“I’m spending my Fall 2012 semester in Edinburgh, Scotland. My process in choosing this program may be optimistically described as “holistic” because of what I half-jokingly identify as crippling indecision (I’m at Pomona because a Canadian penny landed on tails, after all. But that worked out well!) And although I have perhaps never been so excited in my entire life ever ever ever, I’m still very nervous.”
I wrote this in my first blog entry of the year, and now I’ve found myself months and months later reading it over again (slightly cringing as I usually do when reading some old thing of mine) and reminiscing about my junior year, something that will have passed tomorrow at 4pm. Edinburgh was such a monument in my life, and now it has passed, along with another semester here in Claremont, and I like to think I’ve steadied myself from this “crippling indecision,” although I admittedly still suffer from its plain-non-crippling variety. I like to think I’m more secure with myself and my major and my future, but I nonetheless wonder where I’ll end up after graduation next year, as unlike a host of my friends, I still don’t have a grand plan in mind. I like to think of myself as more worldly, but Edinburgh made me realize more than anything that the world is so vast that I’ve just plunged the tip of my finger in the pool, and even if I travel forever, I can’t know every place, and I certainly can’t know them with intimacy. I’ll have to settle for mere acquaintances and brief sightings and photographs.
If I could send this to myself nine months ago, I could tell myself to avoid certain foods, to try others, to book plane tickets at more opportune times, to give in and buy a heavy sweater earlier, to ride double deckers more, to go to Frary breakfast more often, to arrive at my trains a little earlier, and to stick with the courses I love the most. However, these trials and tribulations have shaped me: they’ve given me a reason to whine, they’ve instilled in me (a little) patience, and they’ve left me (slightly?) wiser and more prepared for the world that lies beyond the gates. Although my summer beckons more abroad adventures and more work, I feel as though I face it in less of a frenzy, even as it wafts closer and closer to me. I’ll update you on this wafting when September rolls around. Until then, thanks for reading.