What do you mean I’m an adult now? I don’t feel like an adult.

I have a curious predicament here. In some ways the reality of adulthood has only just hit me but in other ways I refuse to accept that I am an adult. I find it hard to believe that after adolescence comes adulthood. Surely someone must have come up with another step? What the hell have psychologists been doing with all their time? As a former psychology major I know how psych profiles work - tick the boxes and whichever category has more ticks is what you fall under. So, in light of that, I’ve come up with my own little list of reasons.

Reasons Ashley feels like an adult:

I am doing my Masters. Oh my God. In a few weeks I will be sitting in the Rare Books Room at thr British Library attempting to find a topic to research that no one else has ever done before.

I am living on my own (sort of) in London.

Almost everyone I’ve socialised with for the week is either 5, 14 or 35 years older than me.

Reasons Ashley does not feel like an adult:

I am jobless and completely dependent on my parents.

I am terrified of the idea that I may have to get married some day.

I miss playing with my Neopets.

So as you can tell, I’m kinda half-half on the adulthood issue. Crap.
Anyway, in slightly more relvant news, I have enrolled and am now officially a student at QMUL . There are SIX people total in my programme (though some of my classes will be a tiny bit bigger). Six people. Holy crap. My first class is on Monday and I already have hundreds of pages worth of reading to do. Sounds like a recipe for an exciting birthday.

And on that note, I’m off to go do more mind-numbing critical anaylsis. Yayyy.

Lines: or, New Beginnings

Some lines are made for crossing and some are there to make you stay put. However the scariest lines are the ones that exist to mark the places where you must ever so carefully dance back and forward and never lose your balance.

I suppose that little epigraph may seem rather unusual at the start of my new London blog (formerly the Dublin blog). I'm sure you're sitting there thinking "what the heck do lines have to do with London?" or some other, slightly less savory, word than "heck." Well, if you'll just give me a few minutes of your time I hope I can enlighten you.

I think any teenager knows that crossing lines is an inherently thrilling experience. It's the bold, daringness of it all - the thrilling newness of the experience and the self-satisfaction that comes from breaking the mold and trying something that was once nothing more than a dream. In some ways, that's what London is for a lot of people. It's the distant dream of a metropolitan life in a city where everyone dresses in their own style and hundreds of languages and accents whiz by you when you walk.

But for a city so completely heterogeneous, London can be shockingly conformist. There are some lines people just don't cross (and no I don't mean the yellow line in the tube). If you sit and observe for long enough you begin to notice an almost subconscious reconditioning. For example, London had two paces and two paces alone. There's the tourist pace (what I'd call a hasty stroll accompanied by a start-stopping action of a windshield wiper in a drizzle) and then there's the Londoner stroll - a fast-paced, wide-strided race down the street to see who's the best at avoiding other people while not actually ever looking at them.

Perhaps ND people will understand what I mean best when I compare it to the dining hall in the first two weeks of each academic year. The first few days are utter chaos but, eventually, the freshmen figure out which corners to cut close, which to swing wide and where to never stand waiting and slowly, order is once again restored. Well, a big city is a bit like that. Despite all your individuality, the city slowly pulls you into its flock of sheeple (or its horde of incredibly well-dressed zombies).

Finally that third line. I can't decide if that dancing is more akin to prancing or a light-footed Irish jig. I'm leaning towards the jig though. This line is only relevant because it's what my program currently feels like. It's the uncertainty of whether doing an MA in Literature is opening a world of options to me or pigeonholing me into a field where I will be doing a whole lot of nothing. Surrounded by people with actual professions I can't help but question my own choice of direction. All in all, I'm dancing on a line because I fear that crossing it will leave me with a feeling that Brad Pike describes as "pretending to be a real person who does real person things."
And that's a feeling that I don't think I could ever describe half as well as he does. So to conclude my blog I will roll all my fears anxieties up into a little hyperlink and let Brad Pike do the explaining for me.
http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/pretending-to-be-a-real-person-who-does-real-people-things/

Miss you all!
A

Post-mortem

Okay, I know I only asked for a few days but you know how things are when I get home! I go into a characteristically Ashley hiatus. BUT I'm back and I'm ready to talk about the biggest changes of this semester.

I think what I needed above all else was some time away from everyone to really figure myself out and Ireland was the best place to do that.

I had to bond with an entirely new set of people and I love everyone I became friends with. They're all spectacular people and each of them is totally unique and I would have never been able to grow so close to them if I didn't put my anxieties aside and just put myself out there.

One of my main problems is dealing with awkward or embarrassing situations, and this semester had many, many of those. I used to avoid trying new things because I was scared of failing them and being humiliated but seriously, everything was a new experience this semester! If I let that get in the way I would have never had any fun! While I'm still not great at dealing with them, I'm doing a lot better (I even went ice skating).

While I had made a lot of new friends, it was a little while before I could really confide in them. That left me in the rather difficult (but as it turns out, incredibly fortunate) position of having to deal with my problems on my own. This semester was sort of make or break for me and, thankfully, I met the challenge.

Speaking of challenges...
I'm finally assertive enough to stand up for myself when a stranger (or more accurately a crude male) makes me feel uncomfortable. Unfortunately, that WILL have to change now that I'm back in Trinidad because we all know what will happen if I make the mistake of responding aggressively here...
Also, I won't lie and say that I've started standing up for myself in a friendship but at least I've figured out that it's something I need to do!

Okay, that's all I'm really comfortable disclosing right now but that's quite a lot so be happy!
I really hope that when I return to ND next semester things won't go back to what they used to be like.
What's the point of life if we don't make some sort of progress?

Home at last

Okay loves, please cut me some slack over the next few days. I just returned home and am completely exhausted. I have a lot of small stuff to deal with over the next few days (including calling the people in Customs and giving them one hell of a cuss out).

So, give me a few days to catch myself and then I'll try to do a post mortem of my semester abroad. It will, hopefully, be worth reading.

For those of you in Trinidad - if you don't hear from me soon please don't be offended, I don't even have any phone numbers right now. Just give me a call and we'll arrange a lime.

Italiana? Spangola? Americana? Inglese?

Ohhh Italy! Home to gelato, pasta, pizza and creepers.

After extensive "research" I have decided that I don't really like Italy.
Rome is great for many reasons but most of them have to do with food and churches.

Florence, I am sad to say, I seriously don't like. Really. Everyone I know loves it there but I was hugely disappointed by it and spent 90% of the time annoyed/creeped out by some of the italian men you come in to contact with. All you can do is ignore them while the try to figure out where you're from (Italiana? Spangola? Americana? Inglese?) and run as far away as you possibly can when you're on the same street as four guys and one actually tries to put his arm around you when you're ignoring him. I mean really? Creepy enough???

Italy is all of Trinidad's worst qualities rolled into one giant mess of loud arguments and fights for no good reason, overly loud sirens and incessantly blaring car horns.

Cinque Terre, however, is fabolous. Great people, great sights and I'm sporting a new sunburn thanks to it. Definitely one of the most worthwhile day trips in Europe.

K. Off to bed to catch an early flight over to my favourite major European city, London.

super quick update

Okay, change of plans.

Most of you know that I should be in Rome by now but my Sunday flight was canceled due to volcanic ash. The next available flight to Rome was Friday so we did the next best thing and booked a flight to Pisa for Wednesday night (tonight).
So we're leaving Dublin in a few hours, camping out in the airport at Pisa for about six hours until we can take the first train out to Cinque Terre. We'll spend one day there and then make a mad dash back to Pisa where we grab a connecting train to Florence.
After 3 days in Florence we will somehow find ourselves in Rome where we'll eventually catch a flight over to London, spend a few days there and FINALLY head home.

I hope this sounds as crazy as it actually is. I'm pulling an all-nighter in an Italian airport so tonzees can get some sleep (because someone has to watch the bags) then getting an hour of sleep on a train and hiking all day. Still, I'm sure in retrospect these stories will be awesome.

Sadly, Venice had to be dropped from our itinerary because we lost so many days.

Can't wait to be home!

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine.

If you've never read my blog/watched my videos this is the only one I beg you to pay attention to because this one is to all of you...

Also, apologies for tearing up a little in there.