I was woken up early this morning to the sound of drilling mixed with mumbled British accents outside my window and have just said goodnight to a pair of British maintenance men who came to repair my broken fire alarm. I can’t decide if this counts as an unusual or a very typical day.
Unable to read amidst the cacophony of drills, harsh mutters and a beeping fire alarm, I threw on clothes and crossed the street to Rosemarino’s, a little Italian café I’ve been wanting to try since moving next door. A good looking British-Italian boy took my order for an espresso and eggs royale, and it proved more than worth leaving my cozy bed for. Sometimes I feel my days revolve largely around finding new study corners.
The problem becomes footing my coffee bill. Starbucks is only a fifteen minute walk from mine and for £1.50 I can have actual filter coffee in a grande (if I bring in my own tumbler). I if I choose a café in Clifton Village, they’re almost always quieter, but the coffee is more expensive and usually comes only in pretty, but tiny cups (why I do need so much coffee to get through the day?). So, lots of time I make my own French press and head to the graduate school to study, but it’s cold there and people are always shushing you. But then, if I opt to stay in my room I inevitably get distracted and the books stay on the shelf. This marks the current struggle of my life. As difficult as it is, I somehow cope.
Today it was a rota of Rosemarino’s, the Manor Hall library and my flat. Tomorrow I have class all day and Friday’s study locations are yet unknown. Thus follows the excitement of completing my MA.
No more traveling for me for quite some time now as I finish my last two months of classes, and with them, final essays and my dissertation. I’m so thankful to have met such amazing women in my program. It hit me this week especially that I could not do this alone. When the reading lists are literally endless and the course so unstructured, it makes all the difference crying and laughing over it all with kindred spirits.
And now to finish Wilkie Collin’s ‘John Jago’s Ghost,’
Em
ineedtopinchmyself 
Feb 21, 2012 @ 23:47:31
I like your blog! I’ve been to many of the places you mention in those three years I lived in the UK.