The Night of the Night Before Xmas

I was just starting to do my practice questions for Accounting when I realised that yes, this is a post I want to put on my blog.

I'm staying for a while in Cambridge, as I'm currently studying here.  Since I didn't grow up here, there are a few changes in lifestyle to make.  The last few days have been a bit traumatic, as everyone trickles out of Cambridge and you realise that when things shut down for Xmas over here, they really shut down.  It makes things a bit frightening, like how food can suddenly become a problem if you don't plan well (both running out of and having too much), or yesterday when all of the lights in my room decided to up and die.  It's alright when you have people around, and you know that you can fix things in the morning or get people with expertise to fix them.  It's another thing when you know that people are trying to celebrate and you have to call them specially out to do things for you.

I tried not to do that - the nice guy came over to fix my lights (on a Sunday) and I asked him for the key to the circuit breaker, so that I could fix things myself if the same problem happened again.  I also made a run to the grocery store, so I don't have to worry about starving even with my two meals a day thing that I've got going on.  (And too many bananas.)

But it's this sense of powerlessness that I don't like, and makes me faff around instead of studying.  I tell myself I'm equipped to handle living alone.  It doesn't make me feel good to think that I might not be as good as I think I am.

It doesn't help that studying itself makes me annoyed.  I don't like to think of myself as an accountant, and yet the subject that comes to me the most easily here is Accountancy.  I don't know whether it's because it's so easy that anyone could do it, but it seems strange to be a source of comfort.  In comparison, Corporate Finance is killing me, and I know all the topics.  I just don't know how to apply them.  So when people ask me for help, I feel pretty useless because I still don't know all these things!

That makes it hard to see what I want to do in life.  A lot of my assumptions are being questioned, and I don't really like the answers that I get from them.  It's hard not to be afraid, in this case.  But I shall try.

The taxi's waiting

Now I'm all packed and on the brink of my studies in the UK.  I thought I would be more excited than this, but I suppose a full day of packing has sapped the energy from me.  I'm not excited or worried about what is coming up ahead, for there are too many small details to deal with that blots all of that out.  Instead, I am in an almost zen state.  I know the best thing I can do now is rest.

And rest I shall.  When I next write here, I shall be in the UK.  I hope to update soon!

Leaving on a jet plane

In 5 days' time, I will be in the UK.  From then on, I'll be staying for one year.

The entire process of preparing for the trip was stranger than I imagined it to be.  For someone who didn't like lists, I started making a ton of them and checked them off religiously.  I met up with all sorts of people, and found that some of my acquaintances should actually be my friends.  I realised that keeping in contact isn't that hard to do.  I have a ton of letters that I will be writing to everyone.

I also realised that packing up your life into suitcases is hard.  Even though I'm only going to be there for just 1 year, the things that I will need are quite surprising.  The decisions that I've made in what to bring - gadgets, creature comforts and all that - have been very interesting.

I expect to travel.  I've been told that I ought to visit Belgium, and I am definitely going to visit Paris.  A lot of the students want to go to Amsterdam, though I'm not quite sure what the attraction there is.  I might go to Vienna, or visit Italy again.

Or I might just take endless walks and train rides all over the place.  Rambling is a good pasttime, and Cambridge looks like a fun place to walk around.  I am sure that there will be things to do there.

Plus my family says they want to go back to Leicester to take a look at how it has changed since we've been there.  It should be exciting.

A new beginning with nostalgia

I've been keeping a journal of good habits I'm trying to follow for two years now.

I didn't realise it had been that long until I checked my other blogs - the last post I made about this change was back in Dec 2010. Since then, I haven't talked about it online. I didn't see the need to, for I developed these habits in conjunction with some very personal goals, and I don't think that I've reached some of these yet. I still need more time before I can really say that I've achieved these goals.

The smaller things however I think are getting there. One of the things was to keep in touch with my close friends. I think I've managed to do that. I also exercise more than I used to, and even though my weight hasn't dropped I apparently grew a bit.

I'm also going for further studies at the end of the year. I have a fuller post that I want to write on that, about reconciling uprooting myself with travelling, but the point is that I managed to complete a huge undertaking by using my daily journal of habits. This journal keeping has been really useful.

So far, I've been making weekly lists that I make score marks again, and leave a lot of space for writing reflections. This week, however, I have changed my journal style to focus more on daily lists than reflections. I did that because I wanted to get back into the habit of studying, and I knew that if I didn't put in on a daily list, I might not be able to make myself study.

When written on a daily basis however, it really seems like there is a lot to do! Every day I fill up a page, and sometimes I don't think I do as much as I used to do. Or maybe it seems that way because I can see exactly what I do on a page, whereas previously I tracked by how many times I changed to a new item? I don't know. I do know that I am doing a great variety of items, because I can see what I have been repeating from day to day. Even writing this blog post was a specific item I put in to break up the monotony. =)

So this is a note to tell myself that I have changed my written journal style on this day. It's not been a week yet so I can't tell how successful the new list has been, but I can safely say that I studied every day for the last 3 days. Will I be able to met my other goals? Only time can tell! Maybe I will do more reflections in this blog to tell you about it.