Nott What You'd Expected...

Red Phone Booth of Emotion.

My neck hurts. So does my back. My chest is tight. Hilary calls it stress. Last night, I only left the house for fish, chips, and beer... and a quick inning of cricket in the lawn.

While the rest of the flat was experiencing Nottingham on our second to last day, I was plugging away at the dvd- avoiding food and apparently human contact. I feel like I'm giving into some unknown oppressor- I know I'll miss this place, and adjusting to home will be hard- but am I making myself sick? The human body's crazy i guess... that's why I'm an English major. You can B.S. Poe. You can't B.S. Parkinson's.

Our last nights in Notts have been spent reminiscing, finishing our emotional 'I, traveler' papers, and packing. Thursday night saw the end of most finals, and a solid push to reach the 2100 word mark. The girls and I convened in the computer room for one last all-nighter, Anna being the victor. It was relative, i suppose. As she stayed up the entire night (and complained about how loud the birds were at 4:30 as she brought the paper to a close), I didn't envy her Hindu final at 1 before a scheduled 6 hours of presentations with M&C.

On Friday, I needed a break from thoughts about the year, going home, so I met Aaron and Emily down at Starbucks for some last minute prep work on my paper, conversation, and a 'productive' (for the English economy) trip to H&M. One last purchase - a coat (to be fair, originally 120 US dollars, for 40) before I left this shopper's haven.

They say you're your own worst critic.... Everyone was a little skeptical of their own paper when it came time to present. The idea was: conclude the year, summarize yourself as a traveler, use specific examples. Vague. I was blown away. All very different, all true to the individual. I laughed, I alllmost cried, and I realized how much we've grown, changed, and matured. It's cliche, but so is claiming that things are cliche. It's very metaphysical, that is. It's at the point where we know so much about each other, that the claims in the paper just made sense- no other reading, no other situation could have replicated the same emotional and introspective results.

I don't know how M&C can even approach the idea of grading them. Bare your soul? B- . It'd just be cruel.To celebrate, Mary's sister and friend joined us on our ceremonial last trip to Pitcher, along with Mark, Carol, and a mission to buy the Silver Lady, a 15 dollar drink mixed with Campaign and entirely too high expectations. Mark and Carol have become more like old friends than professors, more like family than faculty. Talks at dinner, and especially at churches turned into bars, can cover a gamut of sources, and remind me why I love them. We enjoyed the atmosphere, took photos like tourists, and headed home early enough to catch the last tram.
Our tram ride coincided with a recent push to attempt the British accent before we leave... Aaron, Brandon, Ryan and I have slowly worked our way up from 'godawful' to 'pathetic at best', and the tram ride home gave us the perfect opportunity to test it out- a drunk, eager British girl who asked for some life advice.

Scene: we're chilling on the tram, enjoying a healthy buzz laced with nostalgia, when Unknown Drunk Brit Chick (apparently 32 years old, but looking more like 27?) plops down very friendily on a seat nearby and, staring into my eyes, asks :
"Do you think I did the right thing?"
What?
"I just left- did I do the right thing?"
(My eyes light up: It's Brit accent time. prove to the world that you can fit in among drunk emotional girls on the verge of a major life change.)
Uhh.... what happened?
She went on to explain that her mate Sarah, who she hasn't spoken to in 2 weeks, just texted her- this all after Sarah's ex of a year ago started talking to her at the bar and wanting Drunk Girl to buy him drinks. Was she set up? Is it him or Sarah that's doing the setting up? Did he just want some?

At this point, I'm doing great. Brandon interjects a few times and almost blows our cover, but in the end, it was a great experience. At the end of our ride, she realized that she had gotten on the wrong tram (as it was now pulling into the service station) and in a panic, ran up the aisle to yell for a conductor. Maybe you had to be there.

posted by Kevin @ 12:04 AM