Living Abroad is about Feeling Lost

This week has been challenging. I love this city and its people and the life that seems to pulse through it, I love my classes and my professors and my adorable apartment. I love the chance that I am having to do this on my own. I love that I am blessed enough to have this experience.

But things are hard. I find myself unemployed and mainly suffering from an insane case of boredom. I haven't not had a job since I was fifteen. I have never only had classes one day a week. And I've never been in a situation where I don't have at least thirty people to call to protect myself from loneliness. Most importantly I have never felt lost in the way I feel now.

I have a friend and she's wonderful and loud and American and feels like a little piece of home sometimes. We're different--very different I think--which is always wonderful--but I think I've been trying to blend with her because to have a friend seems so very special. She is Mormon, not that it matters in any way to me, and is so incredibly passionate about her faith that I find it very awe inspiring. She loves God with a fierceness that pushes her to share her faith and I find that fantastic.

But I am different. I am not Mormon, or Protestant , or Catholic, or anything. I don't even like to identify myself with the term Christian. I believe in God and the Messiah and I believe in the love that God and the Messiah put in us and show to us. But I believe that that doesn't negate the faith of another. I believe that Muslims or Jews or Atheists or anyone else is equally as justified in their own system of beliefs. I believe that most importantly God is love and where there is love there can be no evil. I struggle with organized faith and interpretations and rules and regulations. I struggle with governing bodies that determine belief systems. I question God and his teachings with every breath I take and I think that's okay. I think that to question God is to seek to know him better and I think that to not question God is to live blindly. I believe that evil has the chance to be everywhere other than in love but that doesn't mean its always there. I believe that people should be free to do what makes them happy and fulfilled as long as it doesn't harm themselves or another. And I believe above all else that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being lost.

I am completely and utterly lost in my soul right now and I think it's a completely beautiful thing. I am not a stagnant object therefore I am constantly changing and constantly needing to re-introduce myself to myself. I think this feeling of lost is overwhelming but empowering because it  means that I am learning and growing.

I am known as a person that's opinion is always known. In fact I recently fell out with the one of the closest friends I have had in years because of this. But in this situation with my London friend, I feel that I have failed at this to a certain extent. Loneliness crept in silently, like it always does, and I found myself understanding her full beliefs without divulging all of mine. Because they are somewhat unorthodox in the religious sector. Because I don't believe everything in the Bible as fact or take it all at face value. Because I don't believe that I am the one right just like I don't believe that anyone can be wrong with a faith based in love, a faith based in God, that doesn't get muddled down by the doctrines and the interpretations and the politics. I let my loneliness limit my self expression and I am slightly ashamed of myself for it.

So I am writing this honest, raw blog, as an apology to not only my new friend, but to all my friends and to myself. I am lost but I am learning and I think its a beautiful thing. And I am grateful to have met such a wonderful person here that was able to show me this momentary flaw in myself.

Academics

Classes began this past week, and luckily all of my classes fall on Tuesday. Creative Writing from 10-1 and then Creative Research (don't be fooled its still just as torturous as regular research) from 6-9. My third class won't begin until April, and then things are going to get a little hectic.

I love nearly everything about being here. My classes, my professors, interesting people, a bar inside the building where I have class...the only thing I am not enjoying is trying to find my classes. Evidently some genius thought it would be a great idea to connect three (or four, I'm really not sure) of North Campus' buildings through enclosed hallways and walkways. All this managed to do is make a labyrinth of corridors that never lead to where the maps promise they will. I am fairly convinced that hallways move themselves and reattach to different buildings, much like the staircases in HP. I have found my way successfully to class once, and by successfully I mean it took me less than 15 minutes of aimless walking to locate my room. The green zone, the red zone, the piazza, the courtyard, I mainly just walk around looking panicked until someone offers to help. I keep being told that soon enough I will know my way around, but I am starting to think it's all a lie.

I found the only Chipotle in London this week. Its located on Charring Cross Road, easy enough to get to, or so I thought. The internet failed to mention the street construction that blocked me from walking the five minutes from the tube stop to Mecca, so instead I wandered around downtown London for a solid half an hour, retracing my steps several times until a very lovely woman finally informed me it was located on the other side of construction. She then told me she had no idea how to get around said construction. Add into the mix a horrible choice of shoes, and 45 minutes later I found myself sitting back on campus, my feet bloodied and blistered, eating Chipotle that in many ways didn't seem worth it.

Note to self: buy new shoes. also, look up construction.

That's about eventful as my week has been. I received six lovely roses in a vase, compliments of my amazing Dad today. they are lovely and blooming and sitting in my front window.

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone I love...er scratch that. I'm not a Valentine's person and believe that love should be shown everyday...so Happy Day to those I love. Hopefully my next post will be less fragmented and random.

A City of Friendly People..Not So Friendly Cats

A lot has happened in the past several days and yet it feels like next to nothing has been accomplished, all  at the same time.I am officially enrolled and scheduled my classes (which are only on Tuesdays...) and along the way I met some friendly and interesting people.

The first friend I made this week was before enrollment. I walked up to the front desk of the building, put on my Miss America smile, and kindly asked in which direction I could find the room for my International Orientation. Somehow I hadn't noticed the guy next to me, which now seems impossible because suddenly he turned to me and said, "Are you AMERICAN?" (This happens a lot, to which I usually smile and say yes, while inside I want to say that no actually, I was born and raised in Yorkshire or someplace of the like.) I smiled and politely replied yes, noticing the amazing oddity that stood before me.

He was a young black man--22 years old to be precise--who stood easily well over 6 foot. None of this would be entirely alarming except for his forearms. From the wrist to the elbow of each arm lay well over twenty bracelets a piece, each one slightly different from the one that proceeded it. There were crosses and tribal symbols, chunky wood beads and African looking bangles. I stood dumbstruck by the image in front of me, telling myself repeatedly not to stare when suddenly his arm was around my shoulder as he was telling the receptionist, "Don't worry, this is my American wife. I'll take her to her room." I laughed appropriately and, because it seemed I had no choice what with him being twice my size, walked off with this completely interesting and bizarre stranger.

He told me his name was Renni, or Remmi, or something like that...I'm still no good at understanding anyone that was born and raised outside of London. He kept his arm around my shoulder, rambling on about his job as head tour guide when I quickly realized we were in windowless corridors, vacant and alone. Stupidly the first thought I had was, "My mom will be so pissed if I go missing because of this crazy guy. She told me to watch 'Taken,'" so I gripped my keys firmly between my fingers, just like they teach you in self defense, and kept my eyes peeled for possible escape routes.

It turned out he was quite the nice guy; he showed me to my room and with a half an hour to spare, so then he offered to take me on a tour of campus and help me learn the layout. I asked him about the beads, which he explained were a tribal tradition that he found quite lovely, and then informed me that he is third in line for the throne of some Caribbean tribe. (He swore to me that this was true.) We had a nice talk while he tried to explain the winding hallways to me, as well as introduced me to the staff of the building's cafe, although I am fairly positive the tour might have been more to his advantage than to mine, seeing as he kept his arm around me and introduced me as his American wife like it was show and tell day at Uni. He even had me speak with some of his friends, as if my voice was the validation that he was officially cool for knowing an American girl. He was very friendly and very nice and I am sure I'll see him around again sometime, especially since he informed me that his acting troop periodically performs in the courtyard.

I met several other interesting people as well. I talked to a man from Karachi who has a cousin in Reynoldsburg, several people from a scattering of different US States, and a blind girl from Russia, who lived in Texas for the past few years and is craving Tex-Mex food just as much as me. (We're planning a girls night out to the old Texas Embassy, now one of the few Tex-Mex restaurants in London.) I've made friends with a girl named Lauren in my program, from Florida of all places, and took her to Greenwich yesterday where we devoured copious amounts of foods from varying countries at the market.

I know that people say it a lot, but you really won't find a bustling city with friendlier people than London. They are patient and helpful and always know exactly which bus you need to take to get you to your destination.

The cats here are a different story altogether.

I came home a few nights ago to a cat meowing outside my apartment door. She was a little tiger kitty and purred when I spoke to her, but the combination of my horrible allergies and the stern rules set in place by my landlord kept me from bringing her inside. (Don't worry its not as cold here as it is back home. Its actually in the 50s and feeling a little like spring.) Then, this morning, I woke to a low, guttural sound coming from outside my window....at 9 am on a Sunday for crap's sake. When I finally acknowledged the fact that the noise was not something I could ignore, I crawled to the end of my bed, hoisted (hehe Alison) my blinds, and found a fat orange cat perched on my outside windowsill. He didn't seem to notice me and kept on with the low grunts, so I tapped on the glass hoping to scare him off. Instead he turned and looked at me with indignation and then proceeded to hiss in my face. To my own embarrassment I found myself talking back to the damn thing, saying, "Don't hiss at me, this is my damn windowsill." I looked up to the right and there perched on top of the fence was another cat, evidently the cause of the fat cat's foul mood. The cat on the fence proceeded to hiss at me as well. I was about to yell at the second cat when my brain finally began to function and I realized there was no reasoning with animals that don't speak English.

The cats haven't been back yet today but I suspect if they return tomorrow morning I will resort to throwing books at my window instead of trying to reason with them. I don't need my neighbors thinking I'm crazy this early in the game. 

Good (Soundproofing) Makes Good Neighbors

There is a peg-legged pirate with an overactive bladder living above me. I am not insane. Every morning I can hear this peg-legged soul frantically running from one end of the apartment to the other. I cannot see what he is doing, but from what I can hear it sounds as if he is feverishly cooking a hearty enlgish breakfast, beans and all, for at least seven guests. At night, while I lay in my bed, obsessively reading the last of the Stieg Larsson series, I can hear this peg-legged pirate hobble across the laminate floors and into the bathroom where he relieves himself on average for an impressive four or five minutes, only to hobble back across the flat and do it all over again twenty minutes later. Either the apartment above me is home to several people with physical disabilities, each with their respective fake leg or cane made of solid iron, or there is one man above me with an unfortunate handicap and an extremely overactive bladder.

I have never lived in a apartment before, the closest I ever came to one was during my dorm years, and even then the walls were made of concrete blocks and no one slept anyways. Last night, when I finally decided to go to bed around 1:30 in the morning, I thought about the poem by Robert Frost, Mending Wall, and realized that if the poem was to be rewritten today I don't think fences would be the weapon of choice to delineate the space that one neighbor possesses from another. Insulation, thick walls, or some form of soundproofing makes good neighbors in apartment living, and I am learning quickly that this adventure will be more challenging that I anticipated. I guess its a good thing I like a challenge.