I think I posted something at the end of 2008 about 'the beginning of the end,' but that beginning wasn't really a beginning and that end wasn't really an end, so I don't know what I was talking about. The end is actually near for me, now, and I couldn't tell til now because I stopped counting months. It's almost 8 months, I think, if I just counted on my fingers correctly, and my 'year' in England is only going to be 9 months, unfortunately, so it's almost over. I haven't let myself dwell too much on it, because just like last year I'm starting to dread the aiport-day and the move-away-from-a-home-day. Best to ignore it until the night before, and then pack to avoid it some more. :)
Not so thankfully, I have essays and exams to keep me occupied and direct the energy that would be sad about leaving. This past week I finished 2 essays and am working on a third that's due Monday, and then after that I have to begin studying for The Final Exams, which, thankfully, all fall in the first week of the Leeds-Three-Week-Exam-Period. A lot of energy will be spent and spent and spent in the next 16 days. And I'm still catching up on all the energy I spent in the last couple months. Too much whirlwind. On the whole, I prefer doing the work here than the work at Tech. While I still would prefer to not have to do any of it at all, I can agree that my mind works better over here, and not only because my professors are ten times more helpful because I'm foreign to their system. It's unfortunate that just when I find an educational niche that I would have prospered in if I'd started it 3 years ago, I'm at the end of my degree and the end of my exchange program and the end of my rope as far as school goes. But I might not have appreciated it as much if not for the contrast of what I have to go home to. Maybe.
With the end of my disposable cameras comes the rise of the digital -- there are even more pictures posted on flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/agutierrezray/) of a variety of events: Dave and Daryoush's visit (see below), Katie's birthday, Mark's birthday, Lucy and Leander's last dinner with us (see below again), and some generic Leeds stuff. It's refreshing having a lot of camera to work with, as opposed to the small and less exciting disposable, but it is much more anti-climactic plugging the camera into the computer and seeing all the pictures you already saw when you took them. No suspense, no drama. Though the quality might be better. All the pros and cons of the digital era and I'm still undecided. Being so far away from you all makes me lean more toward leniency for the technology I used to dislike so much, but old favorites die hard.
I got the position of editor for Erato, the arts and literature journal at Tech, for next year. I'm both intimidated and excited, because I have no idea how I'll manage it and I'm curious to see how much I'll have to learn. I'm anticipating a lot of occurrences where I'll see how much patience I have for other people, not a pleasant thought, but a change from the easygoing life of people I've encountered so far. TheScribe just launched, with the party this past Monday and the publication is as beautiful as ever. I'm published on the first page of poetry again, a little bit of an oddity, I guess. I got approached by the editors of Cadaverine magazine, a local poetry journal, who want to publish one of the poems I read at the open mic -- another exciting opportunity to be a part of England before I leave.
Lucy and Leander's last supper was so good and so sad -- having to say goodbye was a little awful, but we plan on definitely seeing each other again somewhere, somehow. Lauren cooked an amazing Thai dinner for a lot of us, with handmade dimsum and dumplings and everything (Lauren is an amazing cook), and then we went to the pub to meet some other people for them to say goodbye to. I've talked to them since they arrived in Cambodia (Leander got a cell phone and we can text a couple times a week for not too much money) and they already sound so happy and relieved to be there, the culmination of about a year's worth of paperwork and saving. It was also sad to see them say goodbye to their boyfriends, the poor little things. Leander's boyfriend Nick has been hanging out at our house a lot because he misses her.
Dave and Daryoush came and went for 5 days -- they absolutely loved England, though I'm pretty sure I exhausted them with how much I dragged them around to see and do. I was just so excited to share Leeds again with people I know I'll see again and be able to talk about Leeds with now, and since I got to see them in France we have that much more to talk about, too. They got 3 days of good weather and 2 days of bad weather, so it was a good ratio as far as England is concerned. I got to cook for them and they got to come to work (and they ate a lot of free sandwiches) to see me and meet all my friends and everything. It was just a perfect calm before the storm of the end. They made me see how much I've learned about England, though, with all their questions about what people were saying and what words meant and why they were saying things the way they were. It's surprising how much I've gotten used to, and maybe even more surprising at how much I'll take back with me. I'm determined to avoid an English accent at all costs, and cross my heart and hope to die I won't bring one back with me.
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