missing home

home: georgia. provo. my grandparents' house in utah. oxford, england.

This should as no surprise (because I think I've mentioned it before), but Provo is failing at winter. I was sweating in a sweater on Tuesday so yesterday I went sans tights, and today I wore sandals. My saltwaters. The shoes that I wore wandering around Oxford and that gave me that crazy tan that didn't go away until December. And I also wore my England tee that I got at the Gap in Oxford off of Cornmarket street. Also, I was in the international building on campus yesterday and started browsing the study abroad programs and they announced the new theme for London Winter 2016. So naturally, I recounted my pennies and went through all of the pics from this summer and now my heart is just aching. It probably doesn't help that my stomach could eat everything in sight right now and I just remembered Ben's cookies and Moo-Moo's milkshakes and pieminister's pies. Yum. Anyways, since I can't hope on a plane and fly across the pond anytime soon, these pics from the summer will have to do. These shots were some of my favorite as I flicked through all 1,422 of the pics I took.

Sincerely, mad

A Love Letter to England

My dearest England,

Wow, where to begin? This past month has been incredible. I've lived out my dream, and you were everything I've ever hoped you would be.

Thanks for all of the Moo-Moo's milkshakes and Ben's cookies. Thanks for teaching me that fries are chips and chips are crisps. Thanks for letting me not die as I crossed the streets. Thanks for helping me fall back in love with London during that lovely bike tour. Thanks for letting me bust out my acid yellow rain slicker, and thanks for the saltwater tan on my feet. Thanks for all of the good hair days. Thanks for the late night G&D's runs and spotty wifi that let me FaceTime my family and Skype my best friend. Thanks for the brilliant professors who taught me more about photography than I ever knew I wanted to know and confirmed my sneaking suspicion that English is the absolute perfect major for me. Thanks for the sheep on the hillsides and the ducks by the river that didn't attack me during our readings of Hamlet. Thanks for the people I've met and the friends I've made that I would never have talked to otherwise. Thanks for reminding me to be present and there and so enamored with my surroundings that I forget to check my phone. Thanks for the markets and the long bus rides to London that let us all nap. Thanks for the early morning running club and pain au chocolat for breakfast every morning. Thanks for the collection of empty water bottles on my desk and that epic penguin dive during ice skating. Thanks for the bustling markets and the greasy food and the hypnotist.

But above all, thanks for letting me be myself. Thanks for giving me the courage to become the girl with the camera, the girl who enjoys her assignments, the girl who likes castles and markets and museums more than shopping. Thanks for the courage to start writing again, to really explore what I can do with a camera, to experiment with being away from home. Thanks for letting me discover the person I want to be, and for showing me that that girl is just as fun as I've been hoping. England, I love you with all my heart. A piece of you will always be home.

Sincerely, mad

Currently

Well, it's currently 1:31 am and I refuse to go to bed. I've got a mostly packed suitcase sitting open in the middle of the floor, a messy bed, and Ingrid Michaelson's "You and I" on repeat. I'm really craving a warm milk chocolate chip cookie from Ben's and a tall glass of milk.

Today is my last day in England. I know that once I finally go to sleep, I'll be waking up to my final classes. I hate that feeling. The feeling of the end. There's too much finality in things like these. I may never see my lovely teachers Ed or Keith again. I've only known them for a month, but they have taught me so much. How do you thank someone who does that much for you? It breaks my heart to know that most of these kids I've been seeing every day I'll never see again. I mean, sure we only had a month, and I'm rather stand offish at first so it's not like I'm leaving lifelong bosom buddies or anything, but I'm going to miss that crazy Shakespeare class and the silly photography gals. I'm going to miss Izabella and our life chats.

I'm going to miss England. I'm going to miss the Moo-Moo's and the Ben's and the Pieminister and the bbq chicken paninis from that random shack by the martyrs' memorial. I'm going to miss the open windows and the daisies in the grass and the crow that sounds like an alarm clock every morning. I'm going to miss High Street and the covered market and the 20 minute walk into town. I'm going to miss the two hour bus rides into London and the sheep in the fields and the miles and miles of rolling green hills. I'm going to miss doing the Cotton Eye Joe in Shakespeare and grabbing G&D's in photography.

I just can't cope with the finality right now. I'm so excited for the future, but I feel this crushing weight on my heart. How do you leave a place that your heart insists on staying in?

Sincerely, mad

Because At This Point, I Just Don't Care

With only a day and a half left of this fairytale, I've given up on trying to eat goodies in moderation and stuffed myself at every opportunity. Because really, there's no Pieminister or Moo-Moo's or Ben's Cookies at home, so I should eat as much as I can before I leave, right? So basically that's meant Pieminister and Moo-Moo's two days in a row. I mean, lots of people eat when they're depressed. And leaving England is a depressing thing. Forget the fact that crossfit is going to kill me when I get back, this food is delicious.

Also, I may or may not be absolutely positively refusing to pack.

Sincerely, mad

Punting and Time

Yesterday I went punting and I'm so glad I did. I had to pick between punting and the botanical gardens, which is a rough choice, let me tell ya. But after choosing punting, I am happy to report that it was the right decision. I decided to be brave and bring my camera, even though I had terrible visions of being tipped over and ruining it, but after successfully making it through dryly and with great pictures, I am happy to report that that was a good decision too.

I'm having quite a bit of trouble with time at the moment. You see, I'm torn between wanting everything to freeze and hurry up. From wanting to rewind and fast forward. I leave on Saturday. I leave beautiful, brilliant Oxford early Saturday morning. And I want to cry. I love this place so so so much. There is so much I still haven't done and want to do. At the same time, I can't wait to get home. The closer to the end I get the more I long to see my family, to squeeze my little siblings until their eyes bug out and spend every single second with them that I can before heading off to college. And  yet another part of me is ready to hop on the next plane out to Provo to get started at BYU and see everything that college has to offer. It's really quite a bit of a dilemma. Good thing I can't control time because then we'd really be in a pickle, now wouldn't we.

Sincerely, mad

Oxford Stats

Number of weeks left in Oxford: 1

Number of Ben's cookies tins on my desk: 2
Number of desserts we ate today: 3

Number of times I've explained my religion, what I believe, and basically the entire history of Mormonism: 4

Number of water bottles on my desk: 5

Number of snapchats and Facebook messages I've sent Megan even though she's at a wilderness camp for a week and doesn't have her phone: 6

Sincerely, mad

P.S. Photo creds to Rachel for the first pic- we were practicing portraits in photography today and I didn't feel like cooperating:-)

Moments of Inexplicable Happiness

-seeing England for the first time from the plane
-ice skating on Friday night

-biking through Hyde Park

-running into the missionaries on Cornmarket Street

-listening to the sound of the rain drumming the cobblestones through the open window as I sat pinteresting the night away in the stillness and quiet sanctuary of my room
-tasting the unexpected coolness of the first sip of water
-driving in the coach and thinking, i'm in england
-looking back through photos at the end of the day and realizing that the lighting was just right and everyone was smiling and the pictures just turned out really, really good

Sincerely, mad

Settled

Hello. We have now reached the point in Summerfuel where you feel settled. The saltwater tan on my feet is now noticeable and it's getting to be a bit of a problem and the excuse to make yet another G&D's run is "a photography project." I'm serious. It was homework. It's also the point where you realize that you only have one more weekend and all of your final assignments are due on Monday and you don't know if that fact makes you want to cry from despair or relief. We're all too sleep-deprived and ice cream drugged to feel stressed and the poor RAs have to fight for attention during nightly floor meetings because everyone else is busy fighting to keep their eyes open and subdue their sleepy hahas. We all have favorite lunch spots and know exactly how fast we have to walk to get back to LMH on time from at least three different locations in town. It's the time when you're in enough of a routine that homesickness sets in and stays, so I'm really missing cheese dip, cold soda, crossfit, and my family. Also, I finally got all of my laundry done, and before you scoff, let me tell you that that is no minor feat. Let me put it this way. 2 washers. 2 dryers. 200 people. It took me 4 days and countless trips to the laundry rooms but I am done! I have emerged victorious from the epic battle that is the laundry games! I've never loved clean clothes this much.

Sincerely, mad