Overloaded. Exhausted. Absolutely full. Exhilarated. Can’t take anymore—oh, wait, yes, I can. That’s the definition of being young and in college and studying abroad. Which explains why I am writing this at one a.m. when the one thing I absolutely need is a solid eight hours of sleep.
I couldn’t take any longer of an absence from my beloved blog, however. I think this is one of the best decisions I ever made, to begin writing this blog. It feels healthy and necessary and right. My life has been on-the-go every single day since I’ve been back. What is absolutely glorious about this is that unlike a good deal of my hard-working academic life before this year, what has filled those days has been predominately fun things.
I love, love, love Georgetown. I miss my life there (every post I make seems to reference the previous post—it’s not intentional, I suppose I just have a cohesive strain of blog posts) more than I can say. Nonetheless, I have a tendency to take on a lot. When I picture my schedule at school, it is of waking up, getting dressed, going to one class, another, grabbing a bite with friends, work, another class, homework, homework, application for so and so, meeting, homework, reply to some important emails, bed (maybe eight hours of sleep). Repeat.
The majority of those components of my schedule are things I love or working towards something I love. This is in no way a complaint. I think it’s part of a healing process, honestly. I walked away from last year tired, drained, questioning what I was working towards. I had put so much of myself into my application to get here, to Oxford, but what was life at Oxford going to be like? Anticlimactic? More stressful, if that’s possible?
To be honest, on a daily basis I do work hard on academics still: it's just more concentrated so I have more free time. It has been chalk full of the expected and the unexpected. I stayed up too late Friday night (or should I say Saturday morning), got up too early to spend a day in London Saturday, just sight-seeing. I went to mass the next morning, got tea with a friend, went to lunch with my beloved neighbor—to eat Wild Boar and Apple sausages, toad-in-the-hole style (a fried pancake-batter bowl) with onion rings, mashed potatoes, and steamed vegetables, with a delicious, champagne-like cider to wash it down with—at a pub in Oxford, skyped with three of my favorite people in the world, ate dinner, hung out with friends, then thought “Oh, I should have done more work this weekend.”
But I’ve gotten all of my work done, as I always do. There are five, ten, twenty small, eclectic moments since I’ve last written that I’ll be reminded of someday, that sound like something out of a novel, that will come back to me with a smile (I’d love to elaborate, but this post will already be long enough). Perhaps I shouldn’t say this—maybe it will be too cheesey, too obvious, too redundant—but in some important ways I’ve gotten to experience things I’ve always dreamt of experiencing: I have a close-knit floor of friends where I live, I get to hear English accents every day, I ride a bike on the left side of the road, I play bridge every week, I went to Buckingham Palace, I bought a postcard about the royal wedding, I sat around listening to a stranger on a banjo at 3 a.m., I meet new people every week, I don’t second-guess myself quite as much.
I told myself I would just go with the flow and live this year up as much as possible (I’m nauseating myself with how cliché this whole girl-writing-a-study-abroad-blog-entry is), that I wouldn’t turn down an opportunity to spend time with someone or see something because I have work to do. I will ALWAYS have work to do. It’s not as though I led some repressed life before this year, didn’t have a social life, lived in the library, etc. I think it’s just a combination of the opportunities being right in front of me and God blessing me with the right attitude and (hopefully) appreciation to take advantage of and enjoy them.
I feel liberated while I sit here with twelve books piled on my desk, errands to run tomorrow, an impossible schedule for this week. Is the work pretty much equal to that at Georgetown, though in different styles? Yes. Which means in some important ways the difference exists in my handling of my obligations, responsibilities, priorities, schedule. It feels right. It feels beautiful. I’m tired. And dreading this essay that needs to be written. I’m thinking about budgeting, buying stamps, what I’ll make for lunch tomorrow. But I’m also attending a Scottish dance at my college, having tea with a friend, taking a walk around town, and going to a champagne and chocolates reception this week. So basically, life is good. I’m incredibly blessed. I feel younger and freer than ever, even with an absurd to-do list.
Thank you, God.
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