It's in the little things...

Before I left home, I had a bunch of you suggest that I start a blog to keep everyone posted on what's going on over here, so...wah lah. Your wish is my command. I don't know how often I'll have something interesting to write about, but thus far I've only met about 10 possible friends, so who knows. I may have way more spare time on my hands than I'm used to! I'm thinking that the loneliness thing would probably be good for my scholastic endeavors, but I bet it would also be pretty detrimental to my personal wellness, so...we shall see. Hopefully once I get settled in, I'll find a happy medium. Until then, I'll be thriving on e-mails from home (hint, hint!!) and trying to find my way in the biggest, weirdest place I've ever been. I swear, If you'd have told me a year ago that this is where I'd be and this is what I'd be doing, I'd have told you you were out of your mind. Crazy what can happen when you least expect it, huh? If this is any indication, I don't even want to KNOW where I'll be a year from now.

So let's see...I got here a week ago today and spent the better part of my week trying to come to grips with the fact that, yes, I did indeed just pack up my whole life and move at least 5 time zones (7 in Allison's case, 8 from Sarah, and 9 from Wes) away from every single solitary person that I know and care about. I know most of you see me as a somewhat of a social butterfly, but this "butterfly" definitely never realized how isolated and fish-out-of-water-esque she could feel! I'm sure I'll be just fine once I get settled into some sembelance of a routine, but right now, I can't help but think that I'm a bit crazy for taking this jump. My hope, and my honest belief, is that I will eventually be so happy here that I don't want to come home (but I will, I promise), thrilled that I did this, and a better person for it. However, I know I can't expect that to happen overnight. I guess it will just take a little while before I can actually see it that way, so until then, please bear with me if I sound like Eeyore, all gloomy and sad and "I lost my tail" about stuff...Ali, that was for you :)

Ok, pouting session over, moving right along...most of my time this week has been spent basically getting acclimated to life in a new country and trying to find my way around without looking like a complete idiot. City-wise, I'm fine. If nothing else, my job at the University DEFINITELY taught me how to read a map and navigate in a strange place! However, I refuse to be one of 'those people' who pulls out a map in the middle of the sidewalk and stares blankly at it for 5 minutes, so sometimes I just have to get myself lost and then wander around aimlessly until I re-find my way. Finding ANYTHING the first time around was definitely challenging (finding school took me an hour, finding a hairdryer took me 3 days!!), but I think I've got my bearings now and can walk around without it being blatanly obvious that I'm (gasp!) an American.

That's the other thing...I almost find myself trying not to talk in public, because it seems like everytime I do, someone gives me a look when they hear my American accent. I feel like people here are just kinda rude and self-inportant in general, to the extent that I honestly believe I could fall down in the middle of the street, in the pouring rain, in front of a bus, and people would just step right over me and keep walking. I'm trying not to take it personally, but it's really weird to have people look you straight in the face and maintain their perma-scowl, instead of smiling and saying hi like they probably would at home. I know it's just a cultural thing, but geez...

The jury is still out on school, although I can say, unequivocally, that this is the scariest, most intimidating place I've ever been. I'm not kidding. It's like Harvard on steriods. They practically have a shrine built to their 13 Nobel Prize winning alumni, which really makes me stop and wonder what I'm doing here! Everything is way more complicated than it is in an American university, which is to say much more complicated than it needs to be, and the answer to every question (if you can even get an answer out of someone) is 'go look on the website'...which, by the way, is the worst website in the history of the internet. You can't find anything, if you do manage to find what you're looking for, nothing makes sense, and you have to have about 45 log-in names and passwords to get anywhere. You'd really think that with all of these brilliant people in one place, they could somehow figure out a way to make things a little more user-friendly, but whatever. Class is alright so far, although I think it will be quite awhile before I raise my hand to say anything. I've been out of school for almost 3 and a half years now, so it's been quite awhile since my brain has had to do any sort of analysis, critical thinking or reading comprehension. I'm hoping those skills will kick back in pretty quickly, or else I'm in serious trouble in the land of the geniuses here!

All craziness and stressing out aside, I think the thing I've realized the most this week is that it really is the little things that make a difference.

Little things that can add up to ruin your day:
- accidentally giving some guy a coin worth 2 pence instead of 2 pounds (the difference between 2 British pennies and 2 British dollars...although it's really like 4 pennies and 4 dollars, but I really can't even get into how infuriating that is!) and feeling like a big idiot about it
- asking the reception desk guy in my building an easy, totally logical direction question and him chuckling and saying to me, "You're in London, not the desert. It'll be alright"...the attitude is not necessary, sir.
-going out of your house for literally 5 minutes without your umbrella, and it starts pouring down rain while you're walking
- wearing my cowboy boots to school :) that are usually totally comfortable, except somehow, now there's this one little seam behind my right heel that's kinda jutting out...a little seam that could evidently be used to kill someone, seeing as how by the time I got home that day, it had carved a nice little bleeding hollow spot out of the back of my ankle that still hasn't gone away.

And little things that remind you that somehow, it will all be ok:
- some guy coming up to me while I was waiting in line to by my Oyster Card (similar to the NYC subway's Metrocard), handing me his, and saying "Here, would you like this? I'm done with it. Seriously, take it," smiling, and walking away
- getting to hang out with Shauna's brother, Chris and his wife, Jan for a couple of days over the weekend; we didn't do all that much except just walk around and explore, but I think just having someone familiar around for awhile was exactly what I needed after the week I had. Plus, they gave me the first hugs I've had in 7 days! I'd never realized what a huggy, affectionate person I am until the option wasn't there...the moral of this story is, if you come to visit, you'd BETTER be prepared to give me a really good hug!!
- all of the sweet, encouraging e-mails that I've gotten from people at home; I promise, I'm working my way down the page responding them :)
- meeting up with some of the people from the London chapter of the UGA Alumni Association last night at about 1 am to watch the stupid Tennessee game; even though we lost, it was so much fun to sit around with people withOUT British accents, watching a game just like you would at home...except that it was 5 in the morning when I had to navigate the bus situation to get home...
- a phone call from Wes at 2:30 in the morning (which is almost lunchtime for him) just to check on me, because he knew I was having a panic-attack kind of day
- walking back to the Underground from school on Thursday and passing what looked like a field trip of kids who were probably 8 or 9; It started POURING right when I was passing them, and they all started squealing really loud and giggling and squirming around. It was so cute, I couldn't help but laugh while walking past them, although it really made me miss all of the adorable little ones in my life at home!
- the hilariously inappropriate guy who walked up to me the other day as I was wandering around in search of the ellusive hairdryer and said, 'Hey. Would you like to have a baby together?' Who says that?!? I couldn't do anything but bust out laughing and say, 'Ummm, no, I'm good, but thank you,' but I did have to give him creativity points. Of all of the bad lines we've ever heard, that has got to be the best one.
-the fact that, in my research methods lecture on friday, my teacher actually used the words "poppycock" and "fat bastards," and he had the word "gibberish" somewhere in his power point presentation; these people are too funny...

So yeah, while there have definitely been days this week when it took every ounce of energy I had not to break down and cry in the middle of the hall at school, I'm making it. I'm determined to make the most out of this year, and I know that it will all work out ok in the end, as long as I let the little things that make me smile be the ones I focus on.

I suppose I should go read all kinds of oh-so-interesting articles about HIV/AIDS prevention programs in Uganda and textbooks about health psychology theories, but I'll be back with stories (and pictures, I suppose) sometime soon. Until then, keep me posted on life at home.

Cheers! (Do I sound British yet??)