Welcome to ... Albany?

By now pretty much everyone, both at home and here in CT, knows that the flight was hellish, that I ended up stuck at Albany airport for 4 or more hours, that I had Dunkin' Donuts for dinner (welcome to America, huh?), and that I finally arrived at Bradley Int'l, by bus, at 1.40 am. A couple of days ago I probably would have carried this introduction into a piece about the wonders of solidarity or the friendliness of North Americans, but now I'll just say that when you're traveling, no matter where to or for what reason, you need to be flexible- and never pack anything vitally important in your checked in luggage.
The reason you've all escaped a rambling S.O.C. piece based on my jetlagged thoughts as the bus trundled through Massachusetts is because, well, I'm at law school, and am having the will to live slowly orientated out of me. OK, yes, I exaggerate somewhat- the only truly boring session so far was last night when we sat in with the 1st year JD students and not only got to hear the same 3 hr talk for the second time, but also were given an introduction to legal reasoning. Big-fish-in-a-small-pond syndrome is all well and good, but this was closer to whale-in-a-paddling-pool.
So far UConn law seems to be everything we were promised. I personally am in love with the 5 floor library (for Exeter folks, that's a library about the size of the main campus library dedicated entirely to legal texts- I squee-ed, but then I'm sad.), but the campus is also fantastic- grey stone and and parkland and very New England- and the classes, well, after yesterday's breakdown of one case I can honestly say that I now feel more confident about approaching the law than I ever have before. Listen up, Exeter- class participation is a good thing!
There are downsides, of course, and it would be wrong of me to leave them out. Hartford, despite being in the richest state in America, is one of the poorest cities in the country, and the divide between rich and poor is dramatically obvious. We've had it firmly drilled into us that we will not walk home alone after dark, or, if at all possible, during the day. I live on the top floor of a huge, Victorian style 1920's house directly opposite the new Mayor's home, but if I walk to the next block I hit a very rough, very poor neighbourhood. It's not a nice situation, and I was very pleased to learn that all students at UConn law are required to participate in pro bono and community action work during their time here.
More individualistically, there's a lot of reading from a lot of textbooks, all of which are very pricey. Talking with the first year JD students I learned that their average textbook spending has been around $600- and that's just for one semester. With my student loan not arriving until October, and my savings still tied up in England, I'm seriously not sure how or if I'll cope. No wonder law school is portrayed as a rich kid's world.
Despite this, sat here in the computer lab with my rough reading list on the desk and 4 storeys of books up above I feel, if not ridiculously happy, very content. I'm slowly getting to know people, in the awkward way of first year, I'm finding my way around, and all in all everything is very nice. Yes, I'm slowly developing the slow bellyache of homesickness, and I'm not sleeping as much as I should because I've been spending every evening looking through photographs and Facebook pages, but that's something that I can and will deal with. My roommate is much much further away from home than I, and she's here for 17 months. If she can do it, so can I.

JJ

Tea and Biscuits

'Tea and Biscuits.'

Well, here we are. T minus 2 hours, and I'm set up in the main lounge at T3, tripping people up with my frankly impractical bag, getting disapproving looks from bored Duty Free staff, and fighting with internet connection. Reportedly there's a 'Free Public Wi-Fi' network, but its signal is so weak that whenever I try to connect I get bounced back to 'Boingo,' which wants me to pay £10 for an hour's worth of internet. I'm fairly tempted to go and dig in at the Starbucks across the way, but that would involve repacking the carry-on, running over peoples' feet, digging out the wallet and boarding card, and then attempting to find a table. As it is I'm currently having fun entering random streams of digits into the Boingo login page, and pretending that my giant headphones are somehow cool and retro.
I arrived at the airport at 8.30 if not earlier, and made it through check-in and security fairly quickly (and somehow managed to avoid having to pay an overweight charge on my big bag, which I think was more luck than skill in packing...), although the woman on the check-in desk recommended that I removed 3 kilos (I'm blaming my Training and Pupillage Handbook for all of those) from my pull-along bag and put them in my handbag. From what I understand it makes very little difference as, if I do have a bulkhead (and, at £25 for the privilege, I'd better!) all my bags will have to go into the overhead locker during take-off and landing. As it is, I've spent the time since checking in shuffling books back and forth between the two bags, which is something of a lengthy task, and one I intend to avoid doing again until they call my gate.
The bag shuffling and general juggling have been made much worse by my acquisition of (shock horror) a shiny Duty Free bag. (I'm still not sure if that should be capitalised- technically the phrase shouldn't be a proper noun, but I've only ever seen it treated as such.) On Saturday evening, while in the middle of worrying about whether or not I'd packed my PJs (I had), I suddenly realised that I hadn't thought to get a gift for my landlords. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, given my strict 'I'm skint' stance, but given they're putting me up in their home for 9 months I thought something special was called for. A quick enquiry to the general knowledge database that is my Facebook friend list revealed that tea came top of the quintessential 'Englishness' list, with biscuits (to, I imagine, take away the taste and the polite expressions) coming in second. Hence how I've ended up with a shiny bag of Twinnings Earl Grey and Walkers Chocolate Shortbread. They'd better go down well- they're certainly causing me enough trouble!
It's now 10.35, and my gate opens in half an hour. A part of me still feels sick from the adrenaline, which is probably why I'm managing to be so incredibly clumsy. Soon I'm going to have to pack up (again), and head off to Smiths in order to get some mints for my aunt and an inconveniently bulky bottle of water for myself. There's still been no improvement on the internet front, so I guess I'll be posting this in Hartford, or, if I'm really really lucky, Toronto.
See you on the other side.

[Ed- posted from ... TORONTO, due to an hour's delay on the plane. Which actually worked out pretty well for me!]

The Little Things

First of all, some parental guidance- this post is being written by a Jessica who has had very little sleep and too much coffee in the past 48 hours, who is currently convinced that her dictaphone has gone missing purely to spite her, and who is now referring to herself in the third person.
It's now less than 3 days until I catch the Paddington train and leave England far behind me, and I am very proud to report that the packing list has now been reduced to 6 items, most of which are going in the hand luggage. The huge Training Handbook is still sitting out, and will no doubt tip my bag over the 50lb limit (I had 42lbs at the last weigh in), but that's no longer really a worry for me. If it's overweight it's overweight- the bag has wheels and I have a special travel 'cushion' in the bank.
At the same time, though, the closer I get to completion the more I remember all the little essentials. Things like my address book, my phone charger, my power cable, my camera... Things I never thought to include on my list because they seemed so obvious, and yet so easily forgotten. I'm not sleeping properly because of anxiety, and so as a result I'm not thinking straight and getting stressed out at little things- like the missing dictaphone. I've a feeling it might be trapped under the pull-out bed which is under my bed, but the way I'm feeling right now, any attempt to verify this would probably lead to total bedroom annihilation. I know I'm going to forget something important, but by now I simply just don't care- if I have to buy stuff, I have to buy stuff. Although I'd never admit it to her face, I do kinda wish my mom was still here, if only to do the whole making dinner and going to Sainsbury's thing.
But, as usual, I have a plan. This afternoon I'm going to finalise the packing, and then I'm stopping. Tomorrow will be completely free, and on Saturday all I plan to do is print out the important stuff. Come Sunday all I'll need to do is pop my laptop and sponge bag into the case and head out the door. Perhaps by then I'll be thinking straight once again.

OhheavensaboveI'mleavinginsixdays

While I try to restrict my use of drama student speak to Facebook and jokey conversations with the girl who started my tendency to type in ALL CAPS, a very large part of me wants to add 'ARGH ARGH ARGH' onto the end of this title. How can it be 6 days? It was 2 weeks last time I looked, I swear. How am I not currently drifting on a pile of organised lists and packed bags. How can I still only have a vague idea as to what tshirts and CDs I want to take? Why is my bag already so full? Why can't I go around talking in capitals until this all goes away?
OK, if I'm honest, I have mostly finished- just have tshirts, shoes, and some miscellaneous washing to search through now, and the plan is for that to be finished today. Then tomorrow I can do all the 'etc' stuff - DVDs, dictaphones, folders- leaving the rest of the week for me to pack my carry on and generally OCD. I've banned myself from youtube, Skype, almost all of FB, and, more for my own sanity than anything else, fanfiction.net. Mostly because I shouldn't have to continually prove that no matter what the topic, after 15 minutes' worth of browsing one will need brain bleach and a large wire brush. With all this in place, then, I should be able to play tetris that little bit faster.
The landlord continues to be lovely, although I have now learned that the apartment doesn't come with an oven, so no baking for me next year. Adaption shouldn't be a problem (although my mother's face should be a fantastic sight when she finds out), but it is slightly frustrating. Especially as over the past week I've started making cakes quite regularly. Raspberry chocolate apple cake is something else, let me tell you.
I got my money sorted out last night, and hopefully should actually have some breathing room, although my tuition fees will be coming straight from my savings account. I'm currently more worried about having enough cash to get over there- £240 for vision is a painful price tag indeed. Although my new glasses are cool. And vivid red. And allow me to see again...
Jessica out.

Playford, problems, and packing part II

Yes, it's been a while. For the last week-and-a-bit I've been volunteering at Sidmouth Folk Week as a stewards' coordinator, which sounds rather more important than it actually is. While the entire week rocked like nobody's business (which is a very interesting sentence if I do say so myself), it did mean incredibly limited internet access- and an excuse to not think about the whole travel thing. At least until Martin so helpfully said "oh, so just under 3 weeks then."
Unfortunately, Sidmouth is now over, and I no longer have any excuse to avoid dragging out the big red bag and upending my wardrobe into it. At the same time, on the final day of Sidmouth I received a message explaining that the girl I'd been planning to stay with on the 22nd is now on holiday, so the final weekend was spent in something of a panic, with texts going off to everyone living in the general London area. Fortunately my cunningly disguised knight in shining armor (or at least the Horde equivalent) has stepped in, and I have a genuine London sofa for the night- and then the tube in the morning. It's not the greatest state of affairs ever, but it's better than completely rearranging everything. Of course, I'm now really worried about rush hour and train cancellations and all sorts.
Less scarily, I've now got an address, a landlord, and a roommate for next year, and so far everyone seems lovely. The house is a big old Victorian thing, and utterly gorgeous, and my landlord is an attorney specialising in banking and finance law. And I have a case study for my first orientation week lecture, which is exciting to the extreme.
Packing wise, Josh and Malcolm are now both in VA, and so some of the bulky stuff is on the right side of the pond. For everything else I have made huge ticklists, and now it's just a matter of playing tetris until it all fits. Oh, and maybe making some important lists with regards train times / flight numbers / etc. So yes, it's a bit all over the place, and there are now only 2 weeks before I leave- but hopefully once I actually start lining the bottom of my bag with dresses (which are still leaving me in a bit of a quandry) all will sort itself out. It's going to have to.