So long, Astoria.

I don't think anything can rival the feeling of sitting on the bow of a boat,
beer in hand, good music and company,
and a perfectly sunny, breezy day.

I was sitting in the library yesterday after my class working on
my Wall Street Journal assignments when I got a call
saying, "Let's go out on the lake."

And let me just say that I have become disgustingly responsible.
I go out of my way to maintain order in my apartment even when we have no visitors,
and, despite it being summer, I still try to get my assignments done early enough
so that I can spend my evenings doing some leisurely reading.

So at this moment when I received that call, I thought:
Fuck it. I need to be a kid.

So I tore up my daily to-do list and went.



When I really sit and think about it, it's so blatantly obvious
that I am crossing the threshold into real adulthood without even realizing it.
I mean, I guess this is something that needs to happen.
But I have plans. Wtf?

I'm graduating in May. Moving to Maine until December.
Coming home for Christmas. And then leaving for Costa Rica for four months.

These plans I'm pretty proud of, but daily to-do lists?!
Who is this painfully boring person?

Everyone made fun of me for taking my planner with me out to the lake yesterday,
but I never leave home without it. It's filled top to bottom with every due date, lunch date,
and play date. And I can't even find the time to go home until August.


I need more lake days.
I need more days of driving around singing to the Ataris and the Starting Line and all those other silly bands that scream "this is who you were when you allowed yourself to be carefree."

Hell, I just need to step out of my apartment more. Allow spontaneity back into my life. Let myself enjoy my freakin last summer.

Work and class and memos and assignments.

I can't wait until Farmer's Market Saturday with Gabby.

Come with me. Together, we can take the long way home.

My life right now is similar to my drive home. I hit every yellow light but kept on cruising.
I didn't, however, get pulled over for racing the reds; so I guess in a metaphorical sense this can be considered good.

It's funny to think how, at this moment, I am every hopeless cliche that I ever hoped to be in high school. Dream job on a yacht, good group of friends...going to class and working out during the day and sitting in coffee shops at night.
I have to admit that these things are much more romantic on paper than in actual life.
I feel caught somewhere between alive and pathetic.

My fingers have been buring to write lately, and the fews things that I've scribbled have been horrible at best. But I got an unexpected message from an old friend asking how I was doing and if I still wrote. Alas! A reminder of who I used to be and who I used to like being.

This summer has been shakey and unfamiliar, and I've found myself feeling completely disoriented. That message was exactly what I needed to remind me that I used to be someone before I was this empty shell of a person. So I took it and ran with it...

My semester was all work. 9-4 classes, followed by an unpaid internship that often required unpaid overtime, and my weekends were entirely devoted to the responsibilites that a newly 21 year old shouldn't be so overly concerned with. I've become dreadfully responsible, and I almost convinced myself that I enjoyed becoming another clone in the hustle and bustle of our work driven society. The main tragedy is that I wasn't enjoying any part of it.

And then my relationship came to a crashing (burning) end, and I began to question everything I knew about life and love and God.

I can't say that I've found any answers at all...but then again it's only June.

This summer has been far from ideal.
I don't go out, and I'm burdened by my adult limitations. (I have to work for my money? I can't go anywhere I want, whenever I want, with any friend of my chosing?)
I'm too broke to go out, and even if that weren't true Knoxville is a ghost town by night and full of work driven zombies (like myself) during the day.

But, as if God himself had given it to me, a friend recommended: Here, read this book.
And handed me a copy of Eat Pray Love.

This small work has begun the transformation of my summer.

To keep it terse, it was as if Elizabeth Gilbert had crept inside my head and caputured my silliest emotions and then articulated and developed them in a much wiser and more poetic way. I fell in love and will continue to reread this book throughout my life as a devotional and a spiritual.

The most wonderful thing I've gained from this book is a vow to myself to make this summer one of beautiful simplicity.

I'm writing again, and I'm working my way back to the positive aspects of my younger self.

I want to be hopelessly romantic to a fault because that means I believe in love.
I want to go for walks and watch sunrises because that means I can make the most of my surroundings.
And I want to sit and enjoy the newly painted walls of my apartment because that means I can enjoy simplicity.

Gabby and I don't have cable, but we have wonderful movies and a coffee maker.
There is a fantastic half priced book store not 10 minutes from here.

And I just bought two new books to occupy my time: The Old Man and the Sea and 47 Roses

This is the start of a very happy beginning.

Elvis isn't dead cause I heard him on the radio.

I can't believe it is almost December.

I'm leaving for the weekend to go to Northern England with my flatmate,
and when I get back here I'll have to start packing my bags.
This is proof that life really isn't going to slow down...

I have done a terrible job with scribing an account of my time here,
but I feel like the things that I value the most from this experience
are the things that are hardest to write about.

I want to bring back the smell of the ocean
and the view of the raging waves around the pier from the window
of my favorite cafe during a storm.

I want to bring back the memories of my friends that no one will understand
unless they spent a semester abroad with them.
(Amy the tourist nazi, Melissa the quiet hippy, and Katie the clumsy ballerina...
all of us little kids)

But what I can take back with me is this new perspective I have.

Some days I used to look in the mirror and wonder where my life was going.
I still do that, but I don't have as heavy a heart about growing up.

There is absolutely nothing I regret about this experience,
and I am so thankful for the time to breath.
To read and learn.
To socialize and party.
To reflect and find myself
(as I was getting too overwhelmed with the hustle and bustle of transitioning to an adult)



I'm so exited to feel humbly alive as I am.

I won't have very good stories to tell when I get home
because I don't know what I can say to do this semester justice.


Less than three weeks away from being home and back to the way everything was,

but everything has changed
and I look forward to what lies ahead.


For once,
I'm not afraid of the future.

Six too short weeks.

So I am really terrible at keeping up with this,
but there came a point when I realized I could waste time
writing banal entries or I could go out and make the most of Europe.

The hardest thing is knowing that this trip will never be captured
in a way that does it justice,
and it can never be reproduced.

I'm going to miss the ocean, the pier, and the lighthouse
so much.


For now,
I'm procrastinating a paper (nothing new)
and getting super excited to spend Halloween in Amsterdam.

Then after that: Barcelona!

Six pints does not equal six beers.

So Katie and I are probably the most awkward people ever,
and we have had the most awkward couple of days.

Let's start off with our day trip to London.
On Saturday we planned to shop in London, find a hostel, go out, and then return to Swansea on Sunday. Well...Katie had a free train ticket so she took the train while the rest of us took the buses that were cheaper. Long story short, lost Katie, had no phones, couldn't find a hostel, etc. etc.
The good part of that day was the fact that we found a four story Top Shop and spent way too much money on ridiculously cute clothes. Oh well...
You win some, you lose some.

Now yesterday was the truly most awkward of awkward days.

Everyone had to be out of the building from 9-7 because they were checking everything out since all the students start arriving on Friday. Angela, the American student coordinator over here, arranged an all day field trip that left that morning so that we would all have something to do, but Katie, Will, and I opted to spend the day working on our papers instead.
So Katie and I decided to leave around twenty til nine to meet Will downstairs, and the second we get in the elevator to go down, the doors close and the power goes out. Alas! They had cut the power early so we were stuck in the elevator.
It was probably one of the scariest things that's ever happened to me because everyone on the elevator was freaking out, and we kept pressing the alarm button for someone to come help us.
Luckily, we hadn't moved from the 8th floor, so the two guys that were on the elevator with us were able to pry the door open after a while, and we got out.
Unfortunately, the people on the other elevator were not quite as lucky and were stuck in between floors.
It took calling the fire brigade and another hour to get the other people out.
Needless to say, Angela was livid that they cut the power early and failed to check and see that the elevators were empty.

After that drama, Katie, Will, and I found that the library was closed so we weren't able to do research, so we decided to go to a bookstore and see if we could at least get an idea of what to write our papers on. Another long story short: we were kicked out because you're not allowed to look through books unless you buy them, and the lady was really mad at us.

The day proceeded as follows:
-Katie and I decided to shop, and Will ran away from us. Literally ran away... We turned around for 8 seconds to ask where a bathroom was, and we turned around and saw his bandanna halfway out of the bus station.
-Katie and I were kicked out of a store in the mall for trying on hair extensions.
-Katie and I decide to hop on a random bus for a quick 10 min. adventure which turned into an hour and a half through the ghetto and hillsides of Swansea.

When we finally got back we decided that we seriously needed a bottle of wine, so we went to Tesco which is the 24 hour grocery store here...except they are not 24 hours on the weekend and were closed.

After feeling completely defeated and rejected by the world we retired to the campus pub
where we proceeded to drink ciders all night which apparently is the drink of choice for old fat blokes.
We just can't win.


As I write this now, it is 48 hours later because I suck at updating this, but last night we went out on the town
and had way too much fun. Just ask me about it...

One day I'll learn.

A day in the life of a third grader.

So today was our second field trip which we prepared for by drinking lots of wine
and going to see Batman the night before, and waking up has never felt so wonderful and refreshing.
As I write this, I'm quite delusional and in desperate need of a nap, but, with my rigorous night
schedule, I was unsure that I would get around to writing any other time.

Anyway, after greeting the morning, Katie and I decided that this was one field trip we wanted to look cute for, so we put on decent clothes and groomed ourselves accordingly. In fact, I think it even went something like this:
Katie: Are you going to wear your tennis shoes?
Me: No. I'm going to wear my boots, but that is probably going to be a poor decision.
Katie: Ok. I'll probably change my shoes then. Are you going to bring a jacket?
Me: No, I figure you haven't worn a jacket in a while so long sleeves will probably be fine.
Katie: Ok. I'll leave my jacket behind, too.

Well, as luck would have it, Katie and I were one of the few (...or the only ones) who missed the memo that today's field trip would take place in a dirty, muddy, wet coal mine that was super cold and would require jackets. Go figure.

It ended up looking a little something like this: (And this is sadly the best picture we got...)

The tour itself was interesting, but we preferred being outside where the hills seemed to stretch on forever.

The second half of the field trip was to a museum, but it was a real bore and nothing worth mentioning beyond the pretty gardens.

Other than the ridiculous field trips, the our class on British politics and culture is pretty interesting, but I think we're all ready to move to the student village and start our real classes.

But I digress tremendously and cannot seem to put my thoughts into words,
so a nap it is, and a better, less ridiculous post soon.

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you...

So yesterday we took our first field trip which was kind of put off by the weather.
On the bus they handed us a map that looked like they were directing us around the shire,
and we toured a place called the Mumbles which apparently is not too far down the road
from where Catherine Zeta Jones resides.
It was really beautiful with a pier on the ocean and that lighthouse that I can see from my window, and apparently there is a place there that has the most delicious ice cream you've ever tasted.
Unfortunately, we were not allowed off the bus for that...it was for looking purposes only,
and then we ventured to some other place where we, in the process, clipped the side of a bus
on a too narrow road and took out our mirror. And then were rejected our destination after finding that the road was flooded. Bummer.
After that we drove through a very picturesque part of the country side which ended in Oxwhich with a coffee shop on the beach next to a castle that we did not explore. However, we walked out into the ocean and hung out until the tide started to come back in.



Later that night, it was Melissa's 21st birthday so a bunch of us went out to Pub in the Pond
which is a quaint little pub on the edge of campus, and we had a few drinks while everyone else around us was obnoxiously hammered.
Now, I only use 'obnoxiously' to mean that this kind of hammered made random boys walk into our rooms, scream, throw things, cry, and act like complete morons.
I guess that is what finishing an entire bottle of Grey Goose before 8pm does to guy...
Who knew?

Anyway, the obnoxiously hammered are not the ones I've been hanging out with, and I'm quite pleased to say that there is a group of us (the people on my floor and a few others) who have taken an affinity to each other.
It's worked out quite nicely because we all click in a way that makes it feel like I've known these people for years and can talk with them about anything.
One girl, Katie, and I seem to have a lot in common, and I knew after she said, "Wait until I go all Grandma on you guys and start going to bed at 9 o'clock," that we shared a special bond.
I get along really well with everyone else too, and we all are similar in the fact that we like to have fun, but we're all really spiritual, too, so we can connect on that deeper level, as well. The guys on my floor are so sexified it isn't even funny, they love to walk around in the buff with their dangles all hangin' out. (That last sentence was from Justin who just ambushed my computer.)

Anyway, last night Teddy knocked on my door with an, "I'm bored, what are you doing?" and we sat and had a nice little chat. It's nice to know that we can connect on the "I'm in a long distance relationship and it totally blows" level, but I think it will especially be nice because I think we'll do a lot of looking out for each other. It was really interesting talking to him, too, because it sounds like him and his girlfriend are in the exact same boat that Brett and I were in when he left to study abroad. It's the whole: they were kind of not exclusive but had feelings for each other but she's on the fence and he's far away and how does he convince her that he really cares for her kind of thing.
I think he really respects and looks up to my advice, and it's awesome to have that kind of respect from the people (or at least some of them) here.

On a different note, as I type this Justin is in my room trying to persuade me to introduce him to my sister...but I'm trying to convince him that she probably won't want to be his friend...

Changing subjects once again, I'm going to go start this book that we were apparently supposed to read for our politics class that starts on Monday.... Needless to say I was oblivious to this memo.

Then off to the Mumbles!