Saturday afternoon I went down to London for a brief weekend getaway. There were two plans for the weekend: see the production of Arcadia on Saturday night, and go salsa dancing on Sunday night. Everything else was incidental.
I got in uneventfully, checked into the hostel relatively uneventfully although there were some problems with the specifics of which bed I was in, and then went out for a shop/wander. My hostel was literally right up the street from the salsa club for Sunday night, so that worked out nicely for me.
I went to Waterstone’s Piccadilly, because it calms me and because I wanted to check prices on a few things and because what else am I going to do at 5:30 on a Saturday night in London? I restrained myself from buying any more books. I can’t buy any more books until I have an income of some kind. Then I bought some food from the Tesco Express at Trafalgar Square and sat on the grass outside the National Gallery and ate and read and people-watched. Trafalgar Square was packed – not only is the plinth project still going on – although I still find it more interesting as a web feed – but there were also some acrobatics/break-dancing/magic performances going on. There were also a few protests – I saw one guy in a Polska shirt making what I assume will be a YouTube video about the political situation in Iran, and there were some Falun Gong supporters handing out leaflets just past St. Martin-in-the-Fields. I felt a little bit guilty brushing them off, but one person can only care about a certain number of causes before exhausting themselves, and I’d rather support someone I actually know.
I wrote about the performance of Arcadia here. Suffice to say, it deserves every good word that it has gotten, and I have a few new actor crushes.
Back at the hostel, I remembered why I don’t look for hostels first when planning weekends like this one. You can’t beat the price, and when all you need is a bed for the night, it’s fine – but everyone is so young: they’re on a gap year, or just spontaneously travelling, and if they’re not a current student then they’re ‘actually a college grad!’ as one girl smugly said. I know I was the same way when I was 20, 21, 22, 23 – and to some extent still am. Doesn’t mean I can’t mock it when I see it.
I tried to sleep in Sunday morning, since I knew I would be staying up incredibly late. I made it to 9 o’clock, which is not really sleeping in when you don’t go to sleep until 1 or 2 am and are planning on staying up until 6. I had seen a poster on the Tube for an exhibit at the Wellcome Collection about ‘Exquisite Bodies’ – mostly anatomical models: it looked interesting, and I’d never been, so I decided to see if I could find it. The Wellcome Collection is near Euston, so it wasn’t a horribly long walk (I was staying near King’s Cross), and I picked up some food at the train station to have for lunch. The museum was fantastic. The special exhibit was indeed full of anatomical models, quite a lot of which featured pregnancy which reinforced my “ADOPTION!!!!” belief. The rest of the museum was also quite interesting – exhibits from Wellcome’s own collection, one case of which made me want to research and write about death rituals across cultures/time periods. Somehow I wasn’t quite as fascinated by the collection of amputation saws and obstetrical forceps. Then there was a section on different aspects of research that they do – I found the genome stuff quite interesting, malaria less so, but that’s just my personal interests and research. Each section – there were four, I think? Human Genome Project, malaria, obesity, and the body/health – had an area of artistic representation (sculpture, painting, writing, etc.) connected to it. There was one print in the genome section called Twenty Three Pairs by an artist called Andrea Duncan, where she represented the 23 human chromosomes as socks, which I thought was very cool, and a poem in that same section called “To John Donne” that I liked a lot as well. (I should do a Poetry Day again….any suggestions?) Anyway, the point is that if you want a different museum to go to in London – not that there’s any lack of them – The Wellcome Collection is very cool and well-done. Interactive parts that aren’t just for children, as well, which is nice…..
Then I ate my lunch in Green Park and tried to decide what to do next. I ended up walking around the shopping areas, including a browse through Carnaby Street and a return to Waterstone’s Piccadilly where I unexpectedly found out what my absolutely least favourite teacher of all time is doing now. At this point it was mid-afternoon, and I still had several hours before I was meeting people for dancing, so I went to the V&A – my original thought was to go to one of the Proms Concert Music series, but I didn’t want to spend more money than I had to and didn’t want to have to deal with a schedule and whatnot. I may come down some other time in the next few weeks specifically to do one of the Proms. So I went to the V&A instead, and admired the plaster casts of the Plantaganet tombs. Fontevrault is so on my list-of-places-to-visit someday.
There’s not a lot else to do on a Sunday afternoon for an hour or so before meeting people, especially when you’re wandering by yourself, so I went back to the hostel and packed up my stuff and put it in a place that I could grab it easily when I came back in the morning (a good thing as it turned out, since due to the aforementioned confusion over beds, when I came back this morning there was someone sleeping in the bed that I would have collapsed on. But as it was 7am already, and my stuff was all ready to go, I didn’t care so much). Then I wandered through the Russell Square area, talked to my sister (and drained my cellphone battery, oops), and reminisced about early visits to London.
Met my fellow dancers with no major problems, and went to a weekly salsa event that, as it turns out, is at the hotel that we stayed at one of the first times we were in London. Danced, danced, danced….then went to find food which is not easy to do at 10:30 on a Sunday night. We ended up getting a takeaway and eating it in the waiting area of King’s Cross. We also did some impromptu salsa and rueda in the waiting area of King’s Cross, to the amusement of the night staff and people waiting for the last trains. Finally – after about two hours of eating, everyone else drinking and trying to find ways to put off going to the big salsa club, we made it to our – well, my – main destination. Where we stayed until 6 am. There was never a point where I wanted a dance and had to go more than a song to be asked to dance. But, then, some of the fun for me at major salsa events is watching everyone else and admiring how good they are. But still – lots of dancing, lots of new people whose names I’m either never going to remember or never knew in the first place (and a very few for whom that is a Good Thing – my creepy-guy-repellent WAS NOT WORKING. Grinding is not salsa. Grabbing my arse is not an appropriate salsa hold. And kissing my ear before you’ve even made eye contact, without saying a word, IS NEVER OKAY. SHUDDER.) But anyway, I got lots of good dances, some with people that I knew and most with people that I didn’t, and the only dark spot (other than the creepy guys) was the total vanishing of the friend that we’d gone there to meet, sometime during the last song. I hate incomplete evenings like that, without even a chance to say goodbye.
The crew of us that had gone together then went to McDonald’s to fortify for the rest of the day – they were all going to Notting Hill Carnival, but I knew that I would just freak out if I went, so I instead caught the first train back to Nottingham (thank goodness for bank holidays and no off-peak restrictions) where I came home, charged my phone, checked facebook, and slept for a whole three hours. I’m surprised I’m not more tired now, actually. I think I may be able to make it to midnight fairly coherently.
And then it’s back to work for me. I only have a week to whip the dissertation into shape, but after the getaway it’s all seeming more manageable.
31 August 2009
27 August 2009
Fear of Commitment, continued
"Calling All Cynics"
This is, I feel, a good definition of skeptic, cynic, and pessimist. It’s like the definition I heard or read once for introvert vs. extrovert – I can’t remember where I heard or read it, but I have completely adopted it – where an extrovert is someone who recharges by being around other people and an introvert recharges by being alone. With that definition, I am definitely an introvert. I need to be around other people sometimes, or I go stir-crazy, but being around especially large groups of people definitely drains me.
I feel the same way about the definitions given here, especially when it comes to me and love. I think I’m somewhere between a skeptic and a cynic. I trusted, and was betrayed/let down, and it was devastating. I was devastated. By that criteria, I’m a cynic. But I don’t think that I refuse to trust now. I am reluctant to trust, definitely, but I don’t think I completely refuse to trust. There are people I have met recently that I trust.
But then I think about how I was with my last ‘boyfriend’ – I was and am still totally crazy about him, and wish we hadn’t had to end things, and am going to miss him terribly when he finally leaves town. But I deliberately told myself I wasn’t going to fall in love with him. I wouldn’t let myself – even in my own head – use those terms. I like him a lot, and there’s no one else I’d rather spend time with right now, and talking to him in any form makes me happy, and seeing him (especially dance) with other women makes me insanely jealous to the point where I feel physically ill. But I won’t let myself, even in the privacy of my own head, say that I’m in love with him. Whenever I started coming close to that idea, I would remind myself of the reasons that it would never work long-term, or I would force myself into an emotional or communication distance – deliberately so that I wouldn’t get too close to him and fall in love. So, yeah, I suppose that, with him, I refuse to trust. I suppose that I am, when it comes to relationships, a cynic.
This also plays into my previous post about what-ifs. What if I’d let myself get closer to him and fall in love with him – or admit it, at least – and just let myself go all-out emotionally, the way I did with CD? Would things be different now? Would we have been willing to at least attempt a long-distance relationship? Or would I just be devastated again, and have lost him from my life completely? Obviously, there’s no way of knowing, but I can’t stop myself from dwelling on it.
It’s like the article says, “Deep inside all skeptics and most cynics is a deep ache to trust again, but to do so without the fear of being let down, disappointed, betrayed or devastated.” I doubt that he reads this blog, or even knows that it exists, but I almost wish that he did. I wish I could say these things to him, but I can’t. I don’t trust him – or really myself – enough to think that it would make a difference. The cynic in me can’t believe that it would make any difference. Even though deep inside I want to be proven wrong, I want to have that chance, I can’t and won’t let myself take that emotional risk. And I will be stuck with these what-ifs forever.
This is, I feel, a good definition of skeptic, cynic, and pessimist. It’s like the definition I heard or read once for introvert vs. extrovert – I can’t remember where I heard or read it, but I have completely adopted it – where an extrovert is someone who recharges by being around other people and an introvert recharges by being alone. With that definition, I am definitely an introvert. I need to be around other people sometimes, or I go stir-crazy, but being around especially large groups of people definitely drains me.
I feel the same way about the definitions given here, especially when it comes to me and love. I think I’m somewhere between a skeptic and a cynic. I trusted, and was betrayed/let down, and it was devastating. I was devastated. By that criteria, I’m a cynic. But I don’t think that I refuse to trust now. I am reluctant to trust, definitely, but I don’t think I completely refuse to trust. There are people I have met recently that I trust.
But then I think about how I was with my last ‘boyfriend’ – I was and am still totally crazy about him, and wish we hadn’t had to end things, and am going to miss him terribly when he finally leaves town. But I deliberately told myself I wasn’t going to fall in love with him. I wouldn’t let myself – even in my own head – use those terms. I like him a lot, and there’s no one else I’d rather spend time with right now, and talking to him in any form makes me happy, and seeing him (especially dance) with other women makes me insanely jealous to the point where I feel physically ill. But I won’t let myself, even in the privacy of my own head, say that I’m in love with him. Whenever I started coming close to that idea, I would remind myself of the reasons that it would never work long-term, or I would force myself into an emotional or communication distance – deliberately so that I wouldn’t get too close to him and fall in love. So, yeah, I suppose that, with him, I refuse to trust. I suppose that I am, when it comes to relationships, a cynic.
This also plays into my previous post about what-ifs. What if I’d let myself get closer to him and fall in love with him – or admit it, at least – and just let myself go all-out emotionally, the way I did with CD? Would things be different now? Would we have been willing to at least attempt a long-distance relationship? Or would I just be devastated again, and have lost him from my life completely? Obviously, there’s no way of knowing, but I can’t stop myself from dwelling on it.
It’s like the article says, “Deep inside all skeptics and most cynics is a deep ache to trust again, but to do so without the fear of being let down, disappointed, betrayed or devastated.” I doubt that he reads this blog, or even knows that it exists, but I almost wish that he did. I wish I could say these things to him, but I can’t. I don’t trust him – or really myself – enough to think that it would make a difference. The cynic in me can’t believe that it would make any difference. Even though deep inside I want to be proven wrong, I want to have that chance, I can’t and won’t let myself take that emotional risk. And I will be stuck with these what-ifs forever.
Fear of commitment
I apparently have a fear of commitment. I can't make decisions about my life and stick with them. I am constantly wondering, "But what if I did this instead?" or putting off decisions until it's too late to do anything about it.
My latest thing is getting a Ph.D. For years I just assumed that I'd get a Ph.D. eventually. I am good at academics, my parents work in academia, etc., etc. This fall when the application deadline was approaching, I passed on it. I had just barely started the Master's - at least that's what it felt like - and had no idea what area I wanted to work in. Since part of the application process here is a research proposal, and I had none, I passed. After the essays in May - a completely emotionally and mentally draining experience - I told myself that I'd clearly made the right decision, that I couldn't possibly spend the next three years putting myself through that.
Then I started work on the master's dissertation. And the closer I get to the end of it - *insert panic here* - the more I realize how much I enjoy it. The more I can see myself doing something similar, long-term. The more I wish I were going on to do a Ph.D. And I don't know if that's just because I'm nervous about 'what comes next' - the whole job search thing especially - or what. But the thing is, I still enjoy my topic. I'm a little bit bored, because other than the dissertation there's not a lot going on in my life, but I still enjoy my topic. I enjoy finding new things to read about it and I even enjoy the frustration of the writing, trying to figure out what exactly to say and how exactly to say it. (Maybe it's also a sign that non-fiction writing is something I should pursue more intensively than I have been doing....)
I also have been going back and forth about the job search. Obviously I am here in Nottingham for the next while, due to leasing a house here and things like that. And there are really good reasons to stay in this area. But as I look at the job listings, I can't help but be tempted by many other places. I'm almost paralysed by choice. I find myself rationalising looking for jobs in Birmingham and London especially - it's not that far by train, etc. - even though I know all the reasons why I am staying here, and should just stick with it.
I can't escape what-ifs. How would my life be different if I did - or had done - this? What if I'd done something differently in my relationship - would things be different now? What if I found a job in London - would I be happier? What if I decided to pursue a Ph.D. - how would that change my life? I need to find focus.
My latest thing is getting a Ph.D. For years I just assumed that I'd get a Ph.D. eventually. I am good at academics, my parents work in academia, etc., etc. This fall when the application deadline was approaching, I passed on it. I had just barely started the Master's - at least that's what it felt like - and had no idea what area I wanted to work in. Since part of the application process here is a research proposal, and I had none, I passed. After the essays in May - a completely emotionally and mentally draining experience - I told myself that I'd clearly made the right decision, that I couldn't possibly spend the next three years putting myself through that.
Then I started work on the master's dissertation. And the closer I get to the end of it - *insert panic here* - the more I realize how much I enjoy it. The more I can see myself doing something similar, long-term. The more I wish I were going on to do a Ph.D. And I don't know if that's just because I'm nervous about 'what comes next' - the whole job search thing especially - or what. But the thing is, I still enjoy my topic. I'm a little bit bored, because other than the dissertation there's not a lot going on in my life, but I still enjoy my topic. I enjoy finding new things to read about it and I even enjoy the frustration of the writing, trying to figure out what exactly to say and how exactly to say it. (Maybe it's also a sign that non-fiction writing is something I should pursue more intensively than I have been doing....)
I also have been going back and forth about the job search. Obviously I am here in Nottingham for the next while, due to leasing a house here and things like that. And there are really good reasons to stay in this area. But as I look at the job listings, I can't help but be tempted by many other places. I'm almost paralysed by choice. I find myself rationalising looking for jobs in Birmingham and London especially - it's not that far by train, etc. - even though I know all the reasons why I am staying here, and should just stick with it.
I can't escape what-ifs. How would my life be different if I did - or had done - this? What if I'd done something differently in my relationship - would things be different now? What if I found a job in London - would I be happier? What if I decided to pursue a Ph.D. - how would that change my life? I need to find focus.
26 August 2009
My dad's visit
My dad came to visit at the beginning of August. It was lovely. We rented a car and were able to go around any number of places that I couldn't or wouldn't have gotten to on my own; we also spent some time just hanging out and trying to understand cricket.
Note: I still do not understand cricket. I understand it a little bit more now than I used to, but I think I need one or both of two things: 1 - to attend a live test match. 2 - a specific player to watch/follow through a game/series.
One of the nice things about my dad being here, and taking me around places, is that it reminds me of some of the things I like about this area of the country: the history. London is the obvious place for history, of course, and god knows I love going to London and going to the museums and turning a corner and seeing, say, the pub that Chaucer frequented (it's in Southwark) or Dickens (it's in the City and is actually quite dark inside) or whatever.
History in the Midlands, at least the history that is packaged for tourists, is much more of the 'normal people' form of history, where 'normal people' often means 'noble people who were active outside of London'. Pre-Industrial Revolution sites are stately homes of landed gentry, not usually royal (there are exceptions); post-Industrial Revolution sites are, you know, focused on the Industrial Revolution and its effects including the rise of the merchant/middle/industrialist class.
Dad suggested going to Newstead Abbey, but I have been there twice in the last ten years, and have less than no desire to go back. The Romantic poets tend to annoy me and I can't stand Byron as a personality. Instead, to satisfy the literary pilgrimage portion of the trip, we went to Eastwood. It made for a nice afternoon trip - we went to the main museum which also had quite a lot of information about mining in the area and daily life for the working class at the time, as well as Lawrence's life, and we went to the birthplace museum, in the house that Lawrence was actually born in. I quite like Lawrence, actually, and think that his writing often gets overshadowed by either the more 'experimental' modernist authors like James Joyce or Virginia Woolf or people like that, or by the obscenity trial about Lady Chatterley's Lover. I really liked Lady Chatterley's Lover. I liked the writing style of Sons and Lovers, although I found the central relationship between Paul and his mother incredibly creepy. I also want to read Women in Love, but haven't gotten to it yet.
We also took a day and drove up to Gainsborough Old Hall. That was fantastic. We found out when we got up there that Gainsborough has a claim to be the place where King Canute 'tried' to stop the tide, so that's really cool in and of itself. The Old Hall, although smaller than other manor houses we've been to and completely surrounded by the town now, is a fantastic museum. The kitchen and banqueting hall area is set up as it would have been in the late fifteenth century, when Richard III visited, and the kitchen especially shows what a working medieval kitchen would have been like. The audio tour gets a touch long at times, but is informative without being boring. Gainsborough Old Hall was also a safe place for the Puritans/'Pilgrim Fathers' before the Dutch exile and journey to America. I can imagine that they do quite a lot there with living history/reenactment events - it's a perfect place for it.
Over the weekend that he was here, we did things slightly closer to home. First we went to Sudbury Hall. The Hall itself is fine - nice, but nothing really extraordinary. The Museum of Childhood, on the other hand, is amazing. A nice mix of display and interactive - including a 'chimney' that kids can climb through to see what it would have been like for chimney sweeps, a Victorian classroom, and a room on storytelling/books/imaginative play. It was a blast. We were there with my godmother and her granddaughters, and another family friend with her husband and mother-in-law. The girls loved the Museum of Childhood, even the older one who's fourteen. (She and I had a lovely squee-ing discussion at the Doctor Who exhibit that was part of the 'pop culture'/'collectibles' exhibit.) The eight-year-old was in heaven. She went through the chimney about ten times. There's also a lake on the estate, with about two dozen swans that we counted, so we got some relaxing "be in nature" time in as well. The other nice thing is that, no matter what, days at my godmother's are always full days with my godmother. If she comes in to Nottingham, then it's lunch and maybe an hour or two of shopping. If I go there, it's "Oh, no, we'd better drive you back because it's after dark now."
The Sunday my dad was here, we went to Chatsworth House. It's one of our favourite places to go - in fact, I had begged off a trip with some friends the week or so before because I knew that my dad would want to go. Chatsworth is so beautiful. The house is currently undergoing quite a bit of restoration, but is still open to visitors, and they have an exhibit inside called "Chatsworth at the Movies" or something like that. Obviously one of their main film connections is The Duchess, but there's also Pride and Prejudice, where Chatsworth is both the interior and the exterior for Pemberley (as it may have been for Austen herself), and an upcoming movie called The Wolfman which I don't really want to see, but might since it features Chatsworth. (...what? That's normal.)
Chatsworth was also hosting a Jaguar car show that day. It was an incredible, welcome coincidence, because car shows are one of the things that my dad and I do together when we can, and we both appreciate Jaguars greatly. It was nice. I miss cars sometimes.
We also wandered through the grounds. Gave up on the maze - we know there's a way in, because we could hear people in the center. We just couldn't figure it out. We wandered around the gardens for a while, just enjoying the views and the fresh air and the fountains and the beauty of the area. I even took a few pictures, which is quite rare for me.
We'd rented a car, as I said, and a GPS system to go with it, because driving on the other side of the road is difficult enough without also having to figure out how exactly to get places. The only time the GPS was a problem was in Gainsborough, where it told us that the Old Hall was at least half a mile away from where it actually was. On the way back from Chatsworth, we turned off the GPS (it wanted us to take the motorway, and traffic was backed up for miles to get there) and managed to find our own way back. Success!
We also did some Nottingham-touristy stuff: The Galleries of Justice and the Caves, both of which now do dramatised tours although I think I preferred the Caves a few years ago when it was an audio tour setup. Also we learned that there aren't really any cybercafes in Nottingham - one up on Mansfield Road, I think they said, and a few computers at the information centre. That's it - at least, that's all that the information centre told us about. (I wonder if that would be a feasible small business idea, or if there are enough wireless access points around to make it unnecessary?)
While my dad was here, we also spent some time just chilling. I read Silks, by Dick Francis (which I reviewed on my new book blog, where you can also find some comments about literary pilgrimages a la our Eastwood trip), we watched The Ashes, we went to two pub quizzes (my normal monthly PGSA one and a commercially-provided one at the carvery attached to the hotel), and we ate takeaways. All in all, a good trip.
Note: I still do not understand cricket. I understand it a little bit more now than I used to, but I think I need one or both of two things: 1 - to attend a live test match. 2 - a specific player to watch/follow through a game/series.
One of the nice things about my dad being here, and taking me around places, is that it reminds me of some of the things I like about this area of the country: the history. London is the obvious place for history, of course, and god knows I love going to London and going to the museums and turning a corner and seeing, say, the pub that Chaucer frequented (it's in Southwark) or Dickens (it's in the City and is actually quite dark inside) or whatever.
History in the Midlands, at least the history that is packaged for tourists, is much more of the 'normal people' form of history, where 'normal people' often means 'noble people who were active outside of London'. Pre-Industrial Revolution sites are stately homes of landed gentry, not usually royal (there are exceptions); post-Industrial Revolution sites are, you know, focused on the Industrial Revolution and its effects including the rise of the merchant/middle/industrialist class.
Dad suggested going to Newstead Abbey, but I have been there twice in the last ten years, and have less than no desire to go back. The Romantic poets tend to annoy me and I can't stand Byron as a personality. Instead, to satisfy the literary pilgrimage portion of the trip, we went to Eastwood. It made for a nice afternoon trip - we went to the main museum which also had quite a lot of information about mining in the area and daily life for the working class at the time, as well as Lawrence's life, and we went to the birthplace museum, in the house that Lawrence was actually born in. I quite like Lawrence, actually, and think that his writing often gets overshadowed by either the more 'experimental' modernist authors like James Joyce or Virginia Woolf or people like that, or by the obscenity trial about Lady Chatterley's Lover. I really liked Lady Chatterley's Lover. I liked the writing style of Sons and Lovers, although I found the central relationship between Paul and his mother incredibly creepy. I also want to read Women in Love, but haven't gotten to it yet.
We also took a day and drove up to Gainsborough Old Hall. That was fantastic. We found out when we got up there that Gainsborough has a claim to be the place where King Canute 'tried' to stop the tide, so that's really cool in and of itself. The Old Hall, although smaller than other manor houses we've been to and completely surrounded by the town now, is a fantastic museum. The kitchen and banqueting hall area is set up as it would have been in the late fifteenth century, when Richard III visited, and the kitchen especially shows what a working medieval kitchen would have been like. The audio tour gets a touch long at times, but is informative without being boring. Gainsborough Old Hall was also a safe place for the Puritans/'Pilgrim Fathers' before the Dutch exile and journey to America. I can imagine that they do quite a lot there with living history/reenactment events - it's a perfect place for it.
Over the weekend that he was here, we did things slightly closer to home. First we went to Sudbury Hall. The Hall itself is fine - nice, but nothing really extraordinary. The Museum of Childhood, on the other hand, is amazing. A nice mix of display and interactive - including a 'chimney' that kids can climb through to see what it would have been like for chimney sweeps, a Victorian classroom, and a room on storytelling/books/imaginative play. It was a blast. We were there with my godmother and her granddaughters, and another family friend with her husband and mother-in-law. The girls loved the Museum of Childhood, even the older one who's fourteen. (She and I had a lovely squee-ing discussion at the Doctor Who exhibit that was part of the 'pop culture'/'collectibles' exhibit.) The eight-year-old was in heaven. She went through the chimney about ten times. There's also a lake on the estate, with about two dozen swans that we counted, so we got some relaxing "be in nature" time in as well. The other nice thing is that, no matter what, days at my godmother's are always full days with my godmother. If she comes in to Nottingham, then it's lunch and maybe an hour or two of shopping. If I go there, it's "Oh, no, we'd better drive you back because it's after dark now."
The Sunday my dad was here, we went to Chatsworth House. It's one of our favourite places to go - in fact, I had begged off a trip with some friends the week or so before because I knew that my dad would want to go. Chatsworth is so beautiful. The house is currently undergoing quite a bit of restoration, but is still open to visitors, and they have an exhibit inside called "Chatsworth at the Movies" or something like that. Obviously one of their main film connections is The Duchess, but there's also Pride and Prejudice, where Chatsworth is both the interior and the exterior for Pemberley (as it may have been for Austen herself), and an upcoming movie called The Wolfman which I don't really want to see, but might since it features Chatsworth. (...what? That's normal.)
Chatsworth was also hosting a Jaguar car show that day. It was an incredible, welcome coincidence, because car shows are one of the things that my dad and I do together when we can, and we both appreciate Jaguars greatly. It was nice. I miss cars sometimes.
We also wandered through the grounds. Gave up on the maze - we know there's a way in, because we could hear people in the center. We just couldn't figure it out. We wandered around the gardens for a while, just enjoying the views and the fresh air and the fountains and the beauty of the area. I even took a few pictures, which is quite rare for me.
We'd rented a car, as I said, and a GPS system to go with it, because driving on the other side of the road is difficult enough without also having to figure out how exactly to get places. The only time the GPS was a problem was in Gainsborough, where it told us that the Old Hall was at least half a mile away from where it actually was. On the way back from Chatsworth, we turned off the GPS (it wanted us to take the motorway, and traffic was backed up for miles to get there) and managed to find our own way back. Success!
We also did some Nottingham-touristy stuff: The Galleries of Justice and the Caves, both of which now do dramatised tours although I think I preferred the Caves a few years ago when it was an audio tour setup. Also we learned that there aren't really any cybercafes in Nottingham - one up on Mansfield Road, I think they said, and a few computers at the information centre. That's it - at least, that's all that the information centre told us about. (I wonder if that would be a feasible small business idea, or if there are enough wireless access points around to make it unnecessary?)
While my dad was here, we also spent some time just chilling. I read Silks, by Dick Francis (which I reviewed on my new book blog, where you can also find some comments about literary pilgrimages a la our Eastwood trip), we watched The Ashes, we went to two pub quizzes (my normal monthly PGSA one and a commercially-provided one at the carvery attached to the hotel), and we ate takeaways. All in all, a good trip.
13 August 2009
Feeling old
In nineteen months I will be thirty. My mind boggles at this fact. Most days I do not feel that I should be closer to thirty than to twenty-five. I look at how people my age are portrayed in the media (TV shows and movies) and think that I have not accomplished anywhere close to what they are shown to have accomplished, in any aspect of my life. I need to stop comparing myself to fictional characters. (I need to stop comparing myself to real characters, too.)
I still don’t completely know what I want to be when I grow up. Right now I’m trying to get back into teaching, but I have the bad habit of wondering – what if I would be happier doing something else? What if I’m just wasting my time waiting for this stuff to get worked out, when really I should be working toward qualifications in something else? Why can’t I just find something and be content with that?
Last weekend was the sesquicentennial celebration of my hometown, which included an all-school reunion, which included my ten-year high school reunion. I can’t believe that it’s been ten years. I still have vivid memories of high school. A decade cannot have passed when I remember it so clearly.
My life is nothing like I thought it would be ten years ago. When I graduated from high school, I thought that I'd go to Luther, get a job, have a relationship, and it would all work out. I never thought that ten years later, I'd still be floundering and drifting, looking for something to spark off some kind of passion within me.
Will I find that passion before I'm thirty? Before my next reunion? I hope so....
I still don’t completely know what I want to be when I grow up. Right now I’m trying to get back into teaching, but I have the bad habit of wondering – what if I would be happier doing something else? What if I’m just wasting my time waiting for this stuff to get worked out, when really I should be working toward qualifications in something else? Why can’t I just find something and be content with that?
Last weekend was the sesquicentennial celebration of my hometown, which included an all-school reunion, which included my ten-year high school reunion. I can’t believe that it’s been ten years. I still have vivid memories of high school. A decade cannot have passed when I remember it so clearly.
My life is nothing like I thought it would be ten years ago. When I graduated from high school, I thought that I'd go to Luther, get a job, have a relationship, and it would all work out. I never thought that ten years later, I'd still be floundering and drifting, looking for something to spark off some kind of passion within me.
Will I find that passion before I'm thirty? Before my next reunion? I hope so....
02 August 2009
Why I don't want to go back to the US
I am so tired of the looks of disbelief and shock when I say that I don’t want to go back to the States when I finish my MA (or, indeed, ever). So. Tired. It all comes back to my general life frustration with people who can’t quite understand that other people have different motivations and desires than they do. Just because you want to go to the States doesn’t mean that I do. And it doesn’t mean that I am weird, or crazy, or misguided because I don’t.
If I went back to the States, I wouldn’t be able to go back to my hometown. There’s nothing explicitly preventing me from going there, other than the job market. The major employer in my hometown is the University, and it is highly unlikely that I would get a job there. Also, I don’t want to. As much as some people I know complain about the lack of things to do in Nottingham, Nottingham is a hotbed of activity compared to my hometown, and everywhere around my hometown. Therefore, if I wanted to get a job, and have any kind of a social life, I would have to move somewhere else. If I stay here, I can stay in a city that I already know with people that I already know.
It would not be out of the realm of possibility to move to, say, Chicago. However, if I moved anywhere other than Chicago (or a city of similar or larger size), I would have to have a car. There is very little public transportation between cities in the US unless you are on the eastern seaboard. If I lived in Chicago or somewhere similar I could probably manage to survive without a car. Anywhere else, I could not. And if I had a car, I would also have to have little things like car insurance and, probably, a parking permit or a garage. If I stay here, I don’t have to deal with a car. I can get around perfectly well, anywhere in the country, without one.
If I moved back to the States, I would have to find somewhere to live. It is possible that I could find a place with an (unknown) roommate, or a sublet, which would be mildly affordable. I would probably need furniture. It is difficult to find a furnished place to rent in the States. At the moment, I don’t own much furniture. I have a few antique things that I have inherited from various relations, but I don’t have things like a bed and mattress. No matter where I went, I would have to buy them. If I stay here, I can (and have) found a furnished place to live.
If I moved back to the States, I would probably have to live in a city where I don’t know anyone, or at best I would only know one or two people. I would have to form an entirely new social group without any of the constructs that normally help people form an entirely new social group. I am an introvert. This would be exceptionally difficult for me. If I stay here, I can stay near my social group and support network.
If I moved back to the States, I would have to buy health insurance. It is possible that I would be able to get a job with a company that provided health insurance of some kind. Even with company health insurance, health care in the US is expensive. If I stay here, I can still use the NHS.
If I moved back to the States, I would have to find a job. No matter where I am in the world, this is going to be difficult. I have degrees in literature. This qualifies me for essentially nothing. I have teaching experience, but no teaching qualifications. If I were to try to become a teacher in the US, I would have to deal with what I consider one of the most misguided, poorly written, and poorly executed forms of education legislation in No Child Left Behind. I would also have to get teaching qualifications, which would also cost money. If I stay here, even though I need a visa in order to stay, I have figured out what I need to do.
Those are most of the reasons why I don’t want to go back to the States right now. But the most important reason is also the hardest to define. I don’t feel like I fit in the US. I fit here. I feel comfortable here. I feel happy here. I have been happier here than I have been anywhere else in the world. My life makes sense here in a way that it never did in the States, and that it only approached in Slovakia.
I just really wish that people would stop treating my decision to stay here as if it were completely incomprehensible. I have reasons. They are good reasons. They work for me. If I wanted to go back to the States, I would have done so after my job in Slovakia. Why is this so hard for other people to accept?
If I went back to the States, I wouldn’t be able to go back to my hometown. There’s nothing explicitly preventing me from going there, other than the job market. The major employer in my hometown is the University, and it is highly unlikely that I would get a job there. Also, I don’t want to. As much as some people I know complain about the lack of things to do in Nottingham, Nottingham is a hotbed of activity compared to my hometown, and everywhere around my hometown. Therefore, if I wanted to get a job, and have any kind of a social life, I would have to move somewhere else. If I stay here, I can stay in a city that I already know with people that I already know.
It would not be out of the realm of possibility to move to, say, Chicago. However, if I moved anywhere other than Chicago (or a city of similar or larger size), I would have to have a car. There is very little public transportation between cities in the US unless you are on the eastern seaboard. If I lived in Chicago or somewhere similar I could probably manage to survive without a car. Anywhere else, I could not. And if I had a car, I would also have to have little things like car insurance and, probably, a parking permit or a garage. If I stay here, I don’t have to deal with a car. I can get around perfectly well, anywhere in the country, without one.
If I moved back to the States, I would have to find somewhere to live. It is possible that I could find a place with an (unknown) roommate, or a sublet, which would be mildly affordable. I would probably need furniture. It is difficult to find a furnished place to rent in the States. At the moment, I don’t own much furniture. I have a few antique things that I have inherited from various relations, but I don’t have things like a bed and mattress. No matter where I went, I would have to buy them. If I stay here, I can (and have) found a furnished place to live.
If I moved back to the States, I would probably have to live in a city where I don’t know anyone, or at best I would only know one or two people. I would have to form an entirely new social group without any of the constructs that normally help people form an entirely new social group. I am an introvert. This would be exceptionally difficult for me. If I stay here, I can stay near my social group and support network.
If I moved back to the States, I would have to buy health insurance. It is possible that I would be able to get a job with a company that provided health insurance of some kind. Even with company health insurance, health care in the US is expensive. If I stay here, I can still use the NHS.
If I moved back to the States, I would have to find a job. No matter where I am in the world, this is going to be difficult. I have degrees in literature. This qualifies me for essentially nothing. I have teaching experience, but no teaching qualifications. If I were to try to become a teacher in the US, I would have to deal with what I consider one of the most misguided, poorly written, and poorly executed forms of education legislation in No Child Left Behind. I would also have to get teaching qualifications, which would also cost money. If I stay here, even though I need a visa in order to stay, I have figured out what I need to do.
Those are most of the reasons why I don’t want to go back to the States right now. But the most important reason is also the hardest to define. I don’t feel like I fit in the US. I fit here. I feel comfortable here. I feel happy here. I have been happier here than I have been anywhere else in the world. My life makes sense here in a way that it never did in the States, and that it only approached in Slovakia.
I just really wish that people would stop treating my decision to stay here as if it were completely incomprehensible. I have reasons. They are good reasons. They work for me. If I wanted to go back to the States, I would have done so after my job in Slovakia. Why is this so hard for other people to accept?
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