Life is pretty good. Thanks for reading.
Your Broad (No Longer) Abroad,
Dacy
I know I just posted a blog all about loneliness, but there are also times of such fullness that the lonely parts fade away to the edges. The past few days have been so full of family, friends, laughing, eating, cooking, and just plain old good times. I may have occasional bouts of loneliness and sadness, but those bouts are surrounded by so much love and laughter. I am thankful that my life, mind, and belly are so full of the things that make me smile.
Life is pretty good. Thanks for reading. Your Broad (No Longer) Abroad, Dacy
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I imagined that all the learning, growing, and changing would happen while I was in England. And it did. But I'm still, and will always be, learning, growing, and changing. One of my more recent lessons is on loneliness. When I'm traveling, it's all good. The loneliness is to be expected, even welcomed. It's so rare to really be alone and solo traveling seems to offer that escape from social interaction I sometimes crave so deeply. I was lonely plenty of times during my solo travels, sometimes to the point of wanting to cut trips short and go back to my home away from home, Canterbury. But sticking through that loneliness is a great feat of independence. It's proof I can find my way on my own, make decisions on my own,
Now that I'm back in Long Beach, loneliness takes on a different form. It's knowing all sorts of people, but never really feeling connected, or familiar. It's knowing where everything is, but still not knowing where to go. Loneliness here feels distinctly sharper because I feel like I should not be lonely. I am surrounded by friends, family, coworkers. Yet I have this sort of loneliness hanging over me, which could potentially be attributed to post-study abroad blues. It's been a solid 4 months since I've been back, so I can't fully agree with that idea. Maybe it's the growing need for connectivity via phones, computers, television. Everything is connected to everything. You can't open a Spotify account without being asked to link your facebook. You can't read an article without the website suggesting to share said article on facebook, twitter, or whatever else. You can't use MapMyRide without the app asking if you want to share your most recent run with your friends. All these things are meant to make us feel closer, more in tune. more connected. But, really, it just pushes us further and further apart. I feel like there's a growing anxiety about social media- one that preys on our inherent need to belong. That anxiety is a result of being able to see when a person read a message, or being constantly able to check what other people are doing, thinking, liking. Just the idea of posting something and viewing how many likes you can get...it's a bizarre new social world we live in. But I digress. This is about loneliness, which I feel can be facilitated by technology. But is also a result of working too much and trying to coordinate schedules with family and friends. It's living in a more isolated environment, it's living far away enough to have to drive places, it's just a different sort of loneliness. It's not all bad. It's not all loneliness. In my 4 months back there have also been plenty of smiles and laughing and good (really great) times with friends and family. It's not all bad, certainly. Life is good, but it wouldn't be life without the downs to balance the ups. Also, wouldn't it be better if I could just be in England all the time? It would. Your Broad (No Longer) Abroad, Dacy Post-graduation life is a lot of working and fretting about what to do next. Applying to jobs, researching grad schools, and most recently putting my ass in gear to apply for a particular scholarship. I was already a tad late in getting started on the application, but I worked at it. I got my recommendations, I wrote my Statement of Purpose and Personal Statement. I compiled my portfolio of creative work. I filled out the application and even submitted it in advance in order to be interviewed by CSULB (and endorsed by them). My interview went swimmingly.
But this is where the application goes awry. A small typo in my statement led to a request to un-submit my application. The very same day, I made the changes, re-uploaded, and re-submitted. Seconds later, a confirmation page and a confirmation email. Submitted, to all appearances. Come the deadline date a week later, my application had not been submitted due to some glitch in the online system. After emails, phone calls, and complaints the scholarship foundation has made it clear that despite an error in their system, they will not accept my application. It is disappointing, to say the least. But also appalling that the foundation acknowledges errors may occur, acknowledges I received a confirmation, but still refuses to take my application. The email confirmation, as I was told, is sent BEFORE the application is fully submitted and that after the confirmation was sent my application must have had a communication interruption. How that makes any sense is beyond me. I'm about 99.9% positive that technology today can provide an email confirmation AFTER something has been submitted rather than before. For a foundation that wants to promote international relations and humanizing people from other cultures, they don't seem to care very much for people from their own country. It's a shame. It was a blow to my momentum, but I'm getting over it. It's one drawback. It's entirely possible I would not have been chosen as a scholarship recipient (though it would have been nice to at least be a candidate). But, as it is, I can only keep on keepin' on. Keep researching, applying, and moving on. Get over it and whatnot. Enough yapping, my next post will include some pictures. Your Broad (No Longer) Abroad, Dacy Well, this broad is broke. No joke. I've been back for a good few months now and it's mostly been me catching up on responsibilities and getting back into the swing of working. I'm lucky to have a job to come back to and a steady paycheck. My job has always been so good to me.
While I wouldn't change anything about my study abroad, there are obvious parts of my experience where I could have been more frugal, whether it was groceries or eating out or even travel expenses. But even the splurges were balanced out by penny-pinching, like taking a 12 hour coach ride from Canterbury to Amsterdam or squeezing into a 12 person dorm room that felt more like a prison than a hostel in London. In retrospect anything can be done better, but poor decisions and mistakes are bound to happen. It is what it is and you get what you get. I could say that something like Glastonbury was an unnecessary expense, and before I went I did feel guilty about spending the money. Yet, the experience of going to one of the most well known British music festivals was well worth the money. Not just because of the amazing time I had, but because it was genuinely one of the most British things I did while in England. I saw a lot of UK bands, spent the entire weekend with a fun bunch of Brits, and even experienced the inevitable combo of rain and sun and mud. Like the perfect cup of English Breakfast tea, I was steeped in British culture. Study Abroad was also educationally important, as I was given the chance to experience a different method of teaching. I took a Literature and a Creative Writing class, both of which operated in a manner I was unaccustomed to, but quickly adapted to and enjoyed. There is a considerable amount of independence involved in the Literature classes. Rather than spend weeks discussing one book, as was my experience in undergrad American universities, the UK system went through about a novel a week plus essays to emphasize critical points. It was up to the students to pick and choose the topics of interest and to conduct more in depth research to bring their own input to class. All the travel, all the late nights with cheap wine, every pound I spent, I don't regret. I met some wonderfully unique and interesting people and made lifelong friends. It was all worth it and I would go broke all over again if the opportunity arose. I would recommend it to anyone and everyone without hesitation. Your Broad (No Longer) Abroad, Dacy This is the last of the poems from my time abroad. I'm working on a new set which will be loosely related to these poems. Read and enjoy and check back here for more poems in the future.
And to commemorate the end of these poems, I shall include some mouth drawings by my dear friend, Gaby, who at my insistence drew these and scanned them so that I might use them for my final project (which I did not actually use, much to her chagrin). The topic of the mouth still hasn't been fully explored for me and I look forward to a time when I can address it again in whatever artistic form comes naturally. These mouths, your mouth, my mouth, are all fascinating, mysterious, disgusting, and ultimately wonderful pieces to a larger beautiful whole. They are what feeds us, breathes life into us, how we communicate and express emotion. Mouths are central to life and it's important to ponder just how strange and precious they are.
Your Broad (No Longer) Abroad, Dacy
I'm currently on the train heading to the airport for a two week stint around Europe. It's both sad and happy. A few weeks ago I wrote about my mixed feelings on leaving the UK and now it's for real real. I can't postpone the reality of packing, cleaning, and the goodbyes.
There's only four weeks left and two of those are being spent on a pretty special trip. I can't complain about that. But as I'm sitting on this train going past the running path and the fields, it's becoming more and more difficult to pretend that there is no end to this grand adventure. I won't be running the river path much longer. Or seeing the endless green fields. Or the sky's with their gorgeous clouds. I won't be lounging or laughing or cooking with the people whom I've bonded with the most. That's going to be the worst and most difficult and is certainly what makes my two week Euro trip such a mix of happy and sad. I've never been so melancholy on the day of a trip, which I know sounds spoiled rotten. I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity for not just this Europe trip, but my entire 6 month stay. I'm happy and excited to see Justin and to spend two weeks exploring. But it's also tinged with the knowledge that I'm speeding towards home. Happy and unhappy feelings are fighting it out inside my old noggin. Might have some radio silence while I'm on this trip, but I'll try to update. Your Broad Abroad, Dacy |
DacyLimFrom Long Beach, CA to Canterbury, England and back. Archives
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