Pre-Departure Thoughts

*Note– this post was originally written in late December 2012, before I left for London, but due to technical difficulties, I’m just now uploading it.  Enjoy!*

Hello fair readers!  Look at me, giving this “blog” thing all the kids are talking about a go.  I’m not huge on awkward introductions, and I feel like any introduction I can possibly offer on the first post of a brand-new weblog such as this can’t be anything but awkward, so here goes nothing.

I got back to fair Texas a few days ago, and already I’m gearing up to go to England for study abroad on the 2^nd.  Initial items on the agenda: eat as much Tex Mex as humanly possible, sleep a slumber of a thousand years (finals season was not particularly kind this go-around), play with my dog, and generally just fit in some nice rest and relaxation.  I’m back to reading like crazy (one of my favorite non-school past times), and it’s been great to see my family again.

I’m getting really excited for London.  I’ve had a conversation with someone some time ago about the merits of studying abroad in someplace like England—denigrated by some for being too similar to America— versus someplace exotic.  We reached a consensus that one really gains something unique from studying in a place that’s less exotic, precisely because it gives you a chance to see more clearly the smaller, less perceptible ways in which each culture is unique.  When you go to study abroad someplace incredibly different, the small differences can often get overshadowed entirely by how completely different the whole thing is.  I think only when studying abroad somewhere that’s less different from the U.S.—in a country that’s history has been so inextricably tied with our own—do you really get a sense of the less immediately obvious things that make each nation what it is.

I chose to study abroad at King’s College for a lot of reasons—the war studies program was incredibly compelling to me, I wanted to experience life in one of the world’s great cities, etc—but ultimately, I think that discussion says a lot about what I want to get out of this experience.  I really think spending an extended period of time in London will teach me a lot about the subtler things that make Britain what it is, and that in turn make the U.S. what it is.  I’m excited for a lot of things as I head off to study abroad, but as I start to contemplate just what precisely I’m supposed to put in my suitcases for the trip over, I’m particularly excited about that.