Posts
It's been ages since I've posted. I am not living up to my promise of this blog, now, am I?
Things still to come: the DC entry. The "Horray, I finally am in London!" entry. The "I'm Homeless (And my UK registered address is the HSBC Bank in Knightsbridge)" entry. And the "Finally Found a Home, Goodbye Streets of London" entry.
This will all come after this entry can become the "Oh! My internet, how I am happy to have thee again!" one. And then many posts will follow.
Until then, contemplate this (as I did this morning): right now, if you had 24 before you fell over and died, what - exactly - would you do?
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Life comes at you fast. (Where's my insurance to help?)
I'm slowly watching my life fall apart.
For so long, England was all I wanted; I wanted to go back to the place where I had felt the happiest. At least, the happiest in a long, long time.
It was my, "What are you going to do with the rest of your life?" excuse for when I graduated. Above anything else, I do best when I have some goal, some purpose, something to do. Something to look forward to. Otherwise, I start to drown.
Well, folks, I'm drowning.
Because I don't know if this is what I want to do anymore.
Rephrasing: I don't know if grad school is something I want to do right now. Right away.
I thought I would do anything to get to London - and I mean anything - because, above all, London was my calling. London was what I wanted to do.
And then summer hit - hit like a giant wave crashing over my head, and as I floundered and kicked and tried to just breathe, it became ever-more-clear to me that the reason I was drowning and not reaching that surface was because of this; because of my desire to get to London.
As of now, I want to live in London more than any other place in the world. But at what cost?
As much as $40,000 in student loans for one year of schooling?
As much as a program that I'm not that, the more I look at the courses and work I will be doing, I am not that crazy about?
As much as a dream I have that doesn't include - or need - a Master's degree?
As much as the various expenses, and stresses, and loneliness, and leaving of all the friends and family I have?
I'm not so sure anymore.
(Not to mention that, logistically, Fate is fighting against my plastic knife with an excalibur-magical-steel-blade. It might be, at this point, simply impossible for me to get everything in on time and get all the documents I need to even get to the UK. Stupid, stupid SallieMae. Stupid logistics. Stupid roadblocks that just don't want me to get to where I need to be).
I keep asking for some sign as to what to do. But what if I have been getting the signs - the roadblocks - and just plowing right through them?
What if I am making a huge, huge mistake?
For so long, England was all I wanted; I wanted to go back to the place where I had felt the happiest. At least, the happiest in a long, long time.
It was my, "What are you going to do with the rest of your life?" excuse for when I graduated. Above anything else, I do best when I have some goal, some purpose, something to do. Something to look forward to. Otherwise, I start to drown.
Well, folks, I'm drowning.
Because I don't know if this is what I want to do anymore.
Rephrasing: I don't know if grad school is something I want to do right now. Right away.
I thought I would do anything to get to London - and I mean anything - because, above all, London was my calling. London was what I wanted to do.
And then summer hit - hit like a giant wave crashing over my head, and as I floundered and kicked and tried to just breathe, it became ever-more-clear to me that the reason I was drowning and not reaching that surface was because of this; because of my desire to get to London.
As of now, I want to live in London more than any other place in the world. But at what cost?
As much as $40,000 in student loans for one year of schooling?
As much as a program that I'm not that, the more I look at the courses and work I will be doing, I am not that crazy about?
As much as a dream I have that doesn't include - or need - a Master's degree?
As much as the various expenses, and stresses, and loneliness, and leaving of all the friends and family I have?
I'm not so sure anymore.
(Not to mention that, logistically, Fate is fighting against my plastic knife with an excalibur-magical-steel-blade. It might be, at this point, simply impossible for me to get everything in on time and get all the documents I need to even get to the UK. Stupid, stupid SallieMae. Stupid logistics. Stupid roadblocks that just don't want me to get to where I need to be).
I keep asking for some sign as to what to do. But what if I have been getting the signs - the roadblocks - and just plowing right through them?
What if I am making a huge, huge mistake?
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
The First (never the last) and the Explanation (never ever simple)
So. It begins here.
As of two days ago, I decided that, in September, I will pack my entire life into two fifty-lb. suitcases (trust me, that isn't as much as you think it is) and jetset across the Atlantic to study in London. From September 2009 to September 2010, I will be studying my life away - and hopefully exploring the city to give any future (hopefully) followers a brief taste of this wonderful city. I will be attending King's College London, a great university (ranked #22 in the world currently, thank-you-very-much) in a beautiful city (London calling!) studying what I love (English Literature) and taking classes in the coolest setting ever (umm, British Library? How great is that?) and hopefully getting the chance to see new places around the UK that I haven't before.
That sounds all great-and-good now. But this decision did not come easily. Or quickly.
I spent the entire last couple months of 2008 agonizing and debating and crying over and writing and applying for different postgraduate programmes in the UK. "Do I really want to go?" I'd ask my long-distance English boyfriend through Skype. "Or am I going because I miss you, or want to see you?" "Am I going because I'm too scared to apply for a job?" "What if I get rejected?" "These schools are way too good for me, I'm kidding myself!" "I want to go to Cambridge, but I'm not smart enough.." "What do you think I should do?"
Let's just say, I was not the most pleasant girlfriend/daughter/bestfriend/roommate in the world. I distracted myself from missing my boyfriend (let's just call him "T" for the sake of things) and getting too wild-and-crazy in my senior year of college by focusing on applications. I watched my roommates drink can after can of Nati Light as I sat with my laptop and wrote 10 personal statements.
(Yes, I finally decided on 10 different universities, all in the UK. Much to my dissapointment, Cambridge was not one of them. But I quickly got over that when I was knee-deep in applications.)
(OH, and on a side note - to all my lovely followers-and-friends out there who are diligently forgetting they have a social life in lieu of school or job applications: if anyone tries to tell you that applying for various things is not a full-time job and is easy, I want you to do something for me. Punch them square in the nose.)
So back to the story. It's senior year of my college career, first semester (one of the hardest semesters ever for me, btw), and I finally - right after finals - handed in my last application. I think I just laid back and laughed, and then called my mom.
Within a month, I heard the results from pretty much all of the universities. I was accepted to 9 programmes out of the 10 (listed in school + location in England):
- King's College London, London
- University College London, London
- University of Kent, Canterbury
- Durham University for Museum Studies, Durham City (for all you non-England-geography folks out there, this is up in the way north of England)
- Durham University for English
- Queen Mary, University of London, London
- Royal Holloway, University of London, Surrey (just near London)
- University of Essex for Management and Curating, Colchester (45-min east of London, yet again, non England-geography-scholars)
- Uni. of Essex for Literature
And then the fated rejection: University of York. I lovedlovedloved York when I went to go visit, and as it's a great school as well, I was so excited to apply. I was bummed when I was rejected, but in the long run, it's okay; I had a hard engouh time deciding between 9 programs.
So back to the story.
In a timeframe sense, this would make the timing around January. By the end of January, I had received all the notifications of acceptances (and one rejection), and was dancing around with my acceptance papers, giddy as anything.
And now it's the end of June. Why - I am sure you are all asking - did it take me so long to make a decision?
Because, out of all my negative personality traits, the one that stands the strongest is that I can't make a decision to save my life.
I flipflopped between rankings, programs, which city I wanted to live in, how close to my (at the time) English boyfriend, what did I really want to do, etc. And of course, the biggest question, where could I really afford? In my defense, I applied for a series of scholarships, all of which I only heard about (after a series of nagging emails) in the beginning of June. And that really was going to affect my decision.
But really, what it all came down to was my indecisiveness. I am a Libra, after all; we see all sides of every situation, and thus can't seem to let one option go. I first discovered I was like this when I was 5 (the same day someone told me I was a Libra, born in October), and it's been my favorite excuse ever since.
And then, it came to me. Above all, for my one year program, I wanted to be in a city. I spent 4 years in Washington, DC, and my one month here in suburban NJ has made me want to go running back to the Metro and bars and sights and people and monuments. I love living in a city, and more than anything, I wanted London.
King's has the perfect ratio of difficulty without wanting to kill myself, a program I love, editing experience (oh yes. Did I mention that my future career aspirations include either book or magazine editing? Because they do.), and the city. London. I can't wait to go back. This is not my first time in the UK (studying abroad at the University of Essex was one of the best times of my life, and at ony 45 min away from London, I made a few day trips to the city. But now it's time to live there, give it a fair chance), and so I go into this not so blind as I normally would be. I know the area - and I mean "know" very, very lightly - and the friends in the UK I do have live at the Uni. of Essex. So really, the decision became more and more clear to me: this was what I wanted to do, most of all.
Yes, I will be some $40,000 in debt, and yes, I will be working a part-time job while a full time Master's student and trying to explore the city and have fun and keep up this blog and work on my personal writing and have a social life. But hey - it's always been tough. I can do one more year of college level studying.
(And on another side note - this decision, in the end, had nothing to do with T. T and I broke up in February [dramatically enough, two-days before Valentine's day] and I am happy to say I have been 3-4 months emotionally-sober [aka, moved on from the breakup] ... needless to say, this decision to go to London is my own, and not motivated by T at all).
So, I say again. Here is where it all begins:
My name is Samantha Erin. Everyone calls me Erin. Right now, I am living and loving my time surrounded by pine trees in Medford, NJ. But in a couple of months, I will be living and loving the city of London, getting my Master's degree in Early Modern English Literature: Text and Transmission (a fancy way to say Medieval/Early Modern Literature with Editing courses).
This blog will be my journey, but mainly, it will be my sights and tastes and thoughts of London. I will be posting pictures, blurbs, blogs, lots and lots of fashion comments and room decorating ideas, reviews of literature, but of course, everything will be London-central and English-esque.
I will be posting London best-kept secrets, tips for you Americans who want to visit, what it's like to really live in one of the most famous cities in the world.
Coming Soon, September 2009: A (Turkish)-American Girl (Living and Loving) in London.
(And don't worry: future entries won't ever be this self-centered, this long, and this boring.)
As of two days ago, I decided that, in September, I will pack my entire life into two fifty-lb. suitcases (trust me, that isn't as much as you think it is) and jetset across the Atlantic to study in London. From September 2009 to September 2010, I will be studying my life away - and hopefully exploring the city to give any future (hopefully) followers a brief taste of this wonderful city. I will be attending King's College London, a great university (ranked #22 in the world currently, thank-you-very-much) in a beautiful city (London calling!) studying what I love (English Literature) and taking classes in the coolest setting ever (umm, British Library? How great is that?) and hopefully getting the chance to see new places around the UK that I haven't before.
That sounds all great-and-good now. But this decision did not come easily. Or quickly.
I spent the entire last couple months of 2008 agonizing and debating and crying over and writing and applying for different postgraduate programmes in the UK. "Do I really want to go?" I'd ask my long-distance English boyfriend through Skype. "Or am I going because I miss you, or want to see you?" "Am I going because I'm too scared to apply for a job?" "What if I get rejected?" "These schools are way too good for me, I'm kidding myself!" "I want to go to Cambridge, but I'm not smart enough.." "What do you think I should do?"
Let's just say, I was not the most pleasant girlfriend/daughter/bestfriend/roommate in the world. I distracted myself from missing my boyfriend (let's just call him "T" for the sake of things) and getting too wild-and-crazy in my senior year of college by focusing on applications. I watched my roommates drink can after can of Nati Light as I sat with my laptop and wrote 10 personal statements.
(Yes, I finally decided on 10 different universities, all in the UK. Much to my dissapointment, Cambridge was not one of them. But I quickly got over that when I was knee-deep in applications.)
(OH, and on a side note - to all my lovely followers-and-friends out there who are diligently forgetting they have a social life in lieu of school or job applications: if anyone tries to tell you that applying for various things is not a full-time job and is easy, I want you to do something for me. Punch them square in the nose.)
So back to the story. It's senior year of my college career, first semester (one of the hardest semesters ever for me, btw), and I finally - right after finals - handed in my last application. I think I just laid back and laughed, and then called my mom.
Within a month, I heard the results from pretty much all of the universities. I was accepted to 9 programmes out of the 10 (listed in school + location in England):
- King's College London, London
- University College London, London
- University of Kent, Canterbury
- Durham University for Museum Studies, Durham City (for all you non-England-geography folks out there, this is up in the way north of England)
- Durham University for English
- Queen Mary, University of London, London
- Royal Holloway, University of London, Surrey (just near London)
- University of Essex for Management and Curating, Colchester (45-min east of London, yet again, non England-geography-scholars)
- Uni. of Essex for Literature
And then the fated rejection: University of York. I lovedlovedloved York when I went to go visit, and as it's a great school as well, I was so excited to apply. I was bummed when I was rejected, but in the long run, it's okay; I had a hard engouh time deciding between 9 programs.
So back to the story.
In a timeframe sense, this would make the timing around January. By the end of January, I had received all the notifications of acceptances (and one rejection), and was dancing around with my acceptance papers, giddy as anything.
And now it's the end of June. Why - I am sure you are all asking - did it take me so long to make a decision?
Because, out of all my negative personality traits, the one that stands the strongest is that I can't make a decision to save my life.
I flipflopped between rankings, programs, which city I wanted to live in, how close to my (at the time) English boyfriend, what did I really want to do, etc. And of course, the biggest question, where could I really afford? In my defense, I applied for a series of scholarships, all of which I only heard about (after a series of nagging emails) in the beginning of June. And that really was going to affect my decision.
But really, what it all came down to was my indecisiveness. I am a Libra, after all; we see all sides of every situation, and thus can't seem to let one option go. I first discovered I was like this when I was 5 (the same day someone told me I was a Libra, born in October), and it's been my favorite excuse ever since.
And then, it came to me. Above all, for my one year program, I wanted to be in a city. I spent 4 years in Washington, DC, and my one month here in suburban NJ has made me want to go running back to the Metro and bars and sights and people and monuments. I love living in a city, and more than anything, I wanted London.
King's has the perfect ratio of difficulty without wanting to kill myself, a program I love, editing experience (oh yes. Did I mention that my future career aspirations include either book or magazine editing? Because they do.), and the city. London. I can't wait to go back. This is not my first time in the UK (studying abroad at the University of Essex was one of the best times of my life, and at ony 45 min away from London, I made a few day trips to the city. But now it's time to live there, give it a fair chance), and so I go into this not so blind as I normally would be. I know the area - and I mean "know" very, very lightly - and the friends in the UK I do have live at the Uni. of Essex. So really, the decision became more and more clear to me: this was what I wanted to do, most of all.
Yes, I will be some $40,000 in debt, and yes, I will be working a part-time job while a full time Master's student and trying to explore the city and have fun and keep up this blog and work on my personal writing and have a social life. But hey - it's always been tough. I can do one more year of college level studying.
(And on another side note - this decision, in the end, had nothing to do with T. T and I broke up in February [dramatically enough, two-days before Valentine's day] and I am happy to say I have been 3-4 months emotionally-sober [aka, moved on from the breakup] ... needless to say, this decision to go to London is my own, and not motivated by T at all).
So, I say again. Here is where it all begins:
My name is Samantha Erin. Everyone calls me Erin. Right now, I am living and loving my time surrounded by pine trees in Medford, NJ. But in a couple of months, I will be living and loving the city of London, getting my Master's degree in Early Modern English Literature: Text and Transmission (a fancy way to say Medieval/Early Modern Literature with Editing courses).
This blog will be my journey, but mainly, it will be my sights and tastes and thoughts of London. I will be posting pictures, blurbs, blogs, lots and lots of fashion comments and room decorating ideas, reviews of literature, but of course, everything will be London-central and English-esque.
I will be posting London best-kept secrets, tips for you Americans who want to visit, what it's like to really live in one of the most famous cities in the world.
Coming Soon, September 2009: A (Turkish)-American Girl (Living and Loving) in London.
(And don't worry: future entries won't ever be this self-centered, this long, and this boring.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
