Museum Fun and a Little Glimpse of Hope (Or, How to Put Off Writing a 5-Page Paper)

The past two days have been the same thing: Colloquy, lunch, and off to the British Museum to look at pottery, busts, statues, and stuff like that. It wasn't nearly as cool as the Victoria and Albert Museum, but Steve, Adam, Tabitha, and I soon put an end to that (Adam having a beard helped immensely)...











We got our first 5-page paper assignment today. It's due on Saturday at midnight. Here's the topic:

"With appropriate and specific references to this week’s assignments (readings and museums), explore the interplay between the needs of the state and those of the individual in Greek and Roman cultures. What do your sources suggest about how these cultures understood, valued, and attempted to balance these needs and interests?"

Yeah. Not fun. It won't be be nearly as terrible as I thought it would be, but it's still kinda scary. I mean, I've got some ideas from some of the reading assignments, but not nearly enough to fill up 5 pages...but more ideas will come as I write. They always do.

This has been a very tough week. I've been intellectually pushed to my limits with colloquy and the reading/museum assignments. I've made an idiot out of myself on several occasions, especially in terms of being late. I've had it rough in the city, dealing with endless walking and second hand smoke. My knees feel like they're gonna melt, and when you sneeze or blow your nose, it comes out kind of greyish-black. I've been having a hard time adjusting to the food, especially dinner. The dinners at the Highbury Centre have been less than good. As a matter of fact, I've yet to finish one. The showers at the HC have little to zero water pressure. On several occasions, I've woken up in the middle of the night, unable to stop thinking about random things. This usually occurs after having trippy dreams about people back home. Speaking of which, I've been homesick, lovesick, and friendsick this entire time. And I've been in London for 6 days. And I will be in London for another 89 days.

Depressed yet? I was. But I'm not now. Ok, maybe a little, after just writing all that. But for the most part, I feel much better. How can this be? What helped? Surely it must've been something monumental to help me feel better about such dreary circumstances. Something pretty big must've happened to shake me out of such a big funk, right? Here's what happened to make me come out of my low state of mind, body, and heart:

1. I had a Nestle Crunch bar.
2. I watched a couple of Looney Tunes.
3. I listened to an upbeat love song.
4. I found a shower that actually has decent water pressure.

That's it. The heavens didn't magically open. I didn't magically transport a few dozen days into the future. Emily didn't magically teleport to London. The food (most definately) didn't magically turn into popcorn, Goldfish, and steak. Nothing changed. I'm still in London. The HC is still the Highbury Centre instead of Houghton College. I still have to come up with 5 pages of information by Saturday. I'm still going to suffer through another dinner tonight. But God led me to a few simple pleasures that took care of all my needs, even a little. The chocolate eased my stomach. The cartoons eased my mind. The song eased my heart. The shower eased my body. I still have the same challenges, but God supplies the means to meet these challenges.

That's what hope is. It's not removing the opposition; that's victory. But hope is being in a low physical state and being in a high state of mind and spirit. Even the bad outweighs the good, there's still good to strive for. I can make it through gross dinners for a candy bar. I can suffer through hours of confusing and boring text for six minutes of a cat chasing a canary. I can deal with being 5 hours and 3500 miles away from Emily for one song that makes her seem right next to me. And 89 days are not a lot of days. They might be slow days, but they're not a lot of days. And then I'm in Ireland for 10 days. Ireland. The land of potatoes and beef and great food that I get to pick. The land of no papers, no text, and no classes. The land of beautiful landscapes and hills and water and sky. The land of U2 and awesome accents. The land where I will be for 10 days (or less, if my friends want to go elsewhere) before I come home. (Home....) and if small things like Sylvester and water pressure give me hope and pleasure, how much more will big things like Ireland give me hope and pleasure. And there's good stuff coming up before that, lots of good stuff! I'm going to go to see my family in March which will be like home coming to London for a weekend. I'm going to go to King's Cross- King's Cross!, the holy grail of train lovers. I'm going to go to Wales and ride on the beautiful Talyllyn Railway, a place I've read about in Thomas the Tank Engine books since I was young. I'm going to see Stonehenge, the Tower of London, and a whole bunch of other really cool places that other people dream about.

So this won't be too bad. I'll definately be able to make it, even if it doesn't always feel like it. It won't be easy, but it'll be good for me, you know? When I'm done with this, I'm going to start the outline for my first five-page paper. Then I'm going to eat a dinner that might not sit right in my stomach. That should depress me a bit, but it doesn't.

Because first, I'm going to have a Kit-Kat bar.