ok, i'm actually writing this on 18/2, but i need to distinguish between this and my weekly letter.
i've been here a month and a half now. my mum sent me a letter the other day telling me how much older i look. but i don't feel any older. i suppose i've changed, i do feel more independent than i've ever been. but how's one supposed to recognise her own changes? it doesn't happen overnight, but when will i see my growth here? will it be when the airplane wheels hit the ground in new jersey in four months?
it's scary to think that i'm already dreading returning to the states. not that i am absolutely dreading it, but the thought of going back to a country where it's necessary to fear your own safety, where everything is big, people are lazy, etc., is not promising, to say the least. when i left home, a democrat was in charge of the country and the united states had eight years of peace behind it. now there's a republican in charge and the u.s. is possibly on the brink of disrupting the entire concept of the united nations' peace-keeping mission. nevermind that the british actually initiated the missile strikes against iraq a few days ago. as one of my british friends says: "britain just does whatever america does after all." i'm starting to wish i hadn't been born into a superpower. since when did america become the leader of the world, denying other countries the ability to decide and think for themselves?
enough griping. yes, there are things i'm loking forward to. the idea of paying under $1 for a soda will be a welcome change. not inadvertantly converting all monetary units to another currency will be sweet, and i think i'm going to enjoy taking baths again without having to worry about water running too hot or too cold out of separate faucets. perhaps i'll even enjoy sleeping without hearing scooters running beyond my window. but in the same sense, i know that this is fleeting, and i am trying to enjoy it as much as possible knowing that it will end in too short of a time.
today i heard an ad on the radio that was supposed to sound like a train announcement: "the 5:10 local is....actually on time!" in written form it's just not the same. but hearing the joke, i started laughing. i don't think it's possible to understand it if you haven't experienced it. the delayed trains that simply stop running on the tracks because the signals are off, those delayed because the workers aren't there...if you've been there, you know what i mean. and you know the angst of rail problems. and i realised today that i finally know what that means. that i know, and understand, an inside joke within british society.
there's a phrase in japanese: "hoka no shakai ni tokekomu." it roughly translates into english as "to blend into another society," although such a translation isn't quite accurate. there's no real english phrase to describe it. but it quinessentially describes how i feel. i feel like i'm finally adapting. granted, i'll never be british and i know that. to simply say that i've "fully blended into british society in only seven weeks" doesn't give full credit to someone who's truly british, born & raised on the british isles. but something has happened in the past seven weeks. i don't start when i hear a london accent. when i hear one from liverpool or the north, i immediately become curious. i start when i hear american accents. when i walk behind americans in the street, i gawk and stare. i simply accept others to speak with a london accent, but i'm not scared to answer back with an american. because it's who i am, and people have accepted me here for it. thus perhaps i have blended into british society, and i hope that it's made me a better person--and a better american--as a result.
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