on this blog in the coming year once a week - YES, ONCE A WEEK. I know, lofty expectations can breed monumental disappointments, but you know what - what the hell, let's do this. As my first blog of my new year, I decided to reflect on the past term that I so-assholishly (new vow #2: make up ridiculous words more often) failed to update you on. I'm celebrating my quarter-century crisis in a very rainy Oxford, eyeballs throbbing as I torture them with MacBook light, and most of my new friends - my new family - have flown home to be with their biological kin for the holidays. A blessing and a curse of my birth date: you get an obese old man in a questionable red pantsuit promising you tons of presents and everyone seems really happy to celebrate (in your mind, you), but your friends also scatter away to spend time with their own families. And let's be honest, a lot of people respect the "birthday-christmas-gift-combo-pack" without actually doubling the amount of anything they give - I'm not complaining, just saying.

OK, so Oxford. It's weird. No, really, it is. Nothing makes sense, and nothing is logical - they tell us there are 8-week terms, but then expect you to be on-call during the secret 9th and 10th weeks nobody talks about until a professor emails you asking for an essay you never knew was assigned. Thanks? There's also a secret 0-week (not pronounced, "zero-th week," as I thought, but in fact referred to as "naught-week"...oops). This week, logically the week before "official" term begins, is in theory supposed to be the week when all of the students return and go wild, with parties and dancing and laughter and good cheer. HOWEVER, not-so-logically, previous-term exams can also apparently be held during naught week of the new term - like the big statistics exam being held the Friday of 0-week of next term (i.e. we finished our stats course the last week of November 2012, and the exam is on the Friday before the next term begins, in mid-January 2013). Logical. Totally logical. So now instead of fully enjoying our holiday season, all 26 of us have r(squared) and p(hat) hovering above our holiday cheer, reminding us we have to learn about numbers and graphs and stuff at some point after we trample grannies at Boxing Day mega-sales (like USA "Black Friday") and nurse our New-Years Day (from now on NYD re: vow #2) hangovers. 

So, today, while STATA terms float around in my throbbing skull, and the Mayans cry in their misinformed graves, I will update my blog - I will update my blog like crazy. I will make myself a Dutch Baby Pancake (the first breakfast item I ever learned to make), smother it in butter (because butter is delicious, and strangely more yellow in England), drench it in powdered sugar (called "icing" sugar here - hey, what if I don't want to use it for icing?! huh?! huh?! what then?! that's false advertising, or just plain rude), and I will write. Because that's what I love to do - and I forgot that until now.

Lessons from Longbowmen

Well, I've been in Britain for a full two days now, and I've been shockingly productive. I secured a flat, walked around the entire city, got a British mobile, and made four friends in my first 24 hours. My feet are aching from walking on cobblestones, I got caught in a rain shower while traipsing between the Thames and a cow field with the most robust bovines I have ever seen, had cream tea with two lovely families of Scots, witnessed the degree ceremony I will be partaking in two years from now (conducted entirely in Latin, for "graduannes"), and had a few pints of cider at a variety of local pubs. All in all, a pretty successful start. I have thousands of more details that are delightful, but I thought I would first share 25 knowledgeable tidbits I've acquired over the past couple days, translating American to British English:

Your physical representation of the number two insults my history!

1. What we in the US call "private school," the Brits call "public school."
2. It's called the "pavement" in England, not a "sidewalk."
3. Raising your index and middle finger (so as to signify the number 2) is actually an insult, dating back to the wars between the French and the English when the French used to cut off the index and middle fingers of British longbowmen when captured in battle (so they could no longer shoot a bow and arrow). I learned this the hard way when a couple of Brits asked me how many days I had been in Oxford. Oops? 
4. It's a "mobile," not a "cell phone."
5. A "toilet" is a restroom outside of the home; a "bathroom" is what you call your lavatory at home.
6. "How do you do?" is a rhetorical question; it also signifies that you've gone to boarding school (i.e. are a member of the upper class).
7. Titled members of British aristocracy are generally "asset rich, but cash poor."
8. You can meet Prince Harry, if you go to the right parties in London.
9. You can also meet "the other Harry" (Harry Styles of One Direction), if you go to an East London bar called Birthdays during the week.
10. Chips = french fries; crisps = potato chips.
11. It's pronounced "toh-maw-toe," not "tum-eight-toh."
12. Cream tea is high tea but without the sandwiches (as Andrew's mom put it, "with only the good stuff!")
13. "Pudding" doesn't refer to actual pudding, but rather to the general category of "desserts."

    

    Wrong pudding, Bill Cosby.

Silence + A Week

Greetings Gentlefolk!!

I have returned, and just in time. First, I must apologize for being MIA. I promised you all a blog dedicated to the ins and outs of moving abroad, and I only gave you two posts - TWO - over six-or-so months. I know, I know, I've let you down - or have I?

Quentin (aka the soon-to-be renamed Sir Quigglesworth) has been busy summering with his grandparents in Washington, practicing his laziness, getting acclimated to British-like weather patterns, and eating everything in sight.

Sir Quigglesworth, conducting an important meeting with Grandpa-pa

Meanwhile, I have not taken a deep breath since May. I will now provide the usual excuses - I meant to write! I put it down in my calendar but kept getting distracted! I fell asleep! I was too busy exercising (hahahaha, that's a funny one!) - but the honest truth is I have been more busy and more stressed in these past few months than I ever could have imagined, and the silence of this blog over many moons is actually the most adequate proof I could ever provide of what it's like to plan a move as big as this - one, big, fat, blurb of SILENCE.

Now, I sit here, finally in the same house as Sir Q, one week away from departure, and a different type of silence has hit me. The past few months have been filled with an almost static silence, a period of time so filled with so much, with no time to think or talk or analyze or breathe, that it just becomes muddled together and...silent. With all that I've done since May, I barely recall a single day, a single event, a single accomplishment. I have memories, of course, but it all feels blurred together, like one huge movie on fast-forward xx8 (you know, the level where everyone looks like they're robots on crack). In essence, three months that feel like they never even happened.

Q, patiently waiting for his rabies vaccine so he can become British.

Countless lists have been created, haphazardly typed in a 3am insomnia-ridden frenzy, crossed off, consolidated on iPhones and MacBooks, transposed in actual notebooks, sticky notes, and special "list-making" paper (ya, that's right, I bought special list paper). Suitcases have been purchased, returned or exchanged, packed, re-packed, unpacked, only to be packed again and weighed on Monday (or Sunday if I'm feeling really restless, which might very well happen). Visa applications have been groaned over, filled out, priority-mailed, and finally delivered to my gleeful digits this morning by two very confused UPS delivery people, wondering why I, in my pajamas at 11:45am, was doing a jig while providing my (wobbly) electronic signature. Over 500 "letting" inquiries have been sent, and the difference in time and currency have failed me more times than I'd care to recall. So, the good news is I have my Visa, the bad news is I'm homeless. Makeshift hobo tent out of my sub fusc cape, anyone?!

"Hey, jaundiced Lego-man, can I borrow that cape to live under?"

And now, one week away from my departure, I'm a mess. I've sat down, taken a breath or two, and suddenly all of the emotions I compressed and compartmentalized are bubbling out. The stress and anxiety have morphed into sentimentality, and I find my eyes burning with tears multiple times a day. Who knew moving across the world would make you have PMS (Pre-Moving-Syndrome?!). No, but seriously, my mood swings and stress levels have been all over the board, and if excitement exists at this point, it's hiding itself in a constant, lingering nausea. I went into this whole thing ready for an adventure, and it sure seems like I've got one. As of, well, now, I have six-and-a-half days to decide what I'm going to be wearing for the next nine months, cross my fingers, break down at the airport, take one final deep breath, and board British Airways flight 48, direct from Seattle to London, Heathrow.

And the truth is, I can tell myself I'll use the nine hour flight as a way to catch up on my chick flick quota for the year, but in reality, I know I'm going to be that girl, who just packed whatever she could of her whole life into a couple of suitcases, choked back tears while fumbling through security, and is bat-shit terrified of the adventure she is about to embark on, no matter how magical it may turn out to be. In the end, I'll just be a girl, who is moving far away, trying to carry with her memories and places and people who she will desperately miss and love, despite a deep fear that more than a physical distance will grow between them over these next few years - scared that this might be the move that changes everything.

Coping with PMS

...but first, I need to stop crying from that Parenthood season premiere I just watched (really, Parenthood, the season premiere had to be about Haddie leaving for college?!?! Goddamn PMS...)




Until England, or maybe before...

The Big Ticket, a First Class Kennel, and some Orthopedic Foam

I did it - I bought "the big ticket." You know, the one that will carry me from the USofA over the pond to the UKof...the UK. It was terrifying and exciting and nerve wracking, but I did it, I finally hit "purchase now" and I'll be on my way come September 18th at 6:55pm. I chose to fly out of Seattle for a few reasons: first, so that my dad could help me as I will be a mess with suitcases, a cat, a guitar, and just a head full of worries; second, because it was the most logical choice, considering I will be spending the last few weeks of my "summer" with my dad in Washington state; third, because (strangely) the shortest possible direct flight from the West Coast is from Seattle to London (a mere 8.5-9 hours, compared with the 10.5-11 hour flight from SFO or San Diego, my other two options), and this shortened flight time is actually really important considering I will have a fluffy ball of Q cargo'd in the hold; and finally, because I found a really cheap-ass ticket (75% off!!!). So, obviously, my priorities are in order.

That ten minutes working up to the "purchase now" moment were honestly awful; a million second-guesses were streaming through my head, the mouse practically drenched in palm sweat. Maybe I needed a bit more than two weeks to get settled in? I should go earlier... But, then again, what if I'm there all alone and scared and bored and there's an Oxford serial killer on the loose and I don't know how to buy eggs at the market, or use the bus system, or oh-my-god I'm going to die in England, and it'll be in an alleyway of cobblestones with a cape on (I revisit the cape later, promise). JUST DO IT, GOD DAMMIT JUST HIT - oh-my-god-i-bought-it. There is a date. It is real. I am actually moving to England. 

The rest of the weekend was a flurry of planning; spreadsheets, google docs, board-room-meeting-like phone calls with parents to coordinate logistics. And it was all kicked off through the ample research and purchase of Q's new international-flight-approved and first-class-quality travel kennel. It's a snazzy black and grey-blue (see below), and most importantly Quiggles actually fits inside (he's put on a few pounds, what can I say). I had to make sure it had ventilation on all four sides, had a food/water feeder, etc. etc. I also bought him a super comfy pad to go inside, and later discovered it was made out of orthopedic foam; pretty much this guy will be traveling first class in an air conditioned and mood-lit hull while I am stuck above shoved against a humming engine and probably sitting next to the "smelly food" guy (you know exactly what I'm talking about).

But, it's a first-ish step, and that is how everything begins, with a first step, a first click, a first purchase...or two, or three, OK or four - I also bought a paper shredder (I have super-top-secret documents, I swear...). But it's beginning - it's all beginning - and while I still have the occasional freak-out or second-guess or stomach flutter, at least I have solidified my choice and am moving towards it, inch by inch, purchase by purchase. 

Until next week...

Interwebs of Fear

I've never written a blog before; hell, I've never written anything on the Internet before. OK, that's a lie, but seriously the Internet scares me. It's vast and vague and I can't comprehend how it works, how it began, where it ends, and why the hell it sporadically disappears and forces me to have hour-long chats with a wholly disinterested Comcast veteran at least twice a month. But I digress...

I'm moving to England in September, and the thought of it produces tummy-flies of two sorts: those born of giddy excitement and those hampered by nauseous fear. Living in the UK has been a dream of mine since I was a "wee tot" (as they say). I developed a creepy interest in British history on my very first voyage across the pond when I was eight years old. I spent all my pence on dumbed-down guide books to Europe's churches, castles, death towers (Hello, Henry VIII!), and proceeded to be that pint-sized prodigy who corrected 25-year-old History major tour guides, mid-tour. Seriously, I acted like it was a personal game of Jeopardy and the other tourists were my audience, the guide my Alex Trebec. "What is, The Bubonic Plague?!"

As an undergraduate at a California university whose name shall not be revealed (but whose colors are blue and gold and mascot is the bear), I finagled my way into the British education system by studying abroad not in Spain or Chile or Zimbabwe like my peers, but at the University of Cambridge - that place of cobblestone streets and formal dinners and a stringent rule against walking on grass. It was the best three months of my life to date. And I have always wanted to return.

Now is my chance - a literal "once in a lifetime opportunity," if you will. I have been accepted to Cambridge's cousin - the slightly older but equally as wise University of Oxford. It's a chance to sell my "stuff," pack two suitcases of life, and buy a one-way ticket across the big ol' Atlantic, cat in arm and guitar in hand.

But first comes the planning - oh, the planning! When to move? When to quit my job? How to sell my stuff? What to give away? What to convince my parents to store for me so I don't get caught in a storage locker scheme ("$1 a month storage offer super exciting act now" my foot)?

There are lots of questions, and even more lists, and through this blog, I'll try to sort through them with your help, or maybe just your non-committal, silent, visual support. Either way, I hope it helps, because: Dude, I'm moving to England.