Across the Pond

     This has been a wonderful summer. After getting home from my six-week trip to Israel, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Austria, I took a summer course at the University of Akron to get ahead, World Literatures. How fitting. We read mostly short stories by authors from all over the world, all of non-European or American heritage. Looking back, the story that stands out the most to me is Yukio Mishima's The Sound of Waves. It's a quick read, and not too difficult, but is a truly beautiful novella.

     Other than that, I have been mowing lawns and clearing underbrush to make a little money for my travels this Fall. I just finished Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey about a week ago. That was some fun reading. I agree with whoever wrote the introduction: Austen seems to start the novel as strictly a satire on Gothic fiction, but then falls in love with her story and finishes it as a half-satire, half-regular novel. By regular I mean the specific style of Austen's work I have read thus far. I started Mansfield Park by Austen about a week ago, and although I had originally hoped to finish it before leaving for England, it looks like I will have to finish it there.
                                                          Me deciding to go England, well thats a story in and of itself.
    
     I had been planning all summer to study this semester in England through BCA. I had my plane ticket, my classes mostly picked out, and many other necessary details all taken care of. However, the Friday before Malone's classes started (two weeks ago exactly), I started to think about all that I would miss this semester if I went to England. By Sunday I decided to stay home. Now I see that I had a bad case of Cold Feet, but then I thought I wasn't ready, I would miss Chorale, Sightlines, Theater, Alpha Rho Iota, family, friendships, Fall in Ohio (which I'm convinced is more wonderful than any other time of year in any other place in the world), and so on. I went to classes the first four days of school, Monday through Thursday. I was miserable the whole week. I didn't unpack what I already had packed because I didn't want to let go of the prospect of studying at the University of Gloucestershire in England. All I did was hang my Casablanca movie poster back on the wall above my bed in my room.
On that Thursday, I thought of my situation. Three former professors of mine told me that I should rethink my decision. My family told me they would support me either way. With the balance of the whole semester and possibly the potential energy of the events of my life before me, I hung on to one thing:
                                                          -That I would live in regret the rest of my life if i didn't go.

     Fortunately, that settled it. I reached my conclusion, and stuck with it. I dropped all of my classes, and told everyone that I was going to England, contrary to what I told them three or four days prior. Now, I have less than a week in the country, and have so much left to do before I leave. It feels strange that on only this coming Wednesday will I leave Canton and spend the next three months living and studying in England. I'm excited to see what this semester will hold; if I had stood by my decision to stay home this semester, I would have known perfectly well what I was gaining by staying home...

                                                        ...but I would have had no idea what I was missing abroad.