Pre-Takeoff ✈️
Hi! Welcome to my blog of random ideas I have and crazy things I do this semester while in London, England! I graduated last month from UIUC and as if taking all my classes in 2.5 years wasn’t enough, I’ve decided to take a bunch more random classes at London South Bank University while abroad. The program goes until June and until TODAY, was supposed to start January 22nd, with my flight scheduled for January 21st. But to prove that this trip will contain unlimited surprises, I found out today that housing actually opens up January 15th. So I will potentially be leaving the country in basically a week to head out on the adventure of my dreams! I’ve decided to blog about the full experience here because 1.) I’m just forgetful enough that I won’t remember without a written record, 2.) I thought it would make good entertainment with all the mistakes I’m inevitably going to make and 3.) once I come back, I’m basically going to have to adult and that’s boring…so why not keep a track of my life while there’s still room for chaos?
Since this is my first blog (and reason #1 almost ensures I’ll forget to write blogs eventually) I do want to include some goals I have for the next 4.5 months….
-get better at directions (hmm maybe I’ll be a little less lost in london as we go along)
-find a cute bookstore cafe and come in to write so that I can be like JK Rowling and live out my “writer in a big city” dreams
-EXPLORE (basically live out my Serena & Blair Europe Gossip Girl fantasy)
-start liking beer (I feel like I’ll be going to pubs enough to maybe start standing the taste of beer, right?)
-learn british slang (and maybe even improve my accent)
-& the sky’s the limit! The whole point of this blog will be to fill it with the strange and surprising encounters I have and dumb things I do, so I won’t put too many goals in for myself. I guess to be happy. Oh…and to sample every fish and chips available in the city. Oh and to master the tube. And to live out a wild child moment. Okay… time to stop while I’m ahead.
But while I am ahead and this trip is still a dream (have I said dream too much?) I could wake up from at any moment(which is code for pandemic shuts the whole country down), I do want to say that I am so excited for what lies in store. YES— going across the ocean for almost 5 months without knowing a single human there is a lil intimidating. I genuinely don’t know anyone, including my flatmates…so here’s hoping I actually like them…
BUT that means that hopefully this will be the perfect close to the years before I have to go boring. Hopefully I can learn a lot about my crazy self and stretch my imagination before selling myself to the corporate world. I’m excited to have the —probably 3 of you that I add to this— follow along and I‘m really looking forward to looking back at this entry in 5 months probably laughing and crying at all the wonderful and terrible things I never could have anticipated.
And on that awful, cheesy note, I’m gonna #malibumoment out of here. Good luck Charlie (aka future me) and see you all when I’m ~actually~ lost in london.