Ithaca

[raven]

I am back in Ithaca. Here are some good things:

-Transatlantic flight, a row of three seats to myself! It was a very long and painful journey otherwise, but that was a marvellous unexpected blessing. I stretched out luxuriously and alternately read and napped my way across the ocean. One day, before I die, I'm going to fly first-class on an Emirates A380. (Yes, my daydreams are inordinately detailed, what of it.) Until then I am glad to have made it across unscathed, and I even got through immigration okay, which was my biggest worry. Also, JetBlue are a better airline than Delta. This bothers me on some level.

-My new apartment is very nice indeed. I'm not sure if I even mentioned it here in all the fuss, but at the end of last semester the nocturnal habits of my upstairs neighbours were driving me to drink, pretty much literally (the problem is that the university gives computer scientists lab time in the middle of the night, and so my neighbours were up from about 9pm to 11am, which was not doing me any good), so when my letting agents offered me the chance to move I jumped. Borrowed boxes from everyone I knew, threw all my belongings into them during the twelve hours between my last exam and my flight home, and left it all in the hands of the movers.

The new place, though billed to me as a top-floor mirror-image of my old apartment, is actually bigger, airier and newer. It also has a dishwasher, a source of endless fascination to me. (In a rare example of good design, it is a teeny, half-size dishwasher, as this is a one-bed apartment! I am oddly delighted by this.) And this morning I had TRIUMPH! I got up early and went over to contemplate my bookcase, which the movers had refused to shift on the grounds it would fall apart en route. I took it apart with the help of the compscis upstairs, and carried it bit by bit up to the new place, and put it back together again, and now it has my books in and looks no more crappy than it did before! Triumph.

-Yesterday it was very evident the difference six months makes - rather than tottering about complaining I didn't know anyone, the Siren put me up overnight so I could pick up my keys, and then we met up with a bunch of other people to do the first-day-back-bookstore-grocery-whatnot run. I didn't go out in the evening because the jet-lag had hit, but, really. I'm so over the whole moving-somewhere-new-knowing-no-one thing.

Here are some things that are bad:

-The air temperature, not accounting for windchill, is minus twenty-three degrees Celsius. According to the Weather Channel - I would like to know when I became the sort of person who took a detailed interest in the Weather Channel - this is close to the record low for Ithaca on this date. I am, a little ridiculously, planning to put on my boots and go for a five-minute walk just to see what it feels like. Am I odd, probably.

-It turns out that experience does not make homesickness any better. I had a vague half-formed feeling that the fact I was coming to somewhere not entirely unfamiliar, with friends and lots of my stuff already in place, would make it better - but it doesn't. It really doesn't. Sigh. Nothing to be said about it, of course, that hasn't been said.

Here are my not-New Year's resolutions:

-I will, on Monday and not any later, phone up about therapy and not think to myself hey-you-had-sixteen-weeks-what-more-do-you-need. Therapy is good for me and keeps me on an even keel, and I am not using up NHS resources, so I should.

-I will try to go grocery shopping every week even if I do hate it. It is a lesser evil compared to the evil of living off peanut butter. And I will try and eat meals, and failing that, I will try to eat before I get cranky and not after.

-I will go to the pool three times a week! And I will remind myself over and over that this is not a chore: I love the pool, I love fighting out stress against the water, it is only my stupid brain that tries to suggest that I shouldn't go. Also, work is not more important than this.

-And in times of stress, I will remind myself that it is not even four months until commencement, and every day is longer than the one before. Yes.

...and in the meantime I will eat all the sweets I bloody well want to, so there.

Comments

[soupytwist]

(I am really sorry I forgot you had a birthday, but: I hope this year is reallyreallyreallyreally good to you. *hug*)

I wish you luck with your resolutions and I am really glad you have People. And if it's weird to want to go out to see what Really Fucking Cold is like, then I am totally weird too because I did exactly that when I lived in Toronto. Though that might not actually make you feel any better. *g*)

[raven]

Awww, sweetie! Thank you so much. This morning I found out what -24 feels like. It was... interesting. :P

[petra]

It's a pain in the neck remembering that taking care of one's mental health isn't a reward for a job well done, especially not a job that's hard to do without it. Good luck, and welcome back to the freezer.

[raven]

Thank you! It's... bracing. :P

[sir_guinglain]

If anything, my problem is that I go grocery shopping when I don't need to; I've managed to keep going today, though that meant not going out as I routinely wander Co-Op wards when I'm in Woodstock (town).

Good thoughts towards the therapy.

[raven]

Oh, I miss Oxford on that account. I used to entertain myself in my final class of the day by deciding exactly what I felt like for dinner, and picking up the ingredients on the way home! Wish I could do that now.

[gavagai]

*hug hug*

Poke me for gchat some time when you're not totally busy, yo. And good luck with the non resolutions. <3

[via_ostiense]

Good luck with the non-resolutions! I envy your pool access -- swimming really is fun, and I love the way that the water feels sliding over my skin. I also envy your half-size dishwasher.

What are your favorite sweets?

[raven]

Thanks! I only have this easy pool access for another four months, so I really should take advantage.

Hmmm, good question. Strawberry laces, blackcurrant liquorice, and sherbets of all types are my favourites; I also love most types of Haribo. In the US the only sweets I've really developed a passion for are Swedish Fish.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Yay, bookshelves! And new flats with space and dishwashers, and unoccupied seats on planes; all very good things, and I hope they make up for the homesickness a bit. (Also, re. sweets, I find myself rationalising it by thinking about how chocolate is good for Dementor-induced depression. Not other things, admittedly, but I only have so much energy and willpower, and essays take most of it.)

*hugs* I hope these four months fly by, and manage not to be too stressful.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Awww, thank you, sweetie! You'll be free in four months too, you know! At this point in my first degree jacinthsong and I were inventing a new dessert every day. :)

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

That sounds like an eminently sensible coping mechanism.

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

I am, a little ridiculously, planning to put on my books and go for a five-minute walk just to see what it feels like. Am I odd, probably.

This is an interesting typo. :) And no, not odd at all! I definitely took Hayley out in the middle of the ice storm when the streets were flooding and there were no sidewalks, just to experience it. ...unless of course I'm just odd too. Which is always a distinct possibility.

I'm glad you got here with a minimum of Sturm und Drang. SOMEDAY IT WILL GET WARMER, I PROMISE.

(Also, by no stretch of the imagination is sixteen weeks of therapy excessive, particularly not when you're LIVING ON A NEW CONTINENT. *g*)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I love you for noticing that before I did. :) I am sort-of rationalising the therapy by the weather. This makes no sense but I am going with it.

(you! we are back in the same time zone again! yay!)

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

Leigh, for various reasons I ended up cleaning frantically in the small hours last night. It was strangely comforting... :D

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Cleaning is very comforting! It's what I do whenever everything else is scary and overwhelming.

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

ahaha. It is, isn't it? I did it again last night too. Tonight I think I will be framing and hanging ALL THE ARTWORKS.

[macadamanaity.livejournal.com]

Welcome back to this side of the ocean! Out of morbid curiosity, which -23 are you referring to (either way, freaking cold, I know)?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Celsius! But I'm told -23 is getting close to the point of convergence anyway, ohmygod what even is this.

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

Hiiii Iona, I am so glad you got there safely (even though OMG I RESENT THE ATLANTIC for making you be far away from my party). *hugs* though, because the homesickness does sound so horrid. :(

It is not long. You are doing frightfully well (I saw about the prize! Congratulations, you clever thing). Hang in there. xxx

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I resent the Atlantic for that reason as well! I so wish I could come. Thank you, my dear, you are very sweet. :)

[the-acrobat.livejournal.com]

It is that cold here also and I have no intention of leaving the house until I absolutely have to. Which means that dinner tonight consists of chocolate, carrot sticks, and leftover pizza dough.

I am glad you're back, with relatively little fuss! And yay new apartment! :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Awwww! I have to admit that my dinner also featured carrot sticks. Going out, no, do not want. I am glad to be back, also! :)

[troyswann.livejournal.com]

I would like to know when I became the sort of person who took a detailed interest in the Weather Channel -

Aaaaaah, you have become a tad North American. Sig talks about being in a creative writing class with the brilliant Trinidadian-Canadian writer, Dione Brand, who asked in a baffled tone after reading a batch of the class's short stories: "Why is it all you Canadians write about is the weather!?" "Because," the class replied, "it becomes somewhat preoccupying when it can kill you." :)

Soon you will take the next step and become smug about the weather. When someone complains about the non-minus-23 temperatures they are experiencing elsewhere, you will look mildly sympathetic and then say, "Oh yes. minus 17. That's when we think about wearing a hat."

Or maybe you won't, because you are probably a better person, but, in Canada, anyway, we don't have a lot to shout about, so being smug about the extreme nature of our weather and our unlikely survival in it is our primary form of patriotism.

[macadamanaity.livejournal.com]

I can confirm and endorse this entire comment. The smugness gets worse and slightly involuntary if you are Canadian and you then leave Canada for even slightly warmer climes.

[troyswann.livejournal.com]

So true. The degree of Canadianness expressed by a Canadian abroad is directly proportional to the distance from Canada, the duration of the trip, and the numbers above zero on the thermometer. :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heeee! Being British my preoccupation with the weather is not quite as... detailed. Nor does it feature as many statistics. :P

I would like to register my respect for all people who live in Canada for any length of time. How you do not all have icicles hanging off your earlobes is beyond me.

[troyswann.livejournal.com]

How you do not all have icicles hanging off your earlobes is beyond me.

I have two secrets for you:

1) In Canada, we turn on the heat.
2) There is no bad weather, just bad gear. The toque isn't just a dead sexay fashion-statement.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

the movers had refused to shift on the grounds it would fall apart en route

People paid to move stuff are surprisingly good at finding reasons not to move stuff, aren't they?

New apartment sounds great, though.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

In their defence, they weren't being paid - it was the letting agency trying to expedite the process. But, the new apartment is fabulous and totally worth it. :)

[fyrdrakken]

Excellent resolutions, every one of them.