Two Weeks Notice

I was talking with my sister tonight, and after a particularly sarcastic tete-a-tete, she said, "You could just tell me you miss me and not just show it through sarcasm..." While this is generally good advice, I believe I responded: "You're face is sarcastic," or something of that sort.

But, this did get me to thinking: it's been two weeks. I am sufficiently moved in enough where I think I can now make a list of things that I miss. So here goes (in no particular order):

1. American Sports on TV: it's not that I dislike cricket, rugby or soccer (I'll be damned if I call it football until the Superbowl is over); it's that I just don't get it. I am fairly well versed in baseball, basketball, football and to a lesser extent hockey, and, when the occasion arises, I can say things like, "I don't care if Charlie Villanueva does have a messed up hair disease, he is the ugliest man in the NBA." My housemates were talking about that sport where the men run around in little shorts and kick the ball and I had, for the first time in a long time, nothing to contribute to the conversation except,"We call it soccer." They laughed, but I could sense the pity.

2. My cooking gear: I am, by no means, a great cook. I did like to do it, though. And because I tend to go whole-hog with my hobbies, I had some nice stuff: anodized steel Calphalon pots and pans, a sweet Kitchen Aide blender/food processesor combo (crushes ice AND mandolins carrots? Amazing), the Cadillac of toasters. I spent $40 on a grill pan. And coupled with my lack of gadgetry, the kitchen here is good only for breeding diseases. I try not to walk into it without shoes on. I am told the squalor is the result of one of the flatmates, but it really seems to me like a group effort. Granted, I was not the cleanest individual when I had my own kitchen, but at least I knew where the plate of half eaten pasta came from, and better, how long it had been there.

3. My friends (particularly Nick and Erika): When people find out you are going to leave somewhere, possibly for a long time, they tend to get nostalgic and demand to see you. I indulged a good number of these requests, and saw some people I had not seen in a while. I traveled to the far Northern suburbs to see a fraternity brother act in A Christmas Carol; I saw more of Nick in the last month than I had seen of him in the previous six; I rekindled a lost relationship with a close friend who grew distant...it was nice to know that people wanted to see me. I could call Nick up and go shoot some deer, or Erika would come over and play Wii MarioKart with me. Here, I usually spend so much time working, or walking to get things I need, that I rarely see the people I live with. They are generally more surprised to see me than happy.

4. My dog: For four years, Leo had been the only constant in my life. Through five houses, three significant others, and two schools (St. Dominic and SIU), Leo rolled with the punches amazingly well. So long as the food dish was full, he could get a walk at night, and I would from time to time throw him the ball, he was a happy puppy. I grew quite attached to that dog, and seeing other people playing with their dogs here is some sort of weird torture that I was not expecting (and it seems like everyone has a dog). The room is so quiet when there is no fuzzy thing to greet you at the door.

5. $1 dollar = $1 dollar: the math is killing me. The exchange rate, ranges between 1 to 1.4 and 1 to 1.5. So every pound costs me about a dollar and a half. This starts to add up over time. I have been trying to eat out for dinner as much as possible, but a meat pie and chips runs me around four pounds, or six dollars. Tonight, distraught over my bank's inability to electronically wire my money into a British bank, I paid over seven pounds for fish and chips, which sounded like a decent price in my distracted state, until I realized I paid over ten dollars for a fried fish and french fry dinner.

6. My family: I lived with my mom between SIU's graduation, through the deferment and up to the point I flew to London by way of Frankfurt. As lame as that may seem for a 29-year-old man to still be living with his mother, I actually didn't mind it. My mom and I get along, she likes my friends, we went to the movies a lot, and she generally gave me the space I needed. Plus, because my sister was close by, I could go see her and her kids. And Kiernan, Brianne and Jason were always down for some on-line MarioKarting. Like the currency exchange, it requires a lot of math to talk to my family now. Most of the time, they are asleep when I am moving around, then when I am at home, they are at work. Skype has helped some, but its like watching my family on TV.

I don't want it to seem like my time here is spent wishing I was back home, but at this stage of my adjustment, I am becoming keenly aware of the things that are lacking in my life, and that they are going to continue to be lacking from my life for some time. Luckily, all I need to do is throw open the shades and I can see what I have exchanged them for. But like the dollar to pound conversion, it takes a lot of cool Aberystwyth stuff to replace one unit of coolness from the above mentioned items.