I want to be a librarian!!

It's been almost two weeks since my last post.  I wish I could say that I've just been too busy to write up all the interesting things that I'm experiencing here in London, but in reality, I'm just spending a lot of time in the library.  The life of a grad student, I guess.  I do see a short break in the tunnel ahead which will allow for some much needed light.  But it is just a short break after submission of coursework and before exams.  I'll take what I can get, I guess.

Which brings me to a new idea I've had on how to explore London as a grad student.  As I know I have a few London-based readers, what are a couple of cool libraries around central London?  I've noticed that I've been drudging back and forth to my campus library which, to be honest, is a bit of a drab place.  It serves me well, but there are many times I don't actually need anything from the library.  It just serves as a place to focus on studying (I cannot study at home at all.  Never really could.)  The only matter of convenience with my campus library is that it's open 24/7, but in reality, the number of times I've stayed in the library past midnight aren't that many.

Suggestions?

Coming Out

He was a stranger in our kitchen, doing a bit of washing up.  I needed to get to the kettle to make some tea.

"Oh hey, I don't think I know you," I said as I said my excuses to reach and grab the kettle.

"I'm Michael*," he said.  "I'm here visiting Rachel*"

I made my introductions and we struck up some mindless banter while I waited for the water to boil.  What program we were each in.  Which campus we attended.  Had I been to the UK before?  Things like that.  As part of my explanation for the last question I mentioned that I had dated someone from Britain before and as such had visited a few times.

"Right," he replied.  "Yeah, a lot of British girls go for American guys.  And the other way round, as well."

"Well," I started.  "Often British boys and American boys go for one another as well.  Boys and girls don't have the monopoly on that."

"Oh right.  Yeah.  Of course.  Cheers." And the mindless banter continued.

I should have known...

It was bound to happen.  I knew it would happen.  I guess I had just hoped it wouldn't happen for a while.

Me: "Howdy, I'm Cary."

Him: "You're American, aren't you?  Where are you from"

Me: "Good catch.  I'm from Texas."

Him: "Hrmmm...  I met a Cary from Texas once.  You didn't.... by chance...  know my good friend 'Brit Boy'?"

Me: "Ummmm.... yeah.... HI!!!!"

Yuppers.  It has happened.  The first people I actually talked to while out and about trying to meet new people on my own here in London are friends of my ex Brit Boy.  Great.  Fabulous.  Wonderful.  Fantastic.  Wanna know what's even more fabulous?  They think I should work toward building bridges with Brit Boy since I am now in his country.

Seriously.

I have no words.  After what he said to me after our break-up I have no desire whatsoever to have him as a part of my life in any way shape, form, idea, concept, or thought.  I don't know that I can explain it, but it was just so negative.  I try to live my life in the positive arena and that experience just wasn't anywhere near that.

However, it is apparent that me living here in London is gonna mean me running into Brit Boy's friends. Well, I knew it was gonna happen.  I mean, he did live here for 15 years.  I guess I just hoped it wouldn't happen the first time I went out to meet some people outside of the grad program for which I am here.

And... I've arrived

I took a moment the other day and realized that I have 11 unfinished blog posts that I started to write up over the past few months. For whatever reason, I apparently have been unable to get the words to come out in a way that I felt was... pleasant. Humorous. Honest. Wait a minute. Since when was honesty a required aspect to my postings here?

Anyway, I have arrived in London. After many delays due to bureaucratic issues I was granted entry to the UK and have started to settle in to my new home. Starting, being the operative word. My new home is a 12'x12' sparsely furnished room with a bed that would make a tenant in a correctional institution toss and turn. I have a few linens, the means to store some clothes, implements for personal hygiene, and the ability to feed myself. So, all in all, I'm doing alright.

It's also been raining constantly. Now, of course I expected this. I've been to London before and I spent most of last Fall and Winter watching the weather in London so I'd know what I was up for. I also knew that this is the biggest area of concern for me. Rain. Lack of sun. For months.

The city is still a new and interesting place for me to explore, which I have been doing to some degree. I'm trying to walk most places and the streets are a little less than easy to learn. I went running the other day. I intended to run for about 40-45 minutes. A little over 80 minutes later I got home after asking three different people for directions. I will say, however, that jogging past Buckingham Palace is kinda cool. I'm looking forward to my next run around Parliament and Westminster Abbey.

The course has started and I'm happy to be here. I'm scared as fuck to be here. I'm feeling the pangs of lonliness about being here. I'm feeling the pressure of being here. A night has yet to pass where I do not cry at some point in my preparations for sleep. I mourn the loss of my comfy life back home. I mourn the absence of so many friends. I doubt my ability to complete and accomplish this goal. I mourn the distance from and worry about a loved-one.

But in the end, I'm in London. I'M IN LONDON!!!! And that in and of itself fills me with pride and energy.

Sorry about the somber energy of this post. As I branch out more in the city I'm sure more craziness and shenanigans will ensue. They always do.

I like to Hash!

This past weekend I was introduced to an event that I am amazed I was unaware of for such a long time. Apparently, this event has been occurring in Austin for 25 years without my knowledge. For this, I am so embarrassed, disappointed, and excited.

Hashing. For those that are unaware, it's drinking and running. Seriously.

Hash House Harriers are known as a drinking group with a running problem. And it gets so much better.

In Austin, every Sunday, rain or shine, the group meets in a different place to drink and run. Volunteers set up the trail, which is different every week. A few beers are enjoyed, and then the running begins. The trail is marked with specific marks, known as hashes, to tell you which way to go. However, there are many opportunities to go in one of many directions. It is in these instances when those that set the trail can mess with the runners and set up many false trails, increasing the overall length of the run for those poor souls that run off in the wrong direction.

At some mid-point in the run, a beer stop is scheduled where more beer is consumed. Then more running, until you reach the end, where more beer is consumed.

The trail this past weekend wound through a greenbelt in West Austin with lots of vines, thorns, steep slopes, and creeks. I may be a bit scratched up and bruised, but I gotta tell ya. It was the most fun I've had exercising in a very long time.

And yes, I've already checked. London as several Hash clubs, with runs occurring almost every day of the week. Looks like I know what I'll be doing in my free time during grad school.

Austin, te amo.

Austin, Texas. I have now lived here for over 10 years. This is the longest I've lived in any one place outside of growing up. At times I feel so completely comfortable here that I can't imagine myself leaving. At many others, however, I find myself bored with what the city has to offer and I desire the many wonders the rest of the world holds.

When Brit Boy and I separated last year, I thought my plans to head across the ocean for grad school were in serious jeopardy. I wasn't sure if I could just pick up and head over to the U.K. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to make it happen financially. I wasn't sure if I would make the friends I felt I needed to feel comfortable in London.

Well, fuck those thoughts. I'm heading over. I requested deferred admissions to grad school and they said, "You know, we really like you. Yeah, we can wait a year for you to join us." So, this Fall I'm heading to London to start a new chapter in my life.

Excited? You better believe it. Scared? You better fucking believe it. Petrified that I'll fall flat on my face and wind up living in a van, down by the river?!?! Well, maybe not that scared, but there is a bit of that in there. But in the end, I'm ready for something else. I have loved Austin for the past decade, but there are so many other things out there to experience.

"But, doesn't Brit Boy live in London?" you ask. Well, as far as I know, he lives in Brighton now. And while that's not too far from London, there are several million people in the London area. Depending on whether you are talking about greater London, the Greater London Urban Area, or the metropolitan London area, London has between 8 million and 15 million people living there (these estimates are a few years old, though). The likelihood that I'll run into him is pretty slim. And even if I do, I can always turn around and walk away.

But please. I don't wanna focus on that. I wanna focus on all the wonderful, adorable, cute, sexy, studly international boys that live in London that will just absolutely LOVE the fact that I'm a Texan. I mean, the last time I was there as a single man, it felt like I was beating them off (hey now!!!) with a stick. I may not have a Texas accent, nor can I fake one very well, but they don't know the difference. And what is it they say? Fake it till you make it (with a cute boy).

It is now official

Part of the plans that Brit Boy and I had put into place for us to be together was for me to apply to grad school in the UK. It was a wonderful plan cuz I've been wanting to pursue my masters degree for some time but hadn't really found a program that interested me here in the states. In the UK, however, there were a number of programmes about which I was very intrigued.

As I've stated before, I applied to two universities and, again as I've stated before, while I was visiting the UK, I had interviews at both universities to see which programme was going to be the best fit. I was accepted to both programmes, even receiving a personal letter from the head of the programme at the University of Westminster stating that he was very looking forward to me joining their programme and working with me this upcoming academic year.

Well, now that Brit Boy and I are no longer together, I have decided that it's best to not attend grad school this fall. Part of it is financial - Brit Boy and I had agreed that I would support him with living expenses while he was here and not able to work and he would support me with living expenses in the UK while I was in school. Now that everything is over, I basically cannot afford London for the duration of the programme right now. Another part of the reason is that I'm still a space cadet from such a huge shock to my life that I don't think it'd be wise for me to head off to a new place with no safety net to speak of. Basically, I need to be home with my family of friends.

However, I am so absolutely ecstatic about the programmes that I am definitely going to make this happen. So, I have now officially requested deferred admissions for the 2010-2011 academic year. Here's hoping they like me enough to let me push this back by a year.

The Unravelling

After it was all said and done, I stated that I was in a state of denial. A state of shock. Brit Boy commented that he was surprised that I didn't see it coming. That it was really the only answer that he saw.

See, during those 4 1/2 months that he and I were apart, as I've said before, I was massive crazy busy with the legislative session. And while Brit Boy wasn't really having a grand time back in the UK, he was doing a lot of soul searching. He hadn't been happy in his career for quite some time before he came over here, and wasn't all that excited about going back into it, even though he knew it was the best possibility to find a job in the current economy. This soul searching produced some pretty radical self-realizations for him. Some self-realizations about which he was extremely happy and excited. Even though it meant he was gonna have to go back to school.

I was so excited for him. He had been struggling with this issue for so long and now he had found a path that he was excited about. So, we worked out a plan. I was already applying to grad school programs in the UK so that we could be together. Well, I want/need my masters for my career, and going to a program in the UK was really just a nice bit of icing on the cake cuz it allowed us to be together. The plan we had agreed upon was for me to spend the year in my program while he worked and took some courses for his new adventure part-time, and then once I was finished, he would go full-time.

During "the discussion" he stated that he thought me coming over so quickly after the stressful legislative session from which I had yet to really recover and starting a stressful grad school program was not an ideal situation. He was concerned that it would affect me in such a negative way that I would start down a destructive path due to the high amount of stress. He stated that he had seen some signs of what he considered self-destructive behavior and was afraid that it would get worse. And, he said, this was something he wasn't sure, due to his love for me, he could witness. For the record, I completely disagree that school would have such a negative, stressful affect on me. Sure, when I'm in school I'm really, really focused, but in a completely different manner from the work schedule I had recently experienced and which had affected me so negatively. Additionally, my recent workload had prevented me from engaging in my normal stress management activity - yoga. So, I really saw this as a non-issue.

The next day, during a follow-up discussion, I found out what I feel is the real reason he was dumping me. Not a concern for me or my well-being. Not a concern that life was going to be too stressful for me or that I would self-destruct in a manner he couldn't bear to witness. Not some uncrossable communication barrier or divide. I found out that Brit Boy had actually departed from our agreed upon plan. He departed from the plan without communicating with me. It was like he had been hiding it from me until the very end. Not only was he in discussions with universities in London to take some courses part-time, but also with another university, not in London or Leeds (the two cities in which I was applying to university) to take courses. Either part-time or full-time. Apparently he felt the need to move with some urgency on his radical self-realizations. "Here I am 35 years old and I have several years of education and training ahead of me before I can make this an actuality," he stated. "I need to get going on this." The end result was that the future he saw before him, the vision of his future he was moving toward, no longer included me.

"I'm not trying to control what you do and all, but this is what I need to do for me," he said. Of course!! How could I argue with that? Self-realization. Pursuit of self-realization. Even though it went against the plans we, together, had made for our future. The plans we had discussed together and decided upon. Pursuit of his goals in a manner he decided independent of any input from me. How could I possibly argue with that?

Actually, that's the only thing that irks me. His keeping his looking at universities outside of London or Leeds from me. Him not communicating that with me. Cuz that's really what it boils down to. Cut through all the crap of him being concerned for my well-being... cut through our challenges communicating while in the desert... and I'm left with him keeping something from me as we were supposed to be getting ready to put our plan into action. Something that completely shatters that plan. And leaves me... listening to Joni Mitchell on repeat.

If Plan A doesn't work?

It's official. I've submitted my applications for grad school. I've applied to a couple of graduate programmes in the UK for transportation planning and management. Actually, I submitted them a while ago, but have been too afraid to talk about it. Cuz now I'm stuck that waiting period. Do they like me? Do they think I'm a complete joke? Will they let me in to the country? Will they let me into the school? If they don't, what will I do then?