Much Farther To Go

1. Go to www.flickr.com
2. Type in your answer to the question in the “search” box
3. Use only the first page
4. Copy the html and paste for the answer.

1. What is your first name?

2. What is your favorite food?

3. What school did you go to?

4. What is your favorite color?

5. Who is your celebrity crush?

6. Who is your favorite Disney princess?

7. What is your favorite drink?

8. What is your dream vacation?

9. What is your favorite dessert?

10. What do you want to be when you grow up?

11. What do you love most in life?

12. What is one word that describes you?

13. What do you dream about?

I’ve had…an up and down week. I know my interviews went well, but the one I wanted, well, that’s not going to happen. It’s just so silly because however likely or unlikely something is to happen, I’m the first to picture it all working out happily and envisioning everything working out wonderfully. Which is fun, and makes me happy and all that, it’s just…the disappointment can be a lot to take. And in turn, that reminds me that I never had the right to be hopeful in the first place, and I lose some optimism. Hopelessness makes me feel lost. Now, out of necessity (for my sanity at least) I’ve tentatively pinned my hopes on a different job. Not as prestigious, but probably just as well paid. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a scene in Bridget Jones’ Diary where Bridget finds out that Daniel has met the girl he was cheating on her with before. She mutters under her breath at the realization “Silly Bridget, you haven’t only just met her,” as an admonition to herself for believing the best in someone and for foolishly hoping that what she had was real. Okay, maybe I’ve read a bit too much into that scene/relationship, but, what do I whisper to myself when I come crashing down to earth after a nice little daydream? “silly bridget” or “silly Jen” in my best Renee Zellweger British accent. Read the rest of this entry »

I think I became a business student because I knew that pretty much no matter what, there’d be employment for me when I was done. I hated debt when I was young, so it was a huge deal for me to get my bank loan to go to school, I spent a lot of time worrying about money in my first year (and here I am…with four times as much debt..woo!) Then I found out about accounting designations and, fuck, I’m set. I never really stopped to consider what I’d have enjoyed doing though. And it’s all catching up with me at once. I know I can do my CA cuz I’m completely competent and up for it, I just don’t know if I’ll particularly like training for it. So, I find myself here, in a city I don’t like, going to school for something I’m not too keen on at the moment, and with no social life whatsoever. I don’t really like when people have asked me what I’ve been up to lately, because I blank, and it’s not cuz I can’t think of what I have been up to. It’s honestly been…finding tv to watch online in between homework here and there, occasionally visiting the gym, classes…and seeing a friend or two somewhere in there. Sad, I am all too aware.

Anyway, I have had to come to the conclusion that…I’m stuck here. I will stay living here until my degree is finished (yesterday I was already in Germany, in my head…) thank god only one more year, only 7 more classes. I don’t know what I thought my life would look like now back when I was a first year. I was definitely someone else back then. Today during class I was trying to put this all together. Am I moving out, or am I not? Am I moving home for the summer, in which case I need to get my act together? Am I then going to visit England, and really why, for how long, and what for? Will I go to Germany for a year? (this would involve probably having to go back to church, ugh, for the time being) Will I be okay with putting off my degree for another year? Can I handle this year in Europe? Will life go on without me? Half of my anxiety, like ever, has had to do with missing out on things because of choosing one life over another. I hate that I’m so lazy and always seem to follow the path of least resistance. So, I dared dream that I could leave and say fuck you to school for a while. All these questions were actually starting to make me dizzy, maybe it was the circularity of it all. So many what ifs. But then I actually had some real human interaction…don’t actually get much of that lately, and some honest feedback, and I’m back to earth. I was made to realize that I’m SO close to finishing, my friends here do love me, and everything will still be where I left it in a year or two. And you know what? I hate Winnipeg a little less.

So, this didn’t turn out to be much of a travel blog at all. I did have grand visions of what it was going to be. Dramatic and funny stories of me and Meghan in the English experience. And well, dramatic and funny as some experiences have been, I’ve kept them mostly to my own journal. I considered going back and posting on my old blog, but then I spent a good chunk of last night and this morning re-reading everything. I really don’t know what to say about it either than…fuck. I don’t know whether to be happy I’ve changed so much and so dramatically, or be profoundly ashamed of myself.

after this, it’s because I’ve gotten lost somewhere in the London Underground. Actually, the underground is probably the least of all my worries. If we’re lost on the Underground, that’s good news! That means we made it to London. I’ve never taken the train before, and never booked train tickets over the phone, which was an embarrassingly long process. It involved me asking a probably nice lady to repeat what she was saying about three times. I don’t know if it’s my fault that I don’t recognize the phrase ‘the long number on my credit card’ as being my credit card number. Or that I had to resort to giving her my Canadian postal code in whatever-it-is format (romeo-6-whisky 1-hotel (we tried harry first, that was a no-go)-3)

So! The point of all this is that we’ve finally registered for classes and don’t have to be at anything until Monday. Well, according to others I suppose we’re supposed to be clubbing these nights, and every night this week, but now we have non refundable deposits as excuses! We’ve got trains, we’ve got a hostel, now I’ve just got to sleep and pack

To continue on, we’ve been staying here in Ford for a week now, and even though it’s quite a trek, close to 2 miles to the Business building, we’re pretty much used to it, and I’m sure in a week we’ll be wondering what we were ever complaining about. Tomorrow (well, virtually in a few hours) we’ll be registering for classes that we’ve just heard about today and yesterday. Our ever not-so-helpful coordinator is leaving us hanging right now, because we don’t know what we’re supposed to do, not everything is equivalent across the ocean, so we may end up taking a Spanish class, which could be interesting. I’m not too worried, as I find it hard to be worried about well…most things.

We’ve been here a week already, which isn’t so hard to believe. Exactly a week ago, we were on the bus from Heathrow to Plymouth, about to make a short stop at a truck stop near Bristol. I was starting to feel probably the most disgusting  I ever ever had, having been awake since 6 the previous morning, making it about 24 hours when we stopped.  Wearing sweatpants that I didn’t like in the first place was probably not the wisest move, but for some reason I figured I’d be more comfortable. Comfortable maybe, but definitely not feeling very attractive. The plan was maybe to stop and get some food, which sounded like a great great idea, having really eaten almost nothing the day I left because I was feeling nauseated from lack of sleep all weekend. The place definitely had a truck stop feel, with surprisingly nice bathrooms. We suffered from a bit of price shock at first, because even though we didn’t plan on eating there, a meal at Burger King was around £5.50, about twice the cost at home. We each settled for a 49p apple, which is still borderline extortion. Probably a better idea than BK anyway. I think we were able to sleep a little through the second half of the drive, or at least pass out for minutes at a time. The bus was about a third full of International students who had also arrived at Heathrow the same day, most of those from Canada and the States, having had overnight flights. Only one other turned out to be going to business school though.

We arrived in Plymouth around 14:30, and we escorted to the building they had set up as the welcome centre for international students. We thought about then heading straight to our hostel, being completely exhausted, but figured we might as well check in with the accommodations people, knowing that it would be difficult for us to get a place to stay in the first place. Thankfully we didn’t need to wait too long to see someone, and it was obvious we would have a tough time with this. We were given numbers, suggestions, and pointed towards the phones, and I started to make calls. I didn’t call the first and most highly suggested place initially, it was really far. It was an area of the city called Ford, about a mile and a half northwest of the campus, which is tiny, even though they think it’s huge :). But the other two came up dry and so I figured I’d give it a try. Her name was Kate and she just happened to be near campus, even though she technically hadn’t started classes yet. (and it’s odd to have a student let rooms in their house as well) She offered to come by and to take us by her place by bus so we could have a look at it. Honestly, at the time, we were given the impression we wouldn’t have much selection anyway, so we agreed. It was a not-too-long bus ride and we had lugged all our stuff the whole way, she gave us a tour and really all Meghan and I would have liked to do was collapse. So after a short conference, we decided we’d at least stay the night. I called the hostel where I had a reservation, and let them know we weren’t coming, so they could charge my credit card (yay for that). I believe that was the night that we slept about 14 hours, and probably wasn’t enough. The next day we made the trek down to the uni, with Kate’s map in hand. We first enquired as to our chances of finding a different place (not that the place in Ford wasn’t nice, it was just far). We were told that there was absolutely nothing left, so probably even less for us who needed special circumstances with our shorter stay. So well, as much as we would have liked to live closer, we still feel a little sick about what would have happened to us if we haven’t gone with Kate that day, and eventually decided to stay.