What I did during Education Week...

The following are two little spats of England-style writing I did during Education Week-prepare yourself for nonsense. These are unedited stream-of-thought writing experiments.

22 August:

I'm ditching out on a class which is probably not a good sign since school hasn't started yet. I took one look at the crowded classroom and had a few thoughts consisting of "no way", "too many people" and "fire hazard". That would have been an interesting theory to test. Run into the room and yell fire. Instead I decided to do something else and now I'm writing nonsense on a piece of paper that was supposed to be filled with the key to getting my spiritual life back in order and my hand is cramped and I'm frustrated because I can't hand-write nearly as fast as I can type and this was so much easier (if more romantic?) than when I wrote on my computer, but for all that my cramped and awful writing is hardly romantic either. So there it is. I am solution-less. (What was the problem?)

Campus is a surreal kind of place this time of year. Normally this spot is crowded with people studying or making out or talking with friends only now it's just me and a mother with her two girls and none of us is studying or making out.

I just stopped. I killed my groove. I started staring off and thinking about unpacking and buying groceries since I have no food and how the JFSB courtyard is supposed to resemble the cloisters of places like Christ Church or Westminster and it kind of does only not enough to be a sanctuary and just enough to make me homesick (even though England is only my imaginary home now). If I ever go back it will probably only be for a few days or maybe two weeks but never for much longer and certainly not forever which makes me sad because I will never hike those moors again and all I want to do right now is pull my hair back, grab and apple when the hostel cafeteria staff lady isn't looking and hike 18 miles or so on the Pennine Way with 30 of the best people on this earth. England is all I can think about and dream about and it makes my writing redundant and my life unsatisfactory and I miss England. This cloister-knock off isn't English. It needs grass instead of stone, for one thing. And the table I'm sitting at shaded by an umbrella will have to go. Only stone benches. The fountain can stay but it will need to be less modern-arty and more Baroque. All the offices and classes need medieval-izing as well. All these trees in stone planters are way out (it's a little horrifying to think about). No. No-this place is nice but the vending machines don't have Cadbury and my purse has quarters and dimes in it and I have make-up on and I'm not in England any more and the trip I worked for and dreamed about and anticipated is gone in the blink of an eye. Two months ago today, actually, I was on an airplane. Absurd. I relate all the days now to what I was doing in England at the time. Life is supposed to be greener on the other side, but in this case it actually is.

August 23rd

I heard two girls in the Wilk today using very fake British accents and it made me mad. Considering that I could hardly claim to be an authority on all things British (though heaven knows I've tried), particularly with accents, I probably shouldn't talk but they were fake and I was offended and my thought was "I could do better". Pride. And there really is a difference between the movement and action and gesture habits between Brits and Americans. Something less of a strut and more poise...or maybe a different kind of strut (because there is definitely still a strut).

See. It's all I write about. I swear it's not all I think about-I think about many things. But turning on my writing brain seems to generate my England brain on auto pilot and once I start it's the death of me. I wish I could rewind and do it again. But it won't do to dwell on it. From where I sit now I won't ever get my fill of England. Unless I moved there and got a job and had to pay taxes and things-but I won't go back in the way I did and that hurts almost more than the thought of going back. Two weeks isn't enough! And the odds of really living there aren't really great. Maybe I'll go to grad school there.

I found out today that after two years my parents are dismantling my room and painting it and giving it to my younger brother. I think I'd have been alright with it if it had been my sister. She belongs to a room of girlish little dreams and goals and ambitions but now those dreams are being painted over and Wendy has officially been kicked out of the nursery. That part of my life is being packed away into boxes. I don't know if I even want to go home for Christmas because my room-my beloved room with the beautiful window and canopied bed-won't ever be mine again. It will have dirty moldy towels on the floors and footballs in the corners.