Thoughts from an Airport: Charlotte Edition

Hey all!

I'm sitting at the Charlotte airport right now and could not be happier. I am having THE BEST TIME EVER!

As many of you may know, I was really nervous for this whole "flying by myself on an airplane" thing. It's something that I'm not familiar with, and I'm not good with the unknown. However, on my way to the Akron-Canton Airport, I decided that all that I had to do was go into camp councilor mode.

Let me explain.

When you're a camp councilor, you cannot show your fear. You have to convince yourself that you know what you're doing so that you can convince all of the kids in your cabin that everything is going smoothly. If you're unsure of something, you don't freak out (unless you enjoy freaking out all of the children in your care). It's alright to ask for help if you need it, but you also have to be extremely self-reliant and use your "figure it out" skills to the best of your ability. Although I may or may not have written a couple of cabin songs on the airplane (Let's just say that Muppers Unity 2014 is done), councilor Ellen pulled through.

I think that the best part of this whole thing is the independence I feel. When I wanted to go get Burger King for lunch, I went. When I wanted to switch seats, I switched them. When I wanted to take a walk, I took it. I just feel like I'm my own person right now, and that feeling is truly incredible.

I'm also having a great time people watching. I got extremely jealous when I heard a mom tell her young daughter, "You have to eat some more pizza before you can have any candy." Why do I never get this instruction?!

                                  Me in the Akron-Canton Airport. It was early. Very. Very. Early.

                      Oh we are flying in an airplane lookin' out the window watchin' the clouds go by

                                                       Flying over some mountains!

Ellen's Packin' Up...

With a day and a half or so before I depart Lakewood, I dedicated today to getting serious about packing. Although packing is a chore that no one enjoys, it actually isn't going as painfully as I had anticipated.

First, I laid out all of the clothes that I liked on the dining room table. Then, I chose half of them to actually pack into my bag.

                                                      (There were more in the basement.)

I also had to make some difficult choices when it came to animals to bring. I really wanted to pack Custard, my beloved 2-and-a-half-foot caterpillar, but he was just too big.

           (Is it bad that I'm going to miss this stuffed animal more than I'll miss most of my friends?)

I also wanted to bring my light-up pillow pet, Luca, but he was also a bit large, so I purchased a tiny pillow pet that I named Half-Pint to take his place.

                         
                                     (It has just as bright of a light, too! Powerful little zebra.)



I think that the hardest part is that I have to leave my beloved books behind. There's no way that I can bring all seven of my first edition hardbound Harry Potter books across the ocean. Maybe I'll just have to check them out of the library every few weeks. You know, solely for Senior IS research.



Now that I'm basically packed up, I'm really starting to realize that this trip is real. I'm actually going across the ocean in a couple of days and I'm not coming back until it's nearly time for the Fourth of July. Not sure if I'm excited or terrified.

At least Princess Kate will be there to keep me company.

(Yes. I AM a 20-year old woman bringing a teddy bear in my carry-on. She's my friend, and  if working at camp has taught me anything, it's that you should always travel with a buddy.)

Saying Goodbye

Well, folks, we're on the home stretch. In just a few days from now, I'm going to be en route to York. While I cannot say that I'm done with packing (all that I've really done was laid out all of my clothes on the dining room table), I can say that I've said all of my goodbyes.

People always say that saying goodbye to your loved ones never gets any easier, but I didn't find that to be the case at all. Actually, each goodbye that I said was easier than the next. This wasn't because I've cared about each friend less and less as I went along. Actually, the last person that I gave a hug goodbye to is one of the closest friends I've ever had. No, I feel like I'm not sobbing over each and every final hug because I know that I'm not going to lose them.

Let's be honest. In a world that's tied together by the Internet, staying in touch is the easiest thing to do. It's kind of silly to say "I'll miss you, keep in touch" to somebody when you can literally chat with them and stalk their entire life with a few clicks of the mouse. We're going to all "like" each other's Facebook statuses and comment on one another's pictures and act as though there's not an ocean in between us. Really, there's no reason to miss your friends in the 21st century. They all essentially live inside of your laptop.

However, I still wanted my last physical memories with my friends to be special ones. At Wooster, our last "official" hangout was a little party that I named "Darren Crissmas."

With my home friends (who are actually most of my Wooster friends), we had a party named "Old Year's End."

Last night, I hung out with all of my camp friends. Sadly, no pictures were taken, but there was a great time to be had by all.

Today, my best friend Louie and I wanted to do something special before the ocean separated us for six months, so we went to Build-A-Bear Workshop and got matching teddy bears named Prince William and Princess Catherine. Kate's coming with me to England. She'll probably show up on this blog a few times here and there. :)

I just hope that I find people as great as the ones I know here over in York. Maybe that way, I can feel just as bittersweet as I do right now in six months when I'm once again forced to say goodbye.

Eleven More Days

When you're a humanities major at a small private liberal arts college with fairly good grades and a little bit of money tucked away in the bank, it's almost expected that you'll pack up your life for one semester of your junior year of college to go study the humanities in a different country. Although I hesitated to follow this path, seeing as how I'm one of those people who's afraid to order pizza over the phone, I ultimately decided that I wanted to study in England.

I'm not sure what the deciding factor was that caused me to embark on this journey. Maybe I wanted to quench my secret thirst for adventure. Maybe I wanted to prove to myself that I could do something like this. Maybe I just had a soft moment while watching "Love, Actually." I don't know. All that I know is that in eleven days, I'm getting on an airplane and flying to York, England.

Why York, you may ask? Well, to me, it just seemed like the most logical move.

I've already been to New York City, NY:

                                (Never stop smiling, 8th grade Ellen. You just keep on keepin' on.)


I've already been to upstate New York:

  (Yes, 16-year old Ellen. That is a perfectly acceptable outfit to wear while eating with statues of   FDR and Eleanor.)

And I've already been to York, PA:

 

(Remind me why the cemetery at a Presbyterian church in York, PA was a good place to take photos?)

So I guess that York, England is just going to be one more "York" to check off of my list.

Right now, I'm still living under the impression that none of this is happening. I have four luggage tags from IFSA-Butler, all of my paperwork is (hopefully) in order, I've purchased a bunch of "socially acceptable/non-fandom related" clothes to wear over there, and yet I still cannot comprehend that I'm actually going to study at the University of York from the first of January until the 28th of June.

Hopefully realization will hit me in the next few days so that I'll actually start packing...

But until then...

*Goes back to watching Rastamouse on Netflix*