Well hello, there--I'm over across the Atlantic now, and what a trip it has been. My goodness. To start, I got a severe cold a day before my trip which was still clinging on for dear life as I prepared to board my first plane. As a result, my fuzzy head did not remember to bring my wallet with me after running to get last-minute cold meds from the local grocery store. There is, however, an upside to this story--I noticed I did not have my wallet while still in the US, so I was still able to call them and talk through the situation. Bleh; still a headache, but fortunately not a nightmare--which it easily could have been! Felt like quite a disaster, but my parents are amazing and are helping me fix my ridiculous and messy mistake. My head is ridiculously fuzzy, still, though it's now mid-Sunday (I got sick on Wednesday and flew out Thursday-Friday).
It must be the cold symptoms, the cold meds, and the lack of sleep and of food for 30+ hours (other than some fruit, 2 pieces of bread and a protein bar), but I still feel massively disoriented. Well, less 'dis'-oriented than merely non-oriented. Mostly I feel like I'm floating in a grey bubble, with lots of chatter coming from myself, so I hardly notice how isolated I've kept myself since I arrived. I feel way too, well, sick and wobbly to really go out of my way to engage the public right now (it's true that I've slept 29-30 hours in my first 2 nights of being here)--though that's not to say I've simply stayed in my room since arrival. That would not be true, but I'll keep the list-like details of my Saturday Matriculation activities for a second post, because that would be tidier. First, in this post, I'm going to remind myself of my Friday arrival. It was not fun.
I arrived in the UK on schedule, and after 30-45 minutes of waiting in the border security line, I showed off my new visa, it got a sickly new stamp slimed across it, and I was ushered into the country with very few further questions asked. (I should say, at Dulles, they were going to randomly select me for those grotesque and unbelievably invasive full-body scanners--but I successfully avoided it! Pat-downs ftw!) I had broken into a cold sweat for 1-2 hours on my first flight when I thought I might be turned away at the gate for having forgot to bring along some other vital piece of information or something, since the wallet fiasco had not exactly made me confident in my ability to stick to my own plans during times of sickness.
I also arrived in Cambridge on schedule, around 5.15pm after having successfully purchased internet time at Heathrow with my lingering credit card information I had scanned in case of emergencies (which I envisioned as, lost stuff, my death, &c) in order to find the confirmation code from my dad that allowed me to pick up the money he had (THANK YOU!) wired to me. The lady behind the counter and I established a strange manner of communication, in which she continually attempted to speak to me through the glass barrier between us and the only intermittently-working microphone, and I copy-catted her mouth formations to try and figure out what she was saying. If I said the right thing, sometimes I knew; sometimes I didn't. We started off as mildly hostile colleagues in the quest for the international money transfer, then became congenial allies, and finally at the end she wanted to chit-chat about what I was doing in the UK, if it was my first time, where I was studying, what I was studying, for how long was I studying... I'm mostly guessing as to what she was asking, and I responded based on my guesses because I still had no idea what she was saying. The few things that came across clear were: 'This is a 3?' 'No, that's a 5'. 'Oh. This is a 0?' 'No, that's a 9'. Verbatim.
Then onto my bus! I suppose if I had been more efficient in my time management, I could have caught the 1.10pm bus since I ended up being around 45 minutes early for the 2.10pm bus, and thus could have wound up in Cambridge about an hour earlier, but things worked out. And I don't imagine that the extra hour would have been especially well spent, anyway.
On the bus, I was starting to feel midly bitter. As we pulled out from peripheral London and headed on to the through-ways to take us to a variety of other bus terminals (with Cambridge as the final destination), I was noticing the scenery intermittently as I allowed myself to doze off. These highways don't look any different from the ones at home, I thought. These are the same highway streetlamps, the very same ugly concrete pedestrian overpasses, the same metal guardrails, the same metal structures holding up the same signs. The languages are the same. So they switched the 'e' and 'r' in Center/re. Big deal. Autumn came to England like it's come to the US; the trees looked the same. I was feeling downright perturbed before we actually pulled into Cambridge proper and things started to look different. I was also feeling mildly bitter because I felt very alone amongst the other travellers who seemed to know each other, and I couldn't tell if I might be the only new postgrad on the bus. The extra month in Virginia with my family and cats made this trip seem somehow less comforting than travelling usually is for me, and I was missing the feeling of having them next to me quite a lot.
I got off and had no idea where we were. The intersection where we were supposed to be let off (according to the company's online map) was marked on the paper in my hand, but the intersection at which we presently were stationed was not. It was not even on my map, at all. I tried to ask for help, but mostly heard responses like: I'm lost, too; or, I'm looking for the bus; or, finally, Ummm, it's over there...ish. See the city centre?
So I head over, thinking it won't be too big a deal--I've lugged suitcases and backpacks and guitars before internationally and domestically, and I've done it in places where I don't even speak the language, so screw everyone. I'm walking. I don't want to spend any precious money, since I can't take any more out and I have essential expenditures to see to tomorrow (my academic gown for Matriculation, for instance). But it turns out that walking is a very bad idea. Some people smile kindly. Most rudely ignore me--seriously, as rude as any people/place I've ever been. Some laugh and snicker. And I have to stop every several yards because it just hurts. My hands hurt, my arms hurt. My body is already aching and dehydrated and exhausted and under-feulled and ill, and I already feel like I could actually, literally pass out at any given moment. This is not happenin' so well, dolls. But I keep going. In fact, I manage to turn what Google Maps would estimate to be a 20ish minute walk into a full hour-long walk, though this hour includes not only resting but asking people for directions (in the beginning). The closer I get to the city centre, the edgier the people seem. Like they want to pretend they're in a real city or something. Guys. It's Cambridge. For realz, this is not London. (My opinion, by the way, has improved upon no longer carting bags and so many germs around with me now).
So after an hour, I finally find the Corpus Christi College location and the Porter's Lodge. An EXTREMELY nice undergraduate shows me to the Porter and helps lug my giant suitcase up the steps. I proceed to bring it into the Porter's Lodge, whereupon the Porter gentle teases and berates me, saying that no one will steal it. 'You sure?' I ask, doubtfully. Yo, where I come from, the rule is: you leave it unattended, ain't no body going to blame someone form taking it from you. You watch your stuff. He looks at me. 'If they tried to, they'd get a hernia'. I laugh. We go through the ritual where he looks for my keys, &c, &c, and then he asks me--'When was the last time you ate?' Suddenly it hits me that I've been awake and cold-medicated and non-food-consuming for 2 days and I almost burst out crying. I actually, actually, have to take giant gulping deep breaths and push it back because I am so exhausted that, for real, I almost just lose control in the Porter's Lodge in front of this stranger who may or may not think I'm crazy and that foolish international student who just packed too much crap (invariably a 'girl', with many shoes). I hate feeling that way. I seriously exercised so much discipline in packing, but then the illness hit and it was like--screw this, I'm adding in my neti pot, a whole entire box of Emergen-C and boxes of all sorts of cold meds. And my childhood blanket is coming with me.
So here I am, taking deep breaths and laughing nervously, and his entire face begins to change, and you can just see him start to wonder if I'm about to either fall over and pass out, or dissolve into hysterics. 'Oh, umm, maybe two days', I say, and my voice has that ridiculous shaky quality to it that voices do when they're anticipating a crying fit. 'Would you like to just go on upstairs, where we have a nice dining room and you could relax. There is food. I'll watch your things'. 'No', I say, 'I'd just like some water. I'm super dehydrated'. He starts to lead me out of the room, so I pick up my guitar and keep my backpack on and follow him--but it's into the Porter's actual own room/lodge that they must switch off on for whoever has night duty at a given time. I feel awkward about bringing my stuff in, but I didn't know where we were going. He looks at my things and seems to question me, but he leaves. That water is the best water I have ever tasted on the planet, and I tell him so when I come back into the main lobby. He tells me to leave the guitar where it is, too, because no one will steal that either. I laugh nervously and shakily again, and then he leaves and comes back with a plastic container full of fresh fruit. I almost burst out sobbing again and have to fight to control it. I'm filled with the knowledge that I had hoped this would be an ecstatic sort of home-coming, a triumphant entrance into my new life--something I have planned for, hoped for, pined for. I can't remember wanting anything more than this. And here I am. Groggy and half-aware.
'Wow, that's perfect', I say in a wobbly voice. 'That's exactly what I need'. I'm hoping at this point that my voice isn't getting too high pitched as I attempt to edge it toward normalcy. I stand at the counter in front of his desk and just eat the fruit with my fingers. At one point, he directs me to a free telephone in the hallway that will automatically begin a call with some Cambridge taxi service. I agree, because there is NO way I am walking from the cental college to the postgraduate accommodations on the outskirts of campus--a walk just as long as, or perhaps longer than, the first walk. And a path likely just as full of people, which is something I want to avoid. I'd like to putter along with my suitcases and disintegrating body in privacy, thank you. GoogleMaps Street View never shows you a city or town when it's teeming with people. Everything always looks so nice and homey, so neighbourhood-ly, so leafy. In reality, there are always people everywhere. I don't know how or when they [Google] got their shots.
The Porter continues to watch over me with a growing look of concern and worry and begins to speak to me in a gentle, parental way. He points out pictures of various rooms in college and explains them to me. 'Just stand there and eat your food', he says. 'I'll watch for the taxi. Don't move your bags. Just stay there'.
Sights on the way to Leckhampton (Corpus Christi's postgraduate campus).
When the taxi comes, the Porter carries my large suitcase into the taxi. The cab driver is saying something; it sounds like he is complaining to the Porter about having to pull up near the curb and hang out there, where he's obstructing traffic or something. The Porter is trying to smooth over the situation, saying, 'I know, of course, thank you so much'. He tells me to have a good night and a good sleep, gives me a pointed look of real concern, and leaves. I say little to the cab driver because as we drive along I am hit with a wall of my own sheer exhaustion. I feel: exhausted, exhausted, tired, tired, thirsty, cold and hot, dizzy, can't see straight, thirsty, tired tired tired. The driver accidentally turns too early into the incorrect neighbourhood and then insists on driving me around to the correct one for no further fee (I wasn't going to pay for it, which he must have known because I simply told him I could see the buildings through the trees and would walk it). He says: I don't like it, not with that big suitcase and guitar. It's a safe neighbourhood, but still. I don't like it. He drives me around to my building, seeming to also have developed the Porter's immense concern about my welfare and the opinion that I cannot be left to look after myself. I tip him too much and feel good about it. There we instantly encounter a nice fourth-year doctoral student in the History department who lives at Corpus (or at least hangs out there in the evenings and is a member of the college), who helps me carry all my bags into my room, and points out where food is and at what time it will be. I am invited to dinner with the others, but decline. She encourages me to come just relax on the green with other first-year postgrads, but I beg off due to real and not feigned exhaustion. I'm sniffling the whole time we're moving my bags. By this point I actually can't tell if it's sniffles from sickness or sniffles from homesickness/disorientation. They are almost undoubtedly one and the same, of course.
Views from my room. In the upper one, you can barely make out the croquet game set up on the lawn. In the second one, you see my view of the side of another part of my building, which is basically identical (and perpendicular) to mine. See how they all have little balconies? So do I! And my own sink and fridge.
My room is great, but I'm so fuzzy in the head that I just can't tell what the hell it is I'm doing here. I mean, really, what am I doing here. My brain is spinning, and my whole body is both freezing and sweating; I'm seeing lines of colours in front of me, superimposed on everything, and all of my vision seems to be swimming. In this state, nothing makes sense to me. I'm filled with loneliness, homesickness, and most strongly, confusion. The only sensation I'm feeling at this point, other than exhaustion, is just pure confusion. My mind is wondering: Why am I not working a job in DC, hanging out with parents and friends on the weekends, and spending exorbitant amounts of time with my cats. What am I doing here? Why did I cross the ocean to come to a strange place full of people I don't know, without anyone I know to help settle me in, paying loans for the ENTIRE thing, to spend an ENTIRE YEAR of my life doing this?
Of course, I know why I'm here, and I'm here to prove to myself that I know why I'm here. It's good that I should start the year off with these questions, so that I have a real impetus to make it worth it. This is also how I know I must be on the brink of collapse, because I have been endlessly excited about this. For me to be experiencing this not as a joyous homecoming, but as a terrible form of alienation is a bad sign, and I hope sleep is the cure, which it (and socialisation) mainly is (are).
So this is how I enter Cambridge.
