››› January 15, 2012 | Posted By Robin Wasserman '14
Today, I finally finished unpacking from Oberlin. For the past 15 days, my room has been covered in suitcases and books and clothes I've been stepping around (ok, mostly on). Even for me, this is a little ridiculous. Good thing I got assigned a single for London.
Whenever I clean, I end up spending significantly more time being surprised by the things I forgot I owned than actually cleaning. Today, I found London: A Life in Maps, which traces the development of the city by examining old maps and early images. To be honest, I've spent more time looking at these gorgeous old images than actually reading about the history.
I've spent surprisingly little time over the past two weeks obsessing over London. (Though keep in mind that my definition of "little" might be a bit different than yours.) This does not mean I've become any less excited since my last blog post; I'm sure the opposite is true. But I've been thinking a lot about "home" and what I'm leaving behind for the first time--something that sort of got shoved to the back of my mind by my initial excitement. My family is moving to Alabama shortly after I return from London, so I'll be spending very little time from now on in the place I've called my home for the last 19 years, instead jumping from a big city overseas to a small Southern city with another culture I'm not familiar with.
While this feeling is a little disconcerting, it's also invigorating. Even more so than when I left for college, I feel like I'm finally out in the world, looking for new places to make my own. And even in the relatively short period of time I'll be in London, I'm determined to make it my own. While I imagine myself seeing cities all over Europe, I'm really more excited about getting to know London. But I share the feeling that Whit expressed in his last blog post. In my last days physically at home, I don't want to be mentally already overseas.
This doesn't mean that I haven't allowed myself some obsessing. My cousin gave me some advice over the holidays about how to fit in overseas. Apparently, one of the biggest things you can do is change your speech a little bit: just pop your T's and make "tall O's." I'm still not sure if I can hear the difference between a tall O and a short one, but I've still been practicing.