The Fundamental Things Apply, As Time Goes By

Well everyone, I apologize for neglecting my blog again. As I've said before, I spend most of my days sleeping, eating, studying in the library/JCR and rowing, so I haven't had any real blog-worthy adventures, and there are a few people who are quite upset with me about this, seeing as how I've been choosing to work rather than go out and adventure. And I'm sorry about that as well. I finally do have a couple adventures that I will share, but I'm afraid to say they won't be in this post.

Early on I promised myself that I wouldn't do one of those stereotypical ramble-y blogs that my friends back home always make fun of, the ones where the blogger seems to whine on and on about his or her life, which I'm sorry to say most people don't particularly care about. Anyway, I bring this up, because I had hoped that the purpose of my blog would be to share my experiences of studying abroad in England with friends and family back home, especially since many of my friends are studying abroad and writing blogs about it as well. I had hoped that by blogging about my experiences, it would be similar to my friends and I walking (and on some mornings sprinting) up the steps of LoMo, getting together those few minutes before the beginning of class and chatting about what we did during the weekend or night before. I hope that I've been able to maintain this purpose/feeling in my blog, but even though I'm going to try not to, I'm afraid this post may seem like it's deviating from it a little bit.

Today (or yesterday rather) is Valentine's Day, a holiday I generally dislike not because I've had horrible experiences on Valentine's Day but because I don't like the silly expectations and the misery it seems to bring. This year was a (thankfully) rather uneventful one, but I did receive some dark news from back home, which coincidentally fell on this day.

Firstly, I wouldn't call myself a Facebook addict, but I do check it pretty regularly throughout the day, and today one of my best friends posted a status about horrible difficulties which had just been dumped on her mother. I feel incredibly sorry for my friend and her mother, who don't deserve a drop of anything bad at all, and I wish I could be back home to help in some way. The best I can do though is hope things end up working out for them, and until then, I'm sending as many good karmic vibes as I can their way. But as bad as this news was, it wasn't the worst I heard.

I had finally gotten around to checking my labeled inboxes for my home university's email account the other day, and I sent a sort of "check-in" email to the office I had been working in. Today I received a reply, which said that one of my co-workers, after a long battle with cancer, had passed away in early December. I had only been with the office for two years, so I probably wasn't as close to her as some of the other people there, but she was an incredibly sweet lady and definitely added her own little flair to the office. I will certainly miss her when I return to work. I was also a part of the office when she was diagnosed with cancer, and when I was preparing to leave for England, she had just returned to work, recovering really well. Around the time she had returned to work, another one of my co-workers had a beautiful baby girl. So when I left for Oxford, things were looking pretty bright and cheerful at work. In fact, things were looking pretty bright and cheery generally in San Francisco (my friends and I were all settled into our awesome apartments, a fresh new school year was about to start, the sun was actually out for a few days). Things were looking so great that I actually considered abandoning my study abroad plans. Well, clearly I didn't abandon my plans, and even though I tried not to, I still foolishly hoped that things would stay exactly the same until I returned from Oxford.

I remember reading in our study abroad handbook how we should not expect things to stay the same back home, and I remember only half-considering that thought. I had automatically assumed it would be similar to me leaving the OC to go to school in San Francisco, but I'm slowly realizing that this isn't all that similar. I definitely feel as though I've been in a plastic bubble, especially now that I've cut myself off from illegally watching American TV, and with the rather dark news from home, a few holes have certainly been jabbed into my bubble.

Don't get me wrong; all the bad news and realization has not upset me to the point where I feel like I can't function properly anymore. I'm only a bit shaken and just a little sad. But it's not anything anyone should worry about. =)

Anyway, the point I wanted to try and get across in this post is that I think a part of the study abroad experience is realizing how easy it is to slip into "bubbles." For me, anyway, I wanted to study abroad to expand my "horizons," to broaden my view of the world, and while doing that, I forgot about my end of the world and ended up just shifting my horizon, not expanding it. Even though I knew things would change back home (politically and economically as well as personally), I unconsciously thought that things would be static and that things would be exactly the same as I left it. I think I know better now that this isn't the case, and hopefully, I'll slip out of the bubble sometime soon.

I'm sorry if this post is a little bit whinier than my other ones; it does deviate from my usual style. And if you could, please keep my co-worker's family and my best friend's mom in your prayers. Or if you're like me and don't pray, could you send good vibes their way? Thanks, everyone.

Next time, I promise to up the mood a bit with my second adventure in Bath, and if you haven't already noticed, I finally got my Picasa account sorted, so new pictures await there. Until then...

Cheers,
Nutmeg

Rest in Peace, Bettyann

つくずぐ思うがるの、死は門だなあって。死ぬってことが終わるってことでなくて。そこくぐり逃げて次ぐへ向かう。まさねえ、門です。私は、門番として、ここでたくさんの人送ってきた、「行ってらっしゃい。また会うの。」って言いながら。
−おくりびと

I've often thought that maybe death is like a gateway. Dying doesn't mean the end. You go through it and onto the next thing. So it is a gate. And as the gatekeeper, I've sent so many on their way. Telling them, "Off you go. Until we meet again."
-Departures