'round here, something radiates

Today is what I always refer to as my study abroad anniversary. In my head I never marked the day I actually landed in England (good thing, too, because it was September 11th); instead, I marked the day I left. It felt like such a monumental and massive point-of-no-return moment when, literally sobbing, I turned away from my family and friends at Newark Airport and began my long, shaky walk through the airline gate into the great unknown.

Some people argue that studying abroad really only matters if you’re in a place with a completely different language or culture, and England hardly falls into those categories. I’ll consent that studying abroad is more challenging in a Third World country or a country where a different language is spoken. But at the end of the day, this is what I think: going off to live in a different country when you’re only 20 years old is scary and brave in all circumstances. You’re leaving behind the comfort of friends, family, your college, your routines. And even Western, English-speaking London felt like a different world when it came to navigating its weird university system. There was a tough adjustment period and there were times when I wondered if I’d made a mistake. There were times when I really, really missed home and all my loved ones there.

Still, the listing ship of this experience righted itself in the end and I can now look back on my year abroad as one of the happiest times of my life. For someone like me—extremely shy, socially inept, almost paralyzed with clinical depression—what appeared to be the dumbest decision I could possibly make turned out to be the smartest. It set in motion the process of me emerging from my shell. It chipped away at my shyness and fear. I suppose one could even describe it as being my coming of age experience. I made some great new friends and finally found the Holy Grail I’d been seeking ever since I departed for my freshman year of college two years earlier: a normal college experience.

Scranton and I never gelled. While my senior year ended up being somewhat normal, thanks to my beloved David and wickedly fun Kara, my freshman and sophomore years were a wretched purgatorial state. I spent the bulk of them in quarantine, separated from the rest of the student body by a thick, sterile slab of shatter-proof glass. I didn’t connect with anyone and, coupled with my ever-present depression, I turned further inward to a degree where I was essentially a mute hermit.

Goldsmiths could’ve easily turned out the same way. I was resigned to the possibility that it might happen, and I consoled myself by saying, “Well, at least I’ll be in London.” Hey, being a social pariah isn’t so bad if you’re in London! It sure beats being a social pariah in Scranton, Pennsylvania, anyway! Still, there was a kernel of hope inside of me—one that whispered I think it might be okay.

And it was okay. Right off the bat I met Annida—still one of the most important people in my life—and we extended our social circle and had fun and soon I was tip-toeing my way through that dazzling Oz of normal college experiences. No, my time wasn’t spent drinking and snogging, and to that degree, I suppose my experiences weren’t completely normal. But suddenly I had friends hanging out in my room, walking to class with me, eating breakfast with me. Suddenly there were in-jokes and goofy photos and silly experiences. Suddenly I could write about more in my journal than just my ever-present angst and woe. These are all things that your average college student takes for granted, but for me they were as exquisitely, unexpectedly rare as spotting a unicorn while driving to the supermarket.

Goldsmiths is considered by many to be the UK’s leading creative university (especially in art, music, and design), and therefore, it was a perfect fit for me. Scranton, bless its heart, was a fundamentally white-bread school when I studied there. Its student body was primarily white and Catholic. The bulk of the students came from northeast PA, New Jersey, the Philadelphia area, and Long Island. There weren’t many other nationalities and ethnicities. Nearly everyone dressed the same: jeans, sweatshirts, baseball caps. Then I got to Goldsmiths and immediately met people from all over the world. On any given evening our table in the dining hall had students from Italy, Greece, Japan, France, Norway, and Malaysia plunking down or stopping to say hello. There were different races, languages, cultures. I saw pink hair, piercings, Mohawks, funky clothing. I was in heaven.

So today, 13 years after I carted my weeping, tremulous ass onto that Virgin Atlantic flight from Newark to Heathrow, I give thanks to Goldsmiths College and all it offered me. Long may she wave!


song heard most recently before posting:
Raining in Baltimore—Counting Crows