The
question comes smoothly, inevitably, like an old sniffle or cough that stays
with you even after the cold: “Woah, you’re going to London??? (You must be excited.) Are you excited???”
“Yes,”
I nod, “I’m looking forward to it.”
The
question, curiously, reminds me of a question I used to get frequently during
my first year at college: “Oh, so you’re in college now? Don’t you love it?” Those who know me well may have
heard my thoughts on that question and the danger I think it poses to the
psyches of young scholars (or at least to the psyche of this young scholar),
but I won’t go into that here. This is a
blog about studying abroad, after all.
So
am I excited about London? No, not really.
I
can imagine the shockwaves, the epithet of “ungrateful college kid” starting to
form. It must be that I think three months in London is just another
experience, right? My spot on the program should be taken by someone actually
excited about studying abroad, right? Right?
Truthfully,
there’s not too much I get excited about anymore. I can boil the bulk of my
excitement down to three main things: 1) reuniting with old friends, 2) returning
to the towns of Chapel Hill, Warwick, NY, or Cleveland, GA after any type of
absence, and 3) Carolina basketball. With these three things, I can visualize
the experience I’m going to have: laughing about old jokes, cheering a Reggie
Bullock 3-pointer, seeing the sun set over Davis Library from my fourth-floor
dorm room. Yet, I’ve never been to England before and I’ve never seen the neighborhood
in which I’m living, so when I try to visualize something I may experience
there, I come up a bit short. I have no idea what I’ll see when I first touch
down at Heathrow, no idea what it will be like to walk up the steps of the
Winston House, no idea how it will feel to unlock the door to my London flat. I
hope they’ll be memorable experiences—I hope I’ll be pleasantly surprised, but
if they’re not, I don’t want to be let down.
So
I’m not excited about London. Hopefully someday, after I’ve had a great
experience on this program and I’m returning to the city for who-knows-what,
I’ll be excited about it. But for now, I can only answer these questions
truthfully:
- · Am I looking forward to the program? Most definitely.
- · Do I feel like I made the right decision? Unhesitatingly, yes.
- · Do I think I’ll uniquely benefit from being in London? Yes—I think London is the right place for me next semester.
- · Do I think I’ll grow as a person? It’s hard not to.
- · Do I think I’ll have a good semester? I can’t predict the future, but I think I’ll learn a lot and have a lot of fun.
- · What am I most looking forward to in London? The surprises.
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