How I Got Home

My flight out of Prague to London was delayed for three hours due to the snow, so I got to the gate for my connecting flight from London to New York just as the plane was taking off. Virgin Atlantic was very courteous and put me on standby for a flight to Newark 5 hours later, which thankfully I got onto, and was lucky enough to be able to spend the night with a friend from New Jersey. I love Virgin. Excellent film and music selection. Also enjoyed how their program advertising tourism in Boston referred to the Boston Tea Party as a "mob." Upon exiting the airport into America (or, rather, New Jersey) proper, I was greeted with the beautiful sounds of a man screaming angrily into a phone in a Jersey accent, and an old woman who tried to give me reading material on Jesus. The next morning I took a bus into the city, took the subway and then another bus to the airport, and was greeted with a massive line to check in and another massive line through security, such that though I was there 2 hours before my flight, I managed to make it onto the plane fifteen minutes before take off. I sat next to a girl who works for a ministry, is from Minnesota, doesn't drink, and says "gosh" instead of "god." So much religion in two days. Not used to it anymore. Also not used to the feel of American currency anymore either. Also american flags everywhere and empty, flat space, weird. Blah blah Denver weekend, my flight out of denver was delayed 4 hours, my connecting flight was canceled so they booked me on a later flight, but eventually just booked me on a direct flight on another airline because i would have missed my connection with the perpetual delays anyway, so i ended up getting home 2 hours earlier than scheduled which worked out, but the waiting was still stressful and i hate christmas.

It feels like last semester never happened (except I have these memories, and these pictures, and these text messages), or was so long ago. Maybe a coping mechanism for not missing things and people too much. Still, I'm hoping time will cure most of this mopeyness I'm going through because there is no way humans can survive for long feeling like this all the time. Flights to Prague for Spring Break are already $800. Ridiculous. I don't really want to talk about this right now because I think I've said all I have to say about it. Sleeping alone sucks.

MY MOM IS GOING TO CHURCH.

My dad told me. He wasn't supposed to tell me and I'm not supposed to know. This is the level of trust in my family. This also happened before when my dad told me I had dead siblings after Elissa died to "put things in perspective" (which put nothing in perspective) even though they agreed not to tell me until I was in college and then swore me to secrecy, and then three years later my mom decided to tell me the same thing and told me not to tell my dad she told me. Is this because of me? This church should give me a recruiting bonus or something. Or life in general? Existential crises? Although really, if my mom is looking for comfort and support about my deviant ways I don't think she's looking in the right place. It's terrifying watching your parents get older and how they seem to fear more things than they used to. This after spending a depressing weekend with my aunt in Colorado with a big house full of stuff but no one to share it with, she told me to visit more often because otherwise she doesn't really have an excuse to eat out or do other things, but I don't think I personally can be this opportunity for her too often or I'll go crazy. My aunt told me on the way to the airport that my mom told her to talk to me about "some things," but she wasn't going to because she knows I'm old enough to know what's right and she just wants me to be happy and healthy and "they" will all support me (still feels like I have a disease.). I know they care about me (and show it in their own twisted ways) and I know I have friends who love me here, but I feel alone. Lonely. I'm excited to see you guys though, if ever you could REPLY TO THE FACEBOOK THREAD. It took me forever to get here (which I will elaborate on in another post I guess because it isn't really related) and I already want to leave. I don't want to be here to see my family fall apart in person.

Aftermath

Lots of transportation stories and reverse-culture shock impressions, but those will have to wait for later because this is all I can think about right now.

[Not] Packing

Leaving tomorrow. It hasn't hit me yet that I'm leaving this city and it might as well be for good even though I'm really really going to try to come back, because financially/time-wise I have no idea when I can ever make it back here. I think a great thing about study abroad is you can meet amazing people and hopefully you'll keep in touch and everything after but we all have a life to go back to with people waiting for us back home. Or I do. I can't reconcile these two social spheres and I hate it. I wish the world really were a smaller place (or maybe less expensive.. travel wise) but maybe that would take away from the allure of travel or something. No, actually, it's the people I care about most, not the cities, and like I didn't want to leave most of the people I left back in the USA, I don't want to leave anyone here. I had more thoughts but thinking about how to type them out is making me even more depressed. I've definitely changed during these few months. It will be interesting to see who my friends are when I go back to New York. How is it that in middle school or high school your friends usually stay solidly your friends, but in college it's much more unclear who actually cares about you? or maybe it's NYU and its population of self-absorbed, busy kids. I include myself in this description because I probably am not a very good friend to them either. I will be happy to be back when I am back, but right now I'm just desperately clinging to every moment I have left here.

If anything, though, I hope hope hope it doesn't go back to the way things were before, just because i'm back in a familiar place with familiar people, just because it might be the easiest thing to do, slip back into old habits because you don't know what else to do.

Does this Make Sense?

Well it kind of makes sense to me. Sorry, it's been a while since I've taken a math class.

how I work (I hope):

Deja Vu.

It's finals time!!! This means I have a 10 page 1.5 spaced paper to write by tomorrow and a written exam tomorrow and a 20 page double spaced paper by Thursday, but hopefully I will finish it sooner so I can actually do things like be with people and say goodbye properly and... pack... and not be totally rushed up to the last minute. But of course when do my plans ever come to complete fruition. It took me 4 days to write 3 pages of this stupid paper. 1.5 spacing is the devil.

I am contemplating faking my death. It seems like a plausible solution to all my more immediate problems at the moment.

One Week Left.

Marie is in Warsaw until Saturday. I spent last night with her watching her/distracting her from cleaning and decorating her new apartment. She commented on how sad it was that I was there with her setting up her room, and I'm leaving in nine days. Yes, but I'm here now, I replied, because there's nothing else I can do to solve this dilemma. Except maybe not board my flight home and become an ex-pat and then get deported.

Today on my way to class the escalator suddenly stopped running as I was running down the steps. I almost flew off, except I grabbed the handrail just in time. I always thought I had an irrational fear that these contraptions would stop/start/speed up as I was on them, but now I guess it is not so irrational.

In the metro car I was in there were at least nine French tourists crowded around me. It reminded me of this past weekend I spent in Budapest with Marie when we had a competition counting American vs. French tourists (stemming from a disagreement we had where I said French people were everywhere and she thought Americans were instead) in which I totally won because French people are everywhere. At least this time of year.

My friends are excited to go home, but I, again, have made connections tying me back here (at least in this continent). I don't regret doing so at all. But I don't really know what to do about it, or what I can even do about it. Probably nothing.

How can it be that two people worlds apart can come together, be holding hands lying on a bed staring at the ceiling of an apartment in a country neither of us belongs to?

At least with these few days I can maybe do some research/study for/find my readers for all my final papers and tests. Man I am so behind. This semester is so academically embarrassing.