The Badger Herald Shout-Outs have been riddled with various students voicing their opinions on the best Disney Channel Original Movie. So, when I woke up this morning, I started watching Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, which I really liked back when we first got the Disney Channel when I was, what, thirteen? I find it's littered with plot holes now, but I still got a good laugh at it.
My creative writing class is canceled this week and next week so our instructor can go over our short stories and say how we're doing on them. The week after that, we're supposed to read Pretend You Have Big Buildings by Ben Musgrave, which is a stage play I've never heard of.
On the bus today, I started thinking about how mundane the ride was. How I've seen this road before and I know where it leads. Nothing is amazing and I don't look out the window in wonder. I only wonder how everything got to be routine, when it happened, and what I can do to change it. So when I got to class, I made a list of all the things in London I should do before I finally leave. And it grew and grew and it'll get here eventually. It's not a very neat list because I wrote in cursive so others couldn't understand what I wrote unless they really looked. I also wrote the list in paragraph form because my hand needed something to do so I just let it do what it wanted.
Walking out of class, I was talking with Shelby in how I want to go up on the London Eye at night. She wants to do the same. So she'll be getting back to me on a date for next week because she doesn't know when she interns exactly. Her boss just texts her and asks if she can come in (she interns at a theater. They're really laid back, I guess).
Internship Toolkit today talked about personality and motivation in the workplace. Knowing what motivates you and your personality helps figure out what kind of worker you are. It's a logical conclusion, but I feel like I could make that conclusion based on my own experiences and not by the research of others. We even took a very intense, very in-depth personality test. It's so intense, I' m just going to tell you the bits where I stray from the Average Person:
- More likely to accommodate to others' wishes and to avoid conflict. Likely to make fewer demands.
- Less likely to be bound by rules and regulations. Improvising and expedient.
- Judgment usually influenced by subjectivity. interested in the cultural facets of life.
- Reflective, focusing less on detail and more on the broader issues. Less attentive to detail.
- Less concerned with planning and organizing. Leave more things to chance.
There were 16 points to this personality test. I only stray in five of them. I'm okay with that. I like how I'm really accommodating but I don't follow rules all the time. I'm also very abstract and very sensitive. Who knew?
Once again, I claim this class to be one of the biggest culture clashes of my stay. I guess it really demonstrates how may people in the States work during their university education, and thus we learn good work ethic and such at the same time we're learning our trade. Over here, you learn your trade first because the government gives their students money to go to school. It's easier to be at the very bottom and work your way to the top over here because of this government student pension. No one pays tuition, apparently. Or they do, but the government really pays for it. By default. No FAFSA required.
Which indirectly leads me to the next big news of tonight. Oscar only has about 200 quid from now until January. And although he really wants to go to Brussels, he can't unless someone else pays his way. When he told me, he also said (and excuse the language), "But I'll have money ... FUCK you're back in America!" Which I found humorous at the time because it's one of those dialogue lines you find in sitcoms and not in real life. His money comes from the government. Hence the indirect transition. Could his parents pay for him? I don't know. Perhaps I'll ask about him borrowing money.
But until then, I'm getting cold feet about this "traveling to another country alone" bit. Which I guess is ironic considering the conditions in which I came here. So really I shouldn't be scared at all. But it's not the customs or the traveling, it's the vacationing alone for a few days. It's lonely, but then I think about the times I go wander London and how alone I am then because it's usually after class and the students I meet in class don't live in my area so I always go home alone. And I think that it'll be like that sort of alone where you're content with being alone because you sort of have to be alone. But the traveling alone is more choice than anything so it's like choosing to be alone. But everyone else already has plans
Messaged Becky on Facebook to see what her plans are in November and if there will be room for one person on them. But they're probably already soundly booked so I don't have much hope.
And then I start to really think to myself. I say something like "Dude, you're going across three countries alone. You said you wanted to travel to another country alone just to get a feel for it. So now's your chance. What are you waiting for? Why do you always need that little extra shove from someone else? Shove yourself, dammit!"
And then my bank card was declined.
But while we're on the subject of being alone, this is a video I favorite-ed back last Spring because I liked the beauty of it. But now I tend to think about it when I think about the time after Christmas and before Home. Sort of gives me strength, I guess:
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