Well, reading back over all of those old e-mails from my undergraduate days certainly was enlightening, in a bizarre way. What struck me the most as I typed them all in to this blog was just how young and immature I really was, and I didn't even realize it. So much of my writing was about how much I partied and how many times I went out on the town, with apparently very little cultural insight or appreciation of all the travel I was so unbelievably fortunate to undertake. I noticed that by the second time I studied abroad, during my semester in Hong Kong, I had already begun to pay more attention to cultural differences and the really fascinating things about traveling, but I was still quite the party animal and that definitely continued to dominate the narrative. It wasn't until my sojourn to South Africa that it seems I really grasped the idea that travel was about more than just drinking and going out. There are valuable things to be learned and experienced everywhere we go. It can probably be attributed more to the fact that my South Africa journals were meant to be read by my professor (as opposed to the earlier e-mails sent to friends back in the US) rather than to some sudden leap in maturity. Still though, it's interesting.
It's also entirely appropriate given where I'm at now. South Africa, at least in my mind, is the trip that changed my attitude toward traveling and the world in general, and that really does seem to be reflected in my writing. It was also the trip that sparked my interest in international development, which is now, seven years later, my chosen program of study at the master's level at the University of Manchester. It's crazy, I've been in Manchester less than a week, but it already feels like so much longer. There have been so many changes in my life just since last Thursday, it's almost unbelievable. Today was the first day of program induction that I attended, during which the various academics in our school (the Institute of Development Policy and Management, or IDPM) spent 4 hours detailing the various course options available to us so that we can make a more informed choice when it comes to class selection. Listening to the descriptions of these dozens of classes, it really hit me that I am going to be working my ass off for the next 12 months so that I can hopefully be doing this kind of work as a career. My mind, it is boggled.
While it's terrifying to be a student again after so long, it's also exciting. It really does sound like I'm going to get some legitimate practical experience out of this program (as difficult as it may be) and it's refreshing to be part of a small program in which every student is completely invested. My particular pathway of the International Development degree, the Development Management pathway, has only 14 students including myself. So far, I've met a British girl, another gay American guy, and two girls from Japan who also live in my residence hall. Tomorrow, I'll have the opportunity to meet the other 9 students as well. Our program tutor, Admos, is from somewhere in Africa (I've yet to learn exactly where) and he told me that the DM pathway is always one of the most dynamic groups in IDPM. We will all be traveling for 10 days together in the spring to do fieldwork in Uganda. It's incredibly motivating to be around people who share similar academic interests, which will hopefully be very helpful in the long run.
In fact, the sheer international-ness, for lack of a better word, of this university is kind of insane. I feel like there's so much potential to learn about other cultures and make friends from new places. In my flat alone, there are two women, from Libya and China, two men, from Hong Kong and Greece, and of course little old me. Robert (the one from Hong Kong) wants to organize occasional "flat nights" during which we can all get together in our kitchen, cook for each other, and try to become more than just flatmates. I think it'll be a really amazing experience. Intimidating, but amazing.
Not to mention just being back in England feels weirdly like returning home. Or at least returning to a home. Even though I lived in London before and only came here once, everything about Manchester is so familiar and oddly comforting. I missed Marmite and double-decker buses and brown sauce and Hob-Nobs and all the brick buildings and the variety of accents. It's not all about going out and getting wasted anymore. And that is something that is really, genuinely exciting. I'm off now to my gym induction; I just bought a 12-month membership with the intention to start trying harder to be healthy. Just one more change to add to the pile. I hope I can pull it all off.
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