Home is where the heart is.

** Disclaimer - this was written in several pieces and therefore might not flow well or make sense, not too much of a change from usual **

I only have a week and a half left at Mount Holyoke this semester, I'm flying back to Guildford in exactly 12 days, this has produced the fascinating sentence: 'I'm going home on the 21st and then coming back home on the 2nd of January.' How does that even make sense in my head?

 

I've been thinking about writing this post for a couple of days now, but was finally prodded into action by the most lovely package I have ever received from my gorgeous friends in York. Usually there isn't much than can make me cry, except you know, a good book, or a soppy film, or a really sad story, which might jerk the occasional tear. But this had me literally bawling. For a good 45 minutes. It was one of the most lovely things I have ever received, even though it was just an envelope with a random assortment of gifts, cards and letters, it contained more love than I could have ever hoped for. /end soppy stuff.

That and the fact that from now on sleeping doesn't really look like it's on the agenda until Friday, let alone writing blogs, and I haven't even written about thanksgiving yet. Also the sheer amount of work is worrying me a little and when I worry I procrastinate like a pro. Still I think it's doable. I mean really it'll have to be, I don't have a great deal of choice. And it's only 2 10 page papers and a portfolio. What's the big deal? Hmmm. 

So anyway, recently it struck me how many places I call home.The first time I really noticed how easily I start calling a place home was in South Africa, when I realised that I was calling a tent which moved every day home and it escalated somewhat from there.The obvious place to start is Guildford, where I have lived almost my entire life, but recently I can say that I have added York, Plymouth MA, and the craziness that is Mount Holyoke College to my list.

I'm going back to Guildford on the 22nd of December this year, in time for Christmas, I have to say I'm looking forward to being home, Christmas on this campus isn't very Christmassy, despite the lights on the Commons and the Gates, and the odd Christmas decoration which has found it's way into the dining halls. I haven't been to any carol services, I haven't seen any carollers, no mince pies have been consumed at all, no mulled wine, no excessive Christmas music. No nothing. Christmas is going to be very short this year I think.

(I'm not going back to York for a gosh darned while, but hopefully I should be headed back for Cricket Presidents, worry not gang!)

The most fantastic thing about being friends with the world's shortest person (read: Half-Pint / Emily) is that I get to lay claims to her FANTASTIC family. They made me feel so at home, it was lovely. (see what I did there? I linked it to the title... ooooh! I'm a smart cookie!) Although Thanksgiving seems like it was a while ago,  I have to say it was one of my favourite American things thus far. This is probably in part because it contained a excess of my favourite things ever to do: sleeping and eating. I have literally never seen so much turkey in one place in my life. We had one huge 40 pound turkey and then another smaller turkey which was smoked, and then sweet potatoes and yam, and mashed potatoes, and beans, and stuffing and bacon and cranberry sauce (which I made myself!!) and I think more things which I'm forgetting about. And then ,when I was sat trying to contemplate how I was ever going to eat again, about 8 pies came out!!I have to admit that I sadly failed at eating everything on my plate. But I ate the pie for breakfast the following morning...

And the last place I call home is this crazy place called Mount Holyoke College. It is like an inverse universe where phrases like heteronomativity are used as though feminism is going out of fashion and liberalism is a way of life. Not to mention the fact that mono (which is what Americans call Glandular Fever I believe) is going (pardon the pun) viral, every other person seems to have it. Possibly because with the advent of the COLD we have recently been experiencing, us singletons are becoming a dying breed, as a friend pointed out "it's getting to the point of comic ridiculousness". However, despite the cold, there is still NO SNOW. Which is also ridiculous considering the amount of snow that England and in fact the rest of Europe is experiencing at the moment. Mount Holyoke trying to be differnet again! (This makes it sound as though the snow comes up to the Mount Holyoke gates and then stops, this clearly isn't the case) Still I'm holding out for a white Christmas back home, if I manage to get there that is...

In other news I'm still dying slowly in a corner, but I have every intention of waking up tomorrow fully healed. (I've been saying this every day for a while now, it's not happened so far - but I have a good feeling about tomorrow...)