One week from today I will step into a plane in the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport. A short while later I’ll get off that plane in Cincinnati. Then I’ll get into another plane that is headed for London Gatwick Airport. After flying all night I’ll land in London (supposedly at 9 am, but you can’t really trust the airlines these days). Arriving in London will fulfill a dream that has been growing in my mind since I was six years old and figured out that when I got bigger and went to college, I could go to England (where they have castles, which was the draw when I was six) and spend several months taking classes. Now it is actually happening.
After waiting fifteen years, this trip has been a long time coming. It will be my first trip out of the states other than a quick two or three hour jaunt up to Canada when we went to Niagara Falls. It is finally starting to feel like it is really going to happen. After going through the long and sometimes painful process of getting my application together, talking with advisers who assured me that I was going to get in despite my lingering bouts of self doubt, then getting in and going through Wofford’s Department of International Programs’ lengthy and involved orientation, and talking repeatedly with Dr Hitchmough and Dr Chalmers (two English professors at Wofford who are British and have both had a pretty substantial impact on me over the last 3 years), I am a week away from going. It is a pretty great feeling. Other people have said they felt like they were going when they bought their plane ticket or when they started to gather stuff to get ready to go. Not me. For me it is looking at a clock and being able to say that in one week I’ll be on my way to, as Joey Tribbani would say, LONDON BABY!
Sure there are things that I’ll miss. It will be hard not seeing my girlfriend Heather or my family for nearly 4 months. I’ll miss my big bed and soft sheets. I’ll miss my killer DVD collection (and for those of you know how big it is, be impressed that I am only taking Love Actually, Casablanca, Bringing Up Baby, Ratatouille and the entire series of As Time Goes By with me). I’ll miss my entirely too large collection of winter clothes, which has been culled down from over 2 dozen jackets to 3, and more than 30 sweaters down to 1. But it doesn’t matter. Hard as it will be to leave everything behind, it will be even more exciting to be in London!
Today I also met my travelling companion, Flat Montague. He is a take off on Flat Stanley. For those of you who have never heard of Flat Stanley, I’ll tell you a little bit about him. The idea comes from the book Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. In the book, Stanley gets flattened by a bulletin board while he is sleeping. He isn’t hurt, but he sure is thin! So thin, in fact, that his parents can mail him to California in an envelope! Teachers all across the country now use the idea of a Flat Stanley to teach students a diverse skill set, including letter writing, map and geography skills, number rounding, measurement, and public speaking. Early in the summer I was approached by Dr Wilson, a professor whom I have a great deal of personal and professional respect and admiration for, about taking a Flat Stanley with me on my travels and I agreed. Today I met with her and picked up Flat Montague. He belongs to Ms. Cummings’ 2nd Grade Class at Blythe Academy in Greenville, SC. I got a nice letter from each of her 20 students asking me to take Flat Montague with me around London and to please take lots of pictures! In addition to the emails that I will be sending Ms. Cummings’ Class, I’ll also document Flat Montague’s journey here in the blog.
There’s a country song by an artist that I really like, Josh Turner, on his CD Everything is Fine, that is called The Longer the Waiting (The Sweeter the Kiss) about a sailor who must leave his sweetheart to go to sea one last time before he gives up that life and settles down with her. He tells her that, even though it will be hard, when he returns, the kiss will be better because it has been so long. I’m not looking for a kiss from London, but after 15 years of waiting, I’m hoping that the experience will be everything I’ve built it up to be in my mind.
2 September, 2008 at 9:54 pm
I’ve said it before, and I say it again….
I envy you these next few months and I wish you all the best. You’ve taken life by the horns, now enjoy the ride!!!