Hilary Term

Well, it’s a new year, a new term, there’s a new housemate, and there’s... snow on the ground. Now wait a moment, that’s NOT new. I just came back here to escape the 16 inches of snow and the terminal winds of -20 F. And there’s snow in Oxford? What’s this world coming to? 

On a more serious note, life sped up at the end of the term and there was crazy amounts of traveling. The previous sentence is my explanation for the lack of updates. 

I had all these plans to start posting narratives and pictures of all the places I’ve been over the last four months. But I was going to start over the Christmas holidays. And I flew home to surprise a few folks over said holidays. Okay, quick narrative moment:

Term ended Friday, 4 December. That very afternoon I grabbed my suitcase and caught a train to Bracknell, where my lovely older sister works. She picked me up from the train station and we drove to Dover (which was amazing!) where we spent Saturday and Sunday, the 5th and 6th. After that we headed back to Reading, where Rebekah lives, so she could spend the week working, and I could spend the week recovering and building my lungs back up from all the stress they had been under. We spent that week fairly quietly, and then left early Saturday morning, the 12th, for Ireland. We drove through the southern portion of Wales, to Fishguard and took the ferry over. It was a fairly long ferry journey, but it was still pretty wonderful, and I can certainly understand why folks choose that over a plane. Much less claustrophobic. We drove straight on to Cork City, County Cork, right after that. We spent two nights in County Cork, then one night in County Kilkenny. Right after that we went to Dublin, where we were joined by my lovely friend Megan, who is also studying in Oxford this term. You can check out her amazing blog here. We spent three nights in Dublin, and then headed over to Wales, where we went to Caernarfon, Hey-on-Wye, and Cardiff. After Cardiff we headed back to Oxford to drop off Megan, and then to Reading. Our plan was to spend the next week just cooking fun food and hanging out watching movies while we waited for the holidays to end. 

And that’s where our plans went a little off-track. We had arrived back Tuesday, 22 December. We pretty much ate dinner vegged out and went straight to bed. When we woke up the next morning both my sister and I had voicemails from my mom saying a good family friend was in the hospital. This family friend is especially close to me, we’ve always considered ourselves to be best friends. When I finally got ahold of my family that day, things seemed very bleak, and I was scared I would never see my friend again. It was at that point, that I decided a brief trip to the US was necessary. I looked at flights that afternoon, and by 10:00, I was booked for a Saturday flight home. 

So after a few delays in Chicago, that resulted in my getting to see my brother, Matt, and his wife, Love, I finally made it home to Kansas City, Sunday, 27 December, around noon. The best part of the whole trip was being able to surprise everyone, from my friend who had been released from the hospital the morning I flew in, to both grandmothers. The trip home was in the end fantastic, and in a way, just what I needed mentally. I was able to see my friend, and find out that things weren’t as bad as everyone had thought at first, I was able to buy all my medications, vitamins, and toiletries at home and saved myself tons of money. Plus I was able to spend lots of time with my family, and see several friends who I had been missing. I never thought I was the type to be homesick, and it wasn’t until I got off the plane at KCI that morning that I realized just how homesick I had been, and how much I had missed the amazing support network that’s made of my incredible family and friends. 

I still miss everyone, but I’ve noticed it was much easier settling in this week than it was last term. I’m already enjoying myself more than last term because I feel more at home. The situation in my house is less tense, and frankly, I’m a lot more excited for this term.

Now if it would only stop snowing.