Lucy didn’t have a mummy, Lucy didn’t have a daddy. I found Lucy in the kitchen drawer and immediately recognized this lost child’s subtle charm. Her Korean origins, which show in the engravings, set her apart and gave her the special place she will always have in my heart. I baptized her, gave her shelter [...]
Archive for the ‘Campus’ Category
The adventures of Lucy the Spoon
Posted in Campus, Friends & family, tagged Lucy, spoon on June 15, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Sense of place
Posted in Campus, Home, Leaving on June 5, 2009 | 2 Comments »
What I like when I go somewhere new is to develop a sense of place. It means meet people from there, learn to predict what happens in that environment, walk around, eat some of the food, adopt your own habits. You don’t usually miss particular events, but rather everyday occurrences. I’m going to miss the [...]
For the love of cricket
Posted in Campus, tagged cricket, cultural shock on June 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I have found that a cricket match is an effective metaphor for cultural gaps: when you don’t know the rules, it doesn’t make any sense at all. It suddenly becomes difficult to draw from what you know; if you thought that every team sport works in a way similar with football, you have to let [...]
Deadlines and departures
Posted in Campus, Leaving, Studies on April 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
These last weeks I’ve been writing a lot: every day, most of the day, day after day. I was in my room writing as other students played football outside or chatted for hours, spreading blankets on the grass. I was in my room writing as they started packing one after the other, and left noisily. [...]
Spring attraction
Posted in Campus, Studies, tagged spring, Studies, sunny on March 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
During the last week, deep change has occured in students’ lifestyles. Many of them are following the example of the young rabbits that graze recklessly around the brick houses, and make brave efforts to focus on essays while their computer screens soak up the sunshine on the kitchen tables they’ve installed outdoors for a change. [...]
Borderlines
Posted in Campus, Studies, tagged borderlines, space on February 24, 2009 | 2 Comments »
There’s what I can take and what becomes too much; the quantity and quality of food I can ingest without being sick; the door that separates my room from the rest of the house. There’s how many articles I can read in a day and how much time I can spend with housemates in the [...]
The walk
Posted in Campus, Canterbury, tagged Blean church, churchyard, countryside, walk on January 29, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I’ve been back in Canterbury for almost two weeks but I find it harder to decide what to draw and what to say than I did during my first stay. Nothing looks all that new anymore, and winter weather doesn’t make things appear particularly exciting. But one thing has changed: I now take a daily [...]
End of term
Posted in Campus, Studies, tagged deadline, essay, student on December 20, 2008 | 2 Comments »
The beginning of a new term is always full of optimism and self-delusion. You swear to yourself that this time you’ll be organized, focused, and motivated. There’s just no way you’re going to postpone most of your work to the last two weeks, as you used to, and then panic along with all the other [...]
The dolce vita
Posted in Campus, Food, tagged Campus, pond, restaurant, water hen on December 4, 2008 | 2 Comments »
The campus is self-contained; you can find so many things here that many students only go to town about once a week. There are bars and banks, shops and cafés, even a vegetables & fruits market on Wednesdays. You can choose to belong to one or several societies to avoid getting bored too easily. And [...]
Housemates
Posted in Campus, Friends & family, tagged Campus, gossip, housemates, objects on November 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
In Parkwood, you don’t choose who you’re going to live with, so really anything can happen. You will have to share your life with students from countries you didn’t know about, weirdos, or teary first-years. And thanks to the quality of the walls, doors and windows, after a few weeks you know everything there is [...]
