The big finale...

So this is it, this is (for all purposes of intent) my last blog for UT's study abroad office. It's been a fantastic semester with lots of laughs, some questionable moments, weird buses, and of course great memories.

I've debated for awhile about how I would write this blog, afterall (yes I misspell that word, if you haven't figured it out by now I always do) it does feel pretty important and there are a whole slew of ways I could take this. I could write about differences between home and the places I've been, but that's worn out and in all honesty something you need to experience more-so than read about. I could just post messages about my friends, and while it would be sappy and maybe move the heart of my one day future wife (if she stumbles upon it when looking at things from my past with my mother of course), it just doesn't feel right. I could just tell stories and throw out quirky little anecdotes, but I've been relying on that for awhile now. As I said, there are so many ways I can write this, ways I've planned and thought about or ways I could emulate from similar instances. I could just resort to an Academyesque 'thank you' spree that would put Scorsese to shame. Or I could just start writing and see what comes out, aftall that's what feels right at this moment.

When I first learned that I was going to be keeping a blog under an actual contract, it kinda hit me that in a way which made me realize that I was taking the first steps in a long-time dream of mine to become a paid writer. While I've technically been paid to be a journalist since I was 17, this was different. This was someone telling me 'We want to hear what you think' and not just 'Tell us what happened at X event'. I was nervous, I was going through a rough time in terms of that I began to question whether I really wanted to go abroad or not. Afterall I'd be sacrificing an eighth of my college career to go halfway around the world to do... well I wasn't really sure what I would be doing and that's a scary feeling.

Despite all of this I had this strange calmness about me leading up to it, there was no anxiety. The only sign of any real emotion was when I occasionally cracked a smile as I thought about what I'd be doing a month from a particular moment. Why did I smile? To this day I can't really articulate it, it was just my little way of showing that I felt something even if I didn't know what that 'something' was.

In the weeks leading up to my departure, it felt like I had a million people asking me my thoughts on going abroad. I had some friends and acquaintances who, in their own way, kinda made me feel bad because it seemed as if I was abandoning them or becoming snotty. The short of it is, before I even left I was beginning to feel the ups and downs of going abroad. The joys and the fears, the low points and the high points which make you break into an unexplainable smile. Like I said there are things about doing what I've done that I just can't explain, but you can see them in a person's face. I remember meeting a guy who had just gotten back from being abroad in England at a function the C Geo office put on for the kids heading out. He'd sit there and reminisce, occasionally breaking into a sorta quirky smile. It wasn't fake, but it wasn't natural. It wasn't a 'funny haha' smile, but just something that made you see that he had memories inside him that he couldn't really explain. To me, that's something that I've gotten out of my experience that I'm not sure I'd find anywhere else. Finding humor in the low parts, finding strength in yourself and your friends. Having to build yourself up as a support system and thing finding out how much stronger of a person you can be once other people start to become part of that support system, these are things I would not have experienced had I stayed at UT this semester. Would I have had fun? Probably more than I am here, but at the end of the term I wouldn't be the person I am today.

I remember when I was struggling to come up with an idea for my first blog, I was really excited about some classes I had taken last fall. I had just switched majors and for the first time was really enjoying school. Ironically that excitement also made me a little wary about my decision to go abroad, I do feel that I've sacrificed in terms of schooling here as I honestly haven't enjoyed my time on campus as much as I did last semester at UT. But back to the point. The realization about that excitement was that despite my struggles during the semester and the craziness that finals always bring, I had time for my thoughts and opinions to just sit and begin to really form while I rested at home and generally just sat around my parents house. I became better at speaking about my studies, my arguments and discussions were more succinct and illustrated better. In general all the things I wanted to say in those final papers had come to a head, a maturity if you will. As I'm sitting here writing whatever comes off the top of my head (much like a final huh?), I can't wait for that point to reach after I've returned home. When my thoughts and opinions can really start to blossom and become more than just thoughts and opinions, they become part of who I am and change the way I look at everything in life. While I can't articulate them now, I look forward to that point when I realize that my time here in England was worth it and I can say to someone "this is why_____. "

Another thing I actually wrote a very lengthy blog about but never published is identity, so I'll try to do a little service to that. I've never really thought of myself as a Texan, my father is from Mexico and I was born on the border. If anything I've always felt kinda torn in multiple directions about affirming who I am as a person. That's one of the best parts about being here, you really have to decide who you are (unless you just want to make it all up *shrug*) as a person and then defend it. If you want to say "Yes, I'm an American" get ready for someone to poke and jab at you. You gotta realize that when you show up, you're like a weird species locals have only heard about on the news or seen in movies. So they're gonna want to prod at the stereotypes, they're also gonna be happy when you live up to those stereotypes so be prepared for it. The most important thing to realize is that you can't take offense to what people are saying, you're on their turf and you're here to learn about them... not bring American Democracy to wherever your host country is. Chances are if someone offends you, it's a miscommunication. I've found that 95% of the people here are quite nice despite the crappy whether, so keep that in your head when you get off the plane and that customs lady is absolutely the biggest jerk you've ever met in your life. So remember, because you're different you're automatically going to be subject to being judged, but give them good things to judge you on and not bad traits... if you do that you'll be fine.

One of the greatest things about going abroad is the environment you are forced to thrive in. We'll call it a controlled chaos. It's a funny thing really, if you had asked me last December where I would be in April I could have guess that maybe France, or Spain, or Italy would have been the answers. But I never, in my wildest dreams, would have said the Isle of Man. Hell I didn't even know it existed and I could have never guessed that some of my favorite memories in life would come from a little island situated between Liverpool and Ireland. As I was there Flipper's mom said to me, "Would you ever have guessed you'd be here when you were in Texas five months ago?" There's no way I could say yes, none. That's the thing about doing something like this, you never know where you'll end up or who you'll meet. And the last thing I woulda guessed is that I could find a home at a place so far away from home. Realizing that gives you a confidence in new situations that just can't be taught, it has to be experienced and I'd wager just that one trait justifies all the costs and sacrifices you have to make to go study abroad.

I remember a saying that went something like "If someone wants to be in a relationship, they will be". That can be said about finding comfort in your surroundings. If you want to make friends, you'll make them. I could have come here and totally shut down like some of the abroad kids who I noticed disappeared midway through the semester, they weren't happy and they really weren't trying to be. One of the most frustrating things for me since I've been here is that for the first two weeks in England I didn't have a computer. Despite how disconnected from the world I felt, this was the best thing that could have happened because it forced me to be connected with the local world. Becoming friends with Phil, Charlie, Alaistar (I still can't spell his name to save my life), and Flipper showed me that no matter where I am in the world, if I want friends I will find them... or maybe they'll find me. So don't be discouraged if after that first week in your host country you don't feel like you've made many friends, just be open to people and be who you are (unless you're a jerk, then don't be who you are) and things will turn out just fine.

So I guess in closing, I'll miss the people I've met but in the modern age we can still keep in touch. I'll see their updates on facebook and maybe run into someone who met one of them in the future, weirder things have happened to me since I've been here. To my friends back in America, I'll be home very soon and you can expect to be putting up with me again for another year, especially you Adam because you have the very unfortunate task of being my roommate. To those who want to visit me in Texas, by all means come on down. Flipper already has his tickets for a two week trip, last I heard he'll be forswearing those tickets and swimming just so he can justify his name. Now that people, is a friend.

To the people who are reading this because someone at the C Geo (that's the study abroad) office thought it might help you or give you some insight, I hope it has. It took me about a year to pull the trigger on going abroad and I absolutely don't regret doing it. If you're on the fence or if money is an issue, just sign up and go to wherever you want... you're student at the University of Texas, the money is there if you need it. If you go and have a bad time, you'll build character but if you think you might want to and you don't, twenty years down the road when you're locked into a career with a family you'll regret never pulling that trigger.

Spiderman 3 goes emo and the merry men of rugby...

Since coming back to the Leicester five days ago, I haven't done much aside from working on my three finals and reading a lot of news on the internet. Let's just say that my last week and a half in England is definitely not going out with a bang, but I'm ok with that.

I had been finishing this study abroad survey UT (which really annoyed me with it's repetitive questions) when it asked me to rate how often I do things native to my host country. See I'm in a bind in answering this question because the stuff people do here isn't what I would call a far cry from what we do back home. They go to dinner, maybe the pub, watch sports on TV, awkwardly talk to the opposite sex, and hang out with their friends much like everyone my age in America does. To say the least this hasn't exactly been a voyage where I really really put myself into an uncomfortable situation, that isn't to say it can't be emotionally taxing at times, but I never felt lost in my environment.

Now that whole digression there does have a point, the question about free time reminded me that I had a attended a Rugby match for the world famous Leicester Tigers earlier this week thanks to Charlie's sister hooking the group up with some tickets. It's kind of a strange phenomenon that's hard to explain going to a rugby match. This is, after all, one of the best teams in the country with players that play nationally. Despite the renown, it felt like I was at a Westlake High School football game, only a slightly scaled down version. There was a small food stand, a crackling loudspeaker system that cut in and out, and about 15,000 fans from what I remember (or was able to hear) the announcer saying. The realization hit me, fairly softly I might add, that America is vastly wealthier on an individual level than anywhere else in the world. I played sports in high school stadiums with jumbotrons and one of the best professional Rugby teams in England didn't even have one. It wasn't some divine realization, but it did give me something to think about while standing in the rain.

Now I'm gonna get to the question that everyone here prods me about so far as sport goes. In the far corner of the stadium there was a sign that read, "No helmets, no pads, just balls". This is a big selling point for the sport as, for some odd reason, it seems that football (I'm only talking about the American variety here, not soccer) is rugby's main competitor. Periodically throughout the game a friend would ask me what I thought about it compared to football, which I kinda shrugged off as I hadn't formed a real opinion yet, and then continued to mutter something about "Real men don't wear helmets" or "These are the hardest guys in the world".

As the game continued on, I began to grow bored. I'll admit that Rugby is more continuous than football, but it is by no means faster. The pace of these big guys is really on par with a decent high school football team in the US. On top of that they wore ridiculously short shorts which carried the potential to permanently scar some young children. I felt like I was watching one of those Eighties movies where, for some unexplainable reason, the director spends a solid thirty seconds recording an outdoor body building gym at Venice Beach, only that these guys were pale as the weather here is not quite what it is in California. As the game continued on, it just seemed like there was a lot of hugging and pushing, no real hits. Sometimes a player would get pushed down by a bigger guy and fairly fun fight did break out (a rare occurrence Charlie assured me, the English don't fight they sip tea and litigate to sort out differences of course!).

After the game was over, one friend made the dire mistake of brazenly asking (I say "brazenly" because he was really just expecting me to say how much tougher these guys were than football players) "So what do you think about your American Football now with their pads?" And the honest answer was I couldn't rate rugby to it. The two sports are so different in their basic mentalities that I completely understand why football players wear pads and rugby players don't; these guys do not hit, they tackle. To illustrate the point, this (I was gonna link a rugby tackle but it's too much work to find a link, just imagine a corner back wrapping up a receiver) is what a typical rugby tackle looks like. How can I possibly compare the level of entertainment to this? Flipper came by after I gave my opinion, to the dismay of my friends, and after watching some videos on youtube he agreed. The speed and tenacity of football in America just gives it an extra level of excitement, you simply don't turn away because you might miss something if you do. Rugby is more social, if something big happens you have time to check your watch, read an email on your Blackberry, and then steal a swig of soda before the play finishes out. You know that sign at the stadium I mentioned that was basically trying to validate its sport over football? It should probably be re-written to read "Short shorts, Ralph Lauren Shirts, how's the food?"

I know I chastise the sport a ton, but it is good fun to attend. The guys do tend to get in little scuffles and throw one another around, but the majority of the game seemed to be spent in a dog pile trying to hand the ball off. It was like some weird fully clothed Greco-Roman wrestling orgy where people hugged a lot. I enjoyed myself, but it was more who I was with rather than what I was doing.

On a quick side note, Charlie and I went to see Spiderman 3 last night and I thought it was a decent movie. One thing they do well in these films is comedy even if it's unintentional. I think some people in the theater thought I was high because I was laughing through the majority of the movie. Tobey McGuire gets to do some killer dance scenes which had me in stitches the entire time. The story was ok for the third film and all in all it was a good break from writing papers. The fight scenes were well done and the cinematography was crisp, of course Kirsten Dunst sucked but that's just expected of her films (I love the irony of how her character is blasted by critics in the film just as she is in real life), but nonetheless they did a good job of bringing an over-the-top comic book to life. I especially liked the emo/goth scenes to showcase the internal struggle the Peter Parker character was going through, I dunno how Sam Raime got Tobey McGuire to agree to doing his hair like that but he should get an accolade from the Academy just for convincing the guy to part his hair like the singer from A.F.I. or Jared Leto in whatever his band is called.

Anyways I'm heading home in exactly seven days and they couldn't come faster. It's not that I don't like it here, but more so that I'm just ready to be back home. I'll miss my friends here, but we've already got Flipper coming to stay two weeks in the fall so I'm sure I'll be able to keep in touch. England really is a lovely place, but it's not Texas.