adventure

The Homesick Scamp

Posted on by erranteditor

I’m homesick.

Horribly horribly homesick.

Considering I am sitting on my couch watching my TV, this presents a bit of a problem.

The last couple of months I have been pretty mopey. I’ve been a lot busier this semester between classwork and the third job, which means I have had less free time, and less time to see my friends. I feel tired all of the time, and I’ve now entered that sad restless state that has me convinced that not only am I going to die alone as a spinster cat lady, but I am going to do it stuck in a job that I hate, surrounded by people that I hate.

The last time I felt like this I was in a dead end night job, in a miserable relationship, and spending more time alone than interacting with people.

The last time I felt like this, I applied to the University of Edinburgh and moved to Scotland 6 months later.

That was still the best choice I have ever made, but I now find myself incredibly homesick for the life that I had there. I wasn’t working, I lived two doors down from my friends, and a quick walking distance from the others. I walked everywhere, explored everything, and even though I had my heart broken there, I healed there, and really took my time to find myself. It was my first time completely on my own in a new place, and it was just the sort of adventure that I needed.

I can’t seem to recreate that adventure here. I have great friends (some old, most new, some back in my life after a long absence, some who will be in my life for a very long time), but it just isn’t the same. I have to get in my car to see them, try and find time between work, school and homework, and the busy lives and schedules of those around me.

The problem is, I am locked in here. I am making money now, but not enough to pay my bills and live alone, and the program does not allow for study abroad. I have a year and some change before I can actually start working on my dissertation, and the more time I spend alone, the more I wish that I was completing this research in Scotland.

For the last couple of weeks I have been daydreaming about dropping out of the program, packing a bag and my cat, and moving to New Zealand. I miss accents, miss the sense of adventure, miss the person that I was when I was overseas.

This restless, mopey energy has led to drastic changes (haircut anyone?), a lack of sleep, and an intense desire to sleep all day.

I have a lot of good things ahead of me. I have a great research opportunity that will lead to a publication, I am employed (and can almost pay all of my bills), I am making great connections that may lead to a teaching gig, and despite not having insurance, I have been in reasonably good health. The problem is, I can’t seem to focus on all the good stuff. The only thing I can focus on is how badly I want to run away and start a new adventure where no one knows me (preferably a place with free healthcare). Depression is a messy thing, and being run by my stress and depression is even worse.

I’m glad that spring is here and I will be able to sit outside more. Maybe the Vitamin D will help my mood. I’m also going to actually sign up for insurance this weekend. I tried the website, and that didn’t work, but hopefully an agent will be more successful.

Then it will be doc appointments and check-ups galore.

and the hunt for a new therapist….because a few more sessions couldn’t hurt, could they?

 

*On a completely unrelated note, in the middle of typing this there was a small earthquake. I’m home alone, and while the earthquake was small, I am still shaking (pun intended). Looks like the cat and I will be sleeping under the solid wood table tonight, just in case.

The Scamp’s Last Day of Her 26th Year

Posted on by erranteditor

I did a post last year to mark the end of my 25th year. It was a lot of fun to write, and I was in a good place when I wrote it.

This year is a little bit different. I am feeling extremely stressed under the weight of three jobs, I have been staring at a paper for three hours and have barely managed to write two pages, and the only thing that I want to do tomorrow is sleep all day so I no longer feel bone dead tired.

Last year I felt good about where I was. I was in Scotland navigating the city, enjoying the adventure that came with living overseas, and built a very solid amazing group of friends. I was planning a day full of Mexican food with one of my favorite people, Skype chats with my friends and family at home, and a night full of karaoke at my favorite pub. A relationship I thought would last the next 70 years failed, but I was in therapy and focused on making myself a better person.

I was excited for 26, and excited for what that meant for me as one year older, and one year much much wiser.

This year I am looking forward to the end of my 26th year for a very different reason.

I’m not sure if 26 was a good year for me. There were a lot of good moments, I traveled around Scotland, wrote the best piece of writing in of my academic career, and graduated, started a doctoral degree and managed to get a teaching job, but for all of the good things that I accomplished, I made some missteps and had some hiccups. I left Scotland feeling really good about myself. I learned how to reach out for help when I needed it, reconnected with old friends and strengthened my bond with new friends, and I had a plan. I had a plan for how I was going to readjust to life in the US. I was going to take my great new attitude and be Kim 2.0, a newer, stronger, better version of the girl who packed all her stuff into four suitcases and spent almost a year living in my own created version of paradise.

I came home and threw all of that out the window. I buried myself in my dissertation and did not reach out to the people here who extended a branch of friendship, I had a hard time finding a job, and I quickly dwindled my savings. I let myself fall back into old Kim habits of negativity and insecurity, and I spent way way too much time in the negative. I have let my dedication to school slide, have not tried to find the good in each of my three jobs, and often let old insecurities cloud my new relationship. I still don’t have insurance, and while I have access to therapists through the school, so far, none of them seem like a good fit.

Basically, I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain I made with myself before I left the land of kilts and haggis.

27 is my chance to start over. Tomorrow I get a clean slate. Tomorrow, I get to start over one year older, and maybe not obviously wiser, but having learned a lot about what it means to make mistakes, admit you don’t know everything, and start working on going back to being the Kim 2.0 that I started to become in Scotland.

The best part of tomorrow is that I get to spend it with my family, and it is not over Skype. I still have a mountain of work to do and two jobs to go to, but at the end of all of that, I get to have dinner with my family, and have a few drinks with some of my friends. Even my students, who more often than not drive me crazy, made me a card, brought me balloons and chocolate, and did their best to respect me today.

My mom just brought me a bowl of ice cream and cookies in my favorite bunny bowl.

This may not have been how I pictured I would spend my last day as 26, but let me tell you, that ice cream went a long way to making it better. I have hours and hours before I sleep, and have 50 years of educational legislation to sort through, but I have a belly full of cookie dough ice cream, so suddenly it doesn’t seem so bad.

As promised, tomorrow will be a fun post full of pictures of the last 26 years of birthdays….I’ve seen the pictures, trust me, they  will make you laugh.

A lot.

A Scamp Reviews the Literature

Posted on by erranteditor

I’ve felt like a slacker since I have been home. The first two weeks I was home I did very little research and absolutely no writing. I was starting to feel like I was behind on my deadlines, and would really have to shut myself away in the next few weeks to even think about finishing the paper on time. My mom cleaned up her office and turned it over to me and has been really great about finding things for my dad that will keep him out of the house so I now have a quiet place to work. I have read and skimmed a lot of articles, and tracked down a lot of books that still need to be looked over, but I am making great strides in my research collection. I have started to organize all of it according to subject matter, and I am kicking myself now for not having taken notes on my computer to make that process easier. It is going to take me a long time to code and organize the 50+ books and articles that I currently have notes for.

I wish I had a research assistant to do this part of the work for me.

The outline for the chapter is coming together, and I have a good 2,000 words written, but since I have yet to hear from my supervisor regarding anything related to my dissertation, I have no idea if I am even headed in the right direction. I finally got an email after 2 weeks of no response to my emails, but all she said was that she wanted to schedule a time to meet with me since I have not been contacting her…..I’m so annoyed with her and her lack of communication skills. I really hope my grade doesn’t suffer because I am not getting any help. This was one of my worries before I came home. If I was in Scotland, I could camp out in front of her office until she agreed to help me, or at least wander into the office of the director for my program and get some help (and a good story) from him.  Here, all I can do is cross my fingers and hope that she eventually emails me back.

On the bright side, Saturday is my last day of summer school for the doctoral program. The class this week went surprisingly well. I really like the people in my program, and this time we were a lot more comfortable with each other. There were lots of jokes and sarcasm, and even talk about how we were going to schedule our Saturday meetings. The downside of this program is that I will be on campus every Saturday from the end of August until 2016, and will have little to no social life outside of who brings the wine to the study group. I’m lucky that I don’t have small children and there is no one who is going to be mad at me if I am not home for dinner or can’t go to the movies on a Tuesday night, but I am still a little bit sad about the idea of losing my weekend to nothing but educational leadership lectures and readings. Soon I will be replacing my mystery novels with journals on writing instruction and community college policies, and instead of writing blog posts about getting on stage at a play about drag queens, I will be writing memos and small scale research papers about my underlying epidemiological assumptions and how best to work my viewpoint into my writings.

Last week’s class did bring about some good news. The director of the program is the one that has been running the workshops, and he asked me all about studying in Scotland and whether or not I would ever like to go abroad again. He mentioned that CSUF is working with a university in South Africa to run a program like the one I am in, and that I should meet some of the students who are going through the program (who just happen to be here right now visiting the campus) and see what they have to say about the program and living and working there. I’ve never been to South Africa, but it sounds like it might be a fun adventure. Who knows what will happen in the next three years, but I know I will be ready for another adventure.

 

and now…back to the outline. My research assistant is a cat, and besides the fact that he can’t type, or read, he is currently out and about enjoying the pleasant evening.

Tour Guide Scamp: Day 3

Posted on by erranteditor

Can you guess what we did today? If you guessed a boat ride, you would be correct.

Today was less about walking, and more about enjoying the view. The Firth of Fourth is truly a wonder, and all of those who know my dad knows that he loves the water, so I thought a boat ride under the bridge and out to Inchcolm Island would be a perfect way to spend what turned out to be a sunny day. The wind was in full force, so the ride out to the island was a little rough in some spots, but circling the island was great, seeing the abbey was nice, and the best part of the boat ride: SEEING A PUFFIN! It was quick, but I feel that it was way worth it. I loved being on the water, being in the sunshine, and just seeing another part of the city. I also know that it was something that my dad really enjoyed, and since this is their vacation, that is my main goal.

We stopped in the really posh hotel in town for tea, but we ended up in the restaurant and not the tea room. We had some amazing French onion soup (which I am still tasting) before going back to the hotel to relax a little before dinner.

We passed most of the afternoon watching fun British tv shows. I forget that not everyone is used to the pedestrian lifestyle that I have become accustomed to, so I think the last two days and really worn the parental units out.

We ended the night at Frankenstein’s Castle….and yes, it is just as awesome as it sounds. We had a drink and they munched and then we parted ways for the evening. Tomorrow they will spend the day in the Highlands looking for Nessie while I get to go to dissertation meetings and work on final assignments.

I guess it is time for me to remember that I am still in school. I’m trying to finish strong so I can make a case for the credits to be accepted at Fullerton to save me some time and money (ugggh, fingers crossed). It will also give my parents a chance to have a little alone time on their vacation.

Tour Guide Scamp: Day 2

Posted on by erranteditor

I’m pretty sure the parents are ready to drop kick me to the moon. Today’s tour had them walking up 45 steps of death to visit the castle. I felt really guilty when my mom had to pull out her inhaler….tour guide fail. As much as I hated the steps, seeing the crown jewels and being able to see the entire city was worth it. We spent a good part of the day at the castle going in and out of all of the war museums, looking through the chapel, and watching musket demonstrations. The weather was perfect. I saw the sun today, and I only got cold once (and that is saying a lot for here). Even though I might have finished my time here without visiting the castle, my parents both enjoyed it and that is really all that matters.

After we had seen everything that could be seen at the castle, I took them down the Royal Mile. This is the street for tourists. There are fun shops and restaurants mixed in with some beautiful churches and government buildings. We stopped in one of my favorite little Italian places (I know, I’m in Scotland, why am I eating Italian? Trust me, my parents have already made fun of me) and had the best piece of lemon cheesecake with a lemon glaze of all time (ok, not all time, but I hate cheesecake, so this was amazing). I walked them further down the mile and to the School of Education so my dad could see where I went to class.  We wandered on to Old College because it is a beautiful building and really sells you on the school.

We spent the early afternoon having a drink at the hotel bar. Luckily my parents are the type that can sit and have a drink and people watch without being too fussed about it. We were able to chat and catch up on all the gossip that I have been missing out on at home, and then we talked a little about David and the flaming pile of shit that was. I cried. In a bar. In front of my parents, but while my mom was in the bathroom my dad did his best to tell me that no one is perfect and that even though I know I wasn’t an angel, I did nothing to deserve what I got. Having not really raised girls he is not used to dealing with things like this, but he told to just keep on trucking with my recovery process and that eventually I would come out of this on the other side. While it is what everyone has been saying to me for months, it was still nice to hear it from someone who usually stays out of all the girl drama that goes on in our house.

We finished out the day at an Irish pub near the hotel. I got to enjoy real food, and we even got to watch a little football (and of course, I mean soccer.). We looked at all the funny pictures we took all day of the rubber pirate chicken and his adventure in Edinburgh and then I strolled home. Of course my mother worries about me walking home in the dark, but alas, I have made it safely.

The Irish pub was the same one I sat in a little over a year ago after a long day of campus and city tours and decided that I was going to move here. I took a picture that night, and had my mom take one tonight. I think it pretty much sums up the journey so far.

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This was last March.

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This was two hours ago.

Tomorrow is a ferry ride in the harbor and a tour of the shopping district….which means a lot more walking. Sorry mom.

The Scamp’s Tale From the Strange

Posted on by erranteditor

I’d like to start this post by saying I am no means a prude. I’m also not dumb enough to think that this little cesspool I live in doesn’t house some odd stuff. I know that I live in a zoo. I know that these 18 year olds have no morals or shame. That being said, this was a first for me.

I’ve been awake since 4 am. The guy that lives below me likes to listen to his club music really loud, and likes to shout over the music to impress the girls that are constantly hanging out with him. I can hear them chatting and laughing, and sometimes I dance along to the music. He always seems to stop by 10 or 11, and since that is when I am getting ready to wind down for the night, it doesn’t bother all that much. The cleaning lady has told me that he is a really posh guy with good looks and lots of money.

Looks like Mr. Posh is also a bit of a perv. He woke me in the wee hours of the morning with his sexual escapades. The girl he was with made some very unfortunate noises….in fact, I am not even sure she was enjoying herself. The thing that got me though, was that every time I thought they were done, she would start again, but with a different guy! I spent two hours…maybe more listening to her rotate the guys in the room while they each had their fun with her. After each round I could hear them laugh, chat and get ready for the next one. I was so grossed out. I realize that just because I don’t enjoy group sex (or a gangbang? I don’t even know what you would call it) doesn’t mean that other people won’t. It also doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy other people watching, laughing and having a go at them. I had to get my headphones to block them out, but even then, all I really wanted to do was get up and take a shower. I’m hoping that satisfied them for awhile, or, if they need to do it again, they put a gag in her or something (I’m sure there is a market for that.)

There are just some things I should not have to be a part of, but since I have to suffer with the memory, so should my lovely readers. After all, misery loves company.

A Scamp and the Mumps

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Don’t worry, I do not have the mumps (at least not yet….) but my neighbor has them. The poor boy passed out in the hallway the other day, and if it wasn’t for the wonderful ladies who have to clean our dorm, who knows how long the poor kid would have been there? He’s a nice guy, I don’t know him that well, but he seems shy and quiet, and not that social, so I got worried when Liz (the wonderful woman who cleans my side of the dorms) told me he had gotten ill. Luckily there was no real cause for worry about his well-being. My R.A. Esther and my partner’s in crime Jade and Cecile checked in on him every few hours, made sure that he got meals, and sweet talked a GP into an appointment so that he could get a proper diagnosis and make sure that there wasn’t something seriously wrong with him. The head of accommodations for our hall has checked on him, and the 4th floor students who don’t suck at life (meaning the ones who are not undergrads) have been asking about him and offering to help get him to and from the doctor or bring him meals. I know how bad it is to be homesick, and I really know how bad it can be when you are too sick to function and how badly you just want your mommy to come take care of you and tell you everything will be okay. His mom isn’t here, but he has the next best thing, he has Mama Jade, fearlessly leading the charge to make sure this kid is taken care of.

I’m envious of her. She didn’t think twice about helping him, and she shut down people who questioned why she would put herself at risk for someone who can clearly take care of himself (shit, I’m 25 years old, but the minute I get even the slightest fever or on days when the pain in my hands and feet are really bad I turn into a 5 year old and just want my mom). She even used her handy mini fridge to make him an ice pack because she knew that the cold would make him feel better. She did all of this without the slightest thought to her own health. I stopped in to see him a couple of times, and told him that he could come knock on my door if he needed anything, but truth is, I am scared that he is still contagious.  I do not want to get sick. I’ve had my shots, but if I get sick now there is no way that I will be able to go home for Christmas, and I desperately want to see my family. I feel completely selfish. This poor kid is all alone, passing out in hallways, and feeling like crap, and the only thing that I can think about is my own crappy immune system and how I desperately want to go home for Christmas. His needs far outweigh mine right now, so I open this up to everyone: What sort of comforts do you like when you are sick? What can I do to make him feel better? Part of this is to assuage my own guilt for not being as fearless as Jade, and part of this is to help him since he will most likely be feeling like crap for the better part of a month. I don’t know how to help boys feel comforted, so all my three or so male readers, can you help me out with this one?

Don’t say porn. I know where the sex shop is here, but I am not going to buy porn and risk someone seeing me with it. I am a lady after all.

A Scamp With A Photo

Posted on by erranteditor

I hate having my photo taken. I always look a bit awkward and messy, or my glasses reflect the flash and you can’t see my eyes. Given all of that, I still found myself at a photo shoot today for the School of Education. I wasn’t going to go. I didn’t think I really needed to be in the photo. I thought I was going to stick out like a sore thumb against all of the other people in the program, but since my afternoon was free, I decided that I should just do the opposite of what Kim would normally do and have my picture taken. I’m glad I went. Organized chaos would be too kind a word to describe the process, but I found a couple of the girls from my emphasis and we tried to make sure we were next to each other in the picture. It makes me feel better about all of the group assignments that is bound to come, and it makes me feel generally good about how hard the year is going to be.

Although I hate having my picture taken, the one thing that I am sad about is my lack of pictures so far in my journey. I carry my camera with me everyday, but feel like a tourist. There is beauty everywhere I look here, but I have yet to really capture it. I’m also not in any of the pictures. I miss my mom with her camera taking pictures of everything from the food to the hotel room (uggghhhh, now I am never going to hear the end of that). I would love to take pictures with me at the various places that I visit during the day. The view from the main library is amazing. I’ll go there just to get out of the cold and enjoy the view. The people that I come across also deserve to be chronicled as well. I seem to attract the Irish boys, and my R.A. (yep, I have an R.A. it is freshman year all over again) has blue and green dreads, and the girls here tromp around in itty bitty skirts when it is only 40 degrees outside. If I was at home, I would be busting out my camera or my phone to take pictures and mock the people around me, but here, I feel silly doing it alone.

Classes start first thing on Monday, and I am a little anxious to get started. I want to get in a routine and be busy, so that I will focus less on what I am missing at home. It will also make the year go quicker. I thought my program would be done by May, but it turns out it is  just the classes that end in May, and then I get to work on my dissertation. My program doesn’t end until late August, and graduation isn’t until November. This means that I would not be able to take a teaching job in the States, or start the EDD program at Fullerton.

I guess that means I will just have to finish my PhD here….oh darn.

 

A Scamp With A Map

Posted on by erranteditor

A lot has happened in the last three days. Thanks to a map of the city that I picked up at the Apex six months ago, my comfy shoes, and a soundtrack featuring the Alabama Shakes, I have been able to get around the city quite nicely. I made it through move-in day with very little hassle, and have unpacked my room to make it as homey as possible.  I even made friends. That was a big thing for me. Having some people to move around the city with (and make fun of the freshers) was a huge concern of mine. I like these girls, and they don’t seem to mind me, so I think the next year will be quite alright. We found the mall and picked up some basics and I got a new phone, now allowing me to feel safe when moving about the city.

The funny thing about the campus (and the city in general) is that you can spot the people that have never been here before. The lost confused look, the young faces, the ones that double fist beers to a house meeting about rules and irresponsibility….all of them have the earmarks of a fresher. I spent three days wandering the city before school started, so I feel like I have some sense of the city and how to get around, so I feel like an old pro already. I played tour guide to the girls I met, and I felt very accomplished when I got to my first meeting with the education department without getting lost.

Once I got to the meeting though, I felt like I had been swallowed by a whale. There are 180 people in the program, 150 are girls, and 100 of them are Asian. Everyone already seemed to know each other, and all the chatter around me made me feel a bit panicked. Then I sat through an hour an half lecture with so much info thrown at me that I am not even sure what was said. Thank God for the student handbook. Apparently I am already behind on reading that I didn’t even know had been assigned, and I am still not sure if I am even registered for classes yet. I have so many things that I still need to figure out, and only 5 days to settle them.

After the meeting though, I was able to be productive. I walked to main campus, signed up for insurance (which was only mildly frustrating…3 months to take effect? Why didn’t the international office tell me that?) and by tomorrow I should have a bank account (and hopefully a job of some sort. I’m not picky. Really,  I am not). I have a host of meetings and appointments, and between all of the walking and the really bad cafeteria food, I am bushed. I think a small nap is in my future. Tonight is a post grad mixer, and as much as I hate that sort of thing, I am going to go, smile, and try to keep the sarcasm to a minimum. People here do not understand sarcasm.

A Scamp in the City

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Bonus points for anyone who knows the reference in the title.

There is something strangely exhilarating about being lost in a foreign city. There is something even more satisfying about accidentally stumbling onto the street you need and finding the address to your new home. In true Kim fashion it took me four hours over two days to figure out where my dorm was and only about 25 minutes to get back to the hotel. My journey took me through 2 parks, 1 sketchy housing complex (crack den anyone?) and on a walking path with what must pass here as a garden. Yesterday I left without my map so I was a bit hesitant to wander too far off the beaten path, but today I had my trusty map, and felt a little better about wandering around.

The problem that I faced was with Google Maps. It gave me the sketchy and horribly convoluted route to the dorm. There were a few times that I was tempted to stop  and ask for directions, but I didn’t out of pure stubborness. I wanted to prove to myself that I could figure it out on my own and be completely independent. I don’t know if I can describe how happy I was to find my dorm, and see how close it was to both the dining hall and to the Royal Commonwealth Pool. You can bet I am going to go there as much as I can. I was tempted to try and sweet talk someone into giving me my keys early, but decided that my time was best spent trying to find a better route for the morning. I walked back in the direction that I had started, but this time instead of going back to the walking path of doom, I stayed on the main road. The streets here tend to change names every so many feet, and after walking for about ten minuets, the street became one marked on the map…..and much to my surprise that street connected to the main street in the city. All I had to do in theory was make a right off the main road the first time and I could have avoided the adventure. I really had to giggle when I got to the main street.

I decided to wander around the city a bit more and see what I could discover. I found the train station and got to see some really pretty old buildings. Today was sort of my last day to sight see for awhile. Once I move in, I am booked solid for the next couple of weeks and then classes start. I am looking forward to being busy because being cooped up alone in a hotel room is starting to get old. There are still a lot of things that I need to work out, like a job and a phone and a doc who will fill my prescriptions, but I will work on one thing at a time and hope that the school will help me fill in the rest.