Home. It’s incredible how little time it takes to fall back into the swing of things. The first few days were especially strange, and I kept having the same strangely embarrassing moments of panic I had when first arriving in England — these little moments of “how would an American do this?” I accidentally asked a lady at Starbucks if she was queuing. I still ask businesses where to find the toilets instead of the restrooms. Mandy told me at lunch today that I’ve been excessively verbose since I’ve been home. When people tell me things like that, things that I wasn’t at all aware are true about myself, I get extremely self-conscious for a while, so if I seem quieter these next few weeks, blame Mandy.
That having been said, I did not at all expect to miss Winchester so immediately. The people, of course, I miss terribly, and expected to. But I miss all of these little things, too, that I’d never imagined I would. I miss the feeling of cobblestone beneath my shoes, the rainy trek through the graveyard to Sainsbury’s, everything being small and close and within walking distance. I miss the pretty little churches. I miss the window in my room that overlooked the graveyard, and leaving it cracked so I could hear the rain at night, and wake up to the sunrise.
I miss my friends. I keep seeing them places — is that weird? I’ll see someone pass through a doorway at lander, or in the grocery store, and for a split second I think “was that Anna?” or “surely that’s Giorgio!” before realizing with that sinking feeling that no, of course it wasn’t, she / he is in Poland / Italy.
Writing this is making me sadder than I intended when I decided to blog tonight, so I’ll just jump somewhere else. Ok with you guys? Good. I’ve started classes at Lander, and that’s been interesting, to say the least. A lot of stress came from trying to juggle this semester’s schedule with the essays I had to finish and mail back to Winchester for last semester, but I sent the last of those this afternoon, so that, at least, is a chapter closed. I’m taking CIS 499, which is the computer department’s capstone senior project course. Once our team gets a little bit of progress put together, I’ll be sure to throw out a link for anybody interested in what we’re writing. I’m taking ART 304 — Advanced Commercial Art with Slagle, the new electronic art professor, who seems to be a fantastic instructor so far. ART 350 is an independent study I’m doing with Prof. MacTaggart; that isn’t entirely fleshed out yet, but I’ll try to sliptalented, helpful in his criticism, and much more laid back, approachable, and just overall than the replaced instructor. in some updates there, as well. Then there’s Physical Science with Red, and history (20th century world history) with Jean Paquette — so far, strangely, I think I like it. Wendy is in that class with me, which is great.
Oh. Christmas. It has been a while, hasn’t it? Christmas was so beautiful. We set up our tree really last-minute, but it was the prettiest one I think I can remember in a while. I spent most of the holiday with my family, catching up, which was very nice. I spent New Year’s Eve over at Liz’s house, and we played DDR and made blueberry muffins all night. It was a nice holiday season, and it was so nice to be home with family.
I got a stereo for my car for Christmas. That has been so nice, and I’ve been driving more because of it. Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, and Pete Yorn have been getting the most rotation lately, with some breaks in there for other stuff too, of course, but it feels like cd-buying time.
I felt long overdue in bringing an update, but I guess it was a bad idea to pick 3:00 in the morning to write the post, as I’ve gotten rambly. I could do with a song recommendation or two, as well as perhaps with some of those British triangle-boxed sandwiches…
listening: Sigur Ros – Staralfur