I'm somewhat at a loss for what to do with this last learning journal post ... It doesn't seem possible that this could be the last one! It doesn't seem like the semester can be ending! It doesn't seem like I could possibly be officially stepping foot in London exactly one month from today. Can it really be? I've been saying it for weeks, but I think I'll say it again: this does not feel real. There's too much to be done between then and now; a month might as well be an eternity. And yet it was only the bat of an eye ago that I was saying, "It's still more than two months away" to a friend, so I'm sure this next four or so weeks will go by with just as much speed, if not more.
It's funny, but I don't really spend so much time thinking about going to London and being in London anymore. I guess I never really did, but you'd think that it would take up a little more of my brain time than it really does. Maybe it's just because it still doesn't seem real at all that I don't think about it, at least not in serious terms. There have been so many other things on my mind lately—finals, classes next semester, graduating next April, applying to graduate programs—my brain's already living after London, it seems like. Things have been so stressful that the field study has become almost something to check off my list so I can get onto all these other things that I need to do. Even worse, it sometimes jumps up in my mind like a barrier that's keeping me from other things I want to do this summer with friends and family. I hadn't realized this until this weekend, and it struck me that this is remarkably tragic. I'm going to one of the world's greatest cities, and I'm already thinking of it like it's over because my brain is completely preoccupied with the future beyond it. This is not something that I want.
Living in London is going to be hard because I already know I'm going to get horrifically lonely for a bit (that's just the way I am and I'm already mentally preparing myself for it) and because it's going to be tempting for me to go away into my little library corner and sit there all day and then go home and sit in my room and be a hermit because I'm so stressed about being by myself in a foreign country and doing a project that will inevitably stress me out while I'm missing out on all the fun things that my friends and family will be doing together while I pay for four months of housing contract in Provo because I haven't been able to sell my contract yet, so why didn't I just stay in Provo in the first place because it would have been a whole darn lot easier?
Calm down, calm down ... I'm not serious. Entirely. I'm just trying to explain that as soon as I start thinking like that, I'm going to kick myself or something, because that is not the attitude I want to have at all. Yes, staying in Provo would be easier. It would be a lot easier. And yeah, I'm going to miss out on doing fun things with my friends and family. And it's true that I'm going to be working on a project that's probably going to be very frustrating, because that's just the way that projects are. And I know (oh boy do I know) that this is going to be one of the most emotionally taxing experiences in my life to date. But I know it's going to be worth it. Doing this project is going to do amazing things for my ability to do academic research and synthesize real information. It's going to be integral in me figuring out if this is the kind of thing I want to do long-term or not. It's going to help me get into graduate school and pursue whatever I decide my dreams are going to be. And the benefits don't even stop at academia!
And so, I have a resolution: I am going to live in London.
So what do I mean by living in London? Pretty much just what it says. I'm going to live my life in London. I'm not going to think about what I'm missing back home or in Provo. I'm not going to think about what's ahead. London is going to be my life, and I'm going to make every effort I can to live in the present. Not very often anyways. Thinking about all the things I have to do and everything that's happening outside of London will inevitably stress me out beyond my ability to do anything productive, let alone enjoy myself.
Again, this is not what I want.
I want to enjoy my time in London. I want to be able to have a good experience, immerse myself in life there, and not be stuck thinking about things beyond what is right in front of me, and furthermore way more awesome and exciting than anything I could possibly be doing in the U.S. (This is a significant part of the reason that I chose to have Eng317 be one of my classes that I take while in the field--it will basically force me to enjoy London and do the things that are most helpful when I'm stressed. It's basically an academic tranquilizer, honestly. Not that I'll need a tranquilizer or anything...).
This is going to be a great experience academically, culturally, and personally. I can't wait!
And let me just say it ...
See you in a month, London!
Monday, April 9, 2012
Learning Journal #28 (4/6)
I figure since I spent so much time preparing for my presentation, I might as well put the fruits of my efforts on here:
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Learning Journal #27 (4/4)
Reading about culture shock this week was really interesting. In fact, I think sometimes we can even experience a kind of culture shock during the course of our normal lives, even when we haven't actually gone anywhere that actually constitutes a new culture.
I felt something like culture shock the first time I came back from a semester at school. Home was kind of like going to a new culture: my family had moved to Missouri right after I graduated from high school, so it wasn't really home to me, and when I realized that life at home had gone on without me, that I'd somewhat lost my place of belonging within the family, that there were jokes I wasn't on the inside of ... it was really rough. I was all kinds of emotional for about a week before I could get anywhere even close to normal. Not exactly the best time of my life, but it certainly taught me a lot of things. I think one of those things might be how culture shock is going to affect me. I could almost go down the list of symptoms and say, "Yep, that's going to be me" and "No, I won't do that." I'm sure most people would argue that you can't know until you get there. I'd argue that I'm more in touch with my emotions than most people I know, and I'm almost 100% certain that I'm absolutely right. I'm sure that at some point in the first month of being there, I'll write a post about whether or not I'm correct at present (just wait and see ... I will be!)
My mom has been dealing with me for the past 21 years, and so she's really got my number when it comes to handling my emotions (which are many, and frequent, and potent), and I'm really grateful that she's taught me so well how to take care of myself because (1) I need it badly, and (2) I think it will help me cope with culture shock. I mentioned this in class, but she gave me a mantra a couple of years ago, kind of a set of questions to ask myself when I'm feeling upset or angry or whatever and don't really know why. Or even if I know why, but I'm overreacting. The mantra is, "Never let yourself get too hungry, too tired, or too lonely." So, when I feel myself getting down, I ask myself: Have you eaten today? Are you well rested? Have you talked to people today? Have you taken time to be by yourself today? (Because for me, being over-socially-stimulated can be just as lonely as being under-socially-stimulated.) In class, we also talked about making sure we get exercise, so maybe that'll be another question to ask myself, though I don't think it's as likely to be a problem since I plan on taking long, lovely walks every morning, and I don't exercise any more than that on a regular basis anyways :)
So, that's my plan for handling culture shock! I'm 150% sure it's coming, but at least I have a plan. It feels good to have some kind of preparation!
I felt something like culture shock the first time I came back from a semester at school. Home was kind of like going to a new culture: my family had moved to Missouri right after I graduated from high school, so it wasn't really home to me, and when I realized that life at home had gone on without me, that I'd somewhat lost my place of belonging within the family, that there were jokes I wasn't on the inside of ... it was really rough. I was all kinds of emotional for about a week before I could get anywhere even close to normal. Not exactly the best time of my life, but it certainly taught me a lot of things. I think one of those things might be how culture shock is going to affect me. I could almost go down the list of symptoms and say, "Yep, that's going to be me" and "No, I won't do that." I'm sure most people would argue that you can't know until you get there. I'd argue that I'm more in touch with my emotions than most people I know, and I'm almost 100% certain that I'm absolutely right. I'm sure that at some point in the first month of being there, I'll write a post about whether or not I'm correct at present (just wait and see ... I will be!)
My mom has been dealing with me for the past 21 years, and so she's really got my number when it comes to handling my emotions (which are many, and frequent, and potent), and I'm really grateful that she's taught me so well how to take care of myself because (1) I need it badly, and (2) I think it will help me cope with culture shock. I mentioned this in class, but she gave me a mantra a couple of years ago, kind of a set of questions to ask myself when I'm feeling upset or angry or whatever and don't really know why. Or even if I know why, but I'm overreacting. The mantra is, "Never let yourself get too hungry, too tired, or too lonely." So, when I feel myself getting down, I ask myself: Have you eaten today? Are you well rested? Have you talked to people today? Have you taken time to be by yourself today? (Because for me, being over-socially-stimulated can be just as lonely as being under-socially-stimulated.) In class, we also talked about making sure we get exercise, so maybe that'll be another question to ask myself, though I don't think it's as likely to be a problem since I plan on taking long, lovely walks every morning, and I don't exercise any more than that on a regular basis anyways :)
So, that's my plan for handling culture shock! I'm 150% sure it's coming, but at least I have a plan. It feels good to have some kind of preparation!
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Learning Journal #26 (4/2)
I've been thinking a lot about the "why" behind my project. As more and more people have been asking me about my plans for the summer, and I've concisely explained that I'm studying how the perception of God changed as a result of the Copernican Revolution, and watched blank stares come up on their faces, I've found myself thinking, "Why am I really doing this?" Sure, there's the fact that it's something study-able that I'm interested in, something that doesn't really seem to have a book written about it, something that is intensely personal and that I, nosy as I am, want to delve into and explore.
Ultimately, I know how heavily I rely on my understanding of God and my relationship to Him, and so it's nigh unto impossible for me to comprehend the magnitude of something like Copernicus coming along and bringing that understanding into question. I just can't fathom what that would be like, or how I would cope with it because it would be such an intense test of my faith. I think it's the incomprehensibility of the situation that draws me to it, knowing that I would just shatter on the inside if I found out that suddenly that something I had constantly counted on, which showed me just how much I matter to God, wasn't true anymore. My mind and heart just hurt thinking about it, and maybe that's just because it's fairly early in the a.m. and I'm in the middle of reading a really dramatic emotional-roller-coaster of a book, and therefore am prone to my own dramatizations of situations ... but I still think my point is valid. I know that I would care if my cosmological paradigm shifted, and so I can't imagine that they didn't; I just want to know how they coped, how they tried to reassemble their definition of God, which is so vital to the relationship between God and man.
But what does it really matter? Who really cares about changing definitions of God? It's in the past, it's not going to change the future, so why do it?
I've recently permitted myself to take up reading for pleasure again, and found the following quote in John Green's Looking for Alaska:
With a sigh, he ... wrote on the blackboard: How will we ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering? ... [And then said, "E]verybody who has ever lost their way in life has felt the nagging insistence of that question. At some point we all look up and realize we are lost in a maze, and I don't want us to forget ... I don't want to forget that even when the material we study seems boring, we're trying to understand how people have answered that questions and the questions each of you posed...—how different traditions have come to terms with what Chip ... called 'people's rotten lots in life.'"I guess the real reason that I want to know, that I care at all about how these people understood God, is because it matters to me. Because when I am lost in the labyrinth of suffering, there's only one way I know to get out, and that is to rely on God. And if I don't know who God is, if I have no functioning way to define His existence and understand how that definition relates to me, then the labyrinth has won, and I have no way to come to terms with those rotten lots in life that I get.
Ultimately, I know how heavily I rely on my understanding of God and my relationship to Him, and so it's nigh unto impossible for me to comprehend the magnitude of something like Copernicus coming along and bringing that understanding into question. I just can't fathom what that would be like, or how I would cope with it because it would be such an intense test of my faith. I think it's the incomprehensibility of the situation that draws me to it, knowing that I would just shatter on the inside if I found out that suddenly that something I had constantly counted on, which showed me just how much I matter to God, wasn't true anymore. My mind and heart just hurt thinking about it, and maybe that's just because it's fairly early in the a.m. and I'm in the middle of reading a really dramatic emotional-roller-coaster of a book, and therefore am prone to my own dramatizations of situations ... but I still think my point is valid. I know that I would care if my cosmological paradigm shifted, and so I can't imagine that they didn't; I just want to know how they coped, how they tried to reassemble their definition of God, which is so vital to the relationship between God and man.
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