I am not crazy; I am just more optimistic?
So, I am heading out to London in a couple of hours. I meant to do a post about school last week. I’d really like to do a write-up about what it has been like teaching in China the past few months. I love my kids. I love my schools (maybe not the bathrooms, but you can’t win ‘em all). I love my coworkers. I think I am doing a good-enough job and all that…
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| They told the teachers that we could move closer. Screw the chairs! Front row!! |
Suddenly I realize I am heading off to London tonight. Came home from school, packed, and took a shower. On that note, I am getting pretty damned good at packing.
Not pictured: Kindle on the charger and the toothbrush I threw in a moment ago. I’m just going to buy toothpaste there. I don’t wanna deal with “liquids and gels.”
It’s hard not to seem a bit like a crazy person when you try to articulate that, yes, you are flying around the world to see a play that you, no, don’t have tickets for (yet!) but are confident (hopeful?) you can get. “The release 30 tickets the day-of. As long as I am in the queue for the box office by 4am, I should be okay, I think! If not Friday, than maybe Saturday or Monday!”
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| Nothing ventured, nothing gained! Got my Martin Freeman autograph! |
Even if I don’t get tickets (but I will), this still means tonight marks my fifth trip to London. Going to London is like nothing else for me. It’s a city I have no real connection to aside from one study abroad ten years ago, but every time the dice put me there, I think some silly thought like, “ahhhhh, I am going home.”
I would love to live in London. I don’t care how cliche that is. I don’t care that it is forbiddingly expensive (well, obviously I care a little since its price point has kept me out so far). I just… You pop your head out of any Tube station and you think, “oh my God. I’m in London!” You go for a walk and get mugged? “Oh my God, I just got mugged in London!” All the stereotypes and suppositions people have about London aren’t alway true, but dammit if they aren’t true enough. I’e NEVER had someone try to start a conversation with me in line with my bread and cheese at a grocery shop in London. The underground, while imperfect, is still pretty damned good. Did those late-night lines start yet? That was my biggest complaint before, that the trains stopped at midnight, but now I live in Beijing and know public transportation starts wrapping up at NINE in some places (Right, Rachel?)
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| Sempai never notices me. |
I’ve never felt pressed to Do It All in London because I have always known I’ll be back. In school, I never felt pressed to rush-rush-rush and see it all. I was quite content to do my homework or just read for leisure at the V&A near my dorm just ‘cause I could. The past two times I was there, I strolled about on loose Sherlock Holmes related itineraries I made for myself, but I also just went outside and said, “right. Well, yesterday we walked north for a few hours. Let’s go south.”
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| WHAT? |
This is probably one of the reasons why my trips are never disappointing but rarely exciting. I am a pretty grey person and I am quite content, thank you very much, to just still down different streets. It’s not thrilling, and it doesn’t lead to epic battle scars, but I am never broken-hearted when I don’t get to… I dunno. What do people do on trips? I didn’t get to eat at that one place or climb to the top of whatever.
Aside from seeing Hamlet on Friday. Like, disappointment won’t even cover it (but I am not worried ‘cause I am going to get tickets. I just… I am going to.)
Until next time~
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