Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Moving toward the Union Jack

The summer is winding down and it's been difficult for me to stop, look around and finally realize that all that's been done in the past few months is coming to a close. All of the accomplishments, mistakes, accidents, good choices, bad choices and happiness will be out the window in a week when I head across the nation and a pond (doesn't sound as cool as simply saying "head across the pond") to jolly old England.

So much has happened since I returned from Chicago early this June. For one, I've gotten strep throat twice. A wonderful development to count among the rest. But there were some developments that were not so terrible, some that I probably should've mentioned first, but it's late and I'm out of my mind so I'll use the paragraphs after this to talk a bit about what all happened this summer.

Not long after I got back into the Golden State (and recovered from my sore throat and weakness), I was up and running again in an attempt to learn how to drive the freeways. I had not driven the freeway since an incident a while back where I was merging on the 91 and a car zoomed past me at about 80 or 85 (sometimes I say 90) mile per hour speed. The experience of getting behind the wheel at all was a frightening one, but getting back on the freeway was like purposely hitting myself in the head over and over with a baseball bat.

After a couple afternoons of practicing with my dad, I eventually made the commute to Studio City which would take me to my internship at CBS.

CBS was a plan that I didn't have locked in until a few weeks before I left for break. It was one of the most difficult decisions of my life to take the internship because I turned down two which were of great interest to me. The experience of going into a studio, however long the drive was, turned out to be something invaluable to me. It made me appreciate and understand the industry in a way that I never could on the periphery of the studio system.

While before I had planned to enter the journalism industry without any other consideration, now a wider range of jobs appeal to me and I'm looking at opportunities available at studios all around southern California. It's strange to think that a little twist of fate and a phone call secured me that discovery.

So there was sickness, health, experience gained. But what did I do for fun?

It turns out not much. This summer has been such an ordeal what with commuting and interning. Once I was done with those responsibilities, I arrived home for my final few weeks of summer (which I had mostly free other than a trip to visit my grandparents in Florida) and decided that all I wanted to do ever again was vegetate.

And that's what's been happening.

As London draws nearer, though, I have much more to think about. How will I ever say goodbye to everyone I need to before I leave? Where will certain relationships leave off? How can I either maintain or fix what's been done at home when I'm thousands of miles away? When will all this packing get done?

For the past few days I've tried to hide from it. I put away a few boxes of stuff and decided that anything else I needed to deal with could be done later. But later is now.

Tomorrow morning - or I guess this morning, but for the sake of this blog I will call it tomorrow - I am in need of a ton of energy. To start packing for real, to start saying goodbye for real, to start preparing papers and materials and to finally feel that feeling of summer ending. Up until now it really hasn't felt that way and it's about time I face the facts and own up to my own enormous enthusiasm now that I finally get to live in London.

London is already the place that I call home, but now I can without sounding like a lunatic. Cheers for that.

No comments:

Post a Comment