the adventures of eric in scotland

I’m home once again after a wonderful vacation, and I feel good about that. In a week, however, I’ll be going HOME, and that is harder to wrap my mind around. It’s hard to believe that a year ago I was trying to wrap my mind around starting a new life in a foreign country. Now I can barely handle the thought of resuming my old life in my own country. I’m happy about it. But it’s not as simple as that.

This is the beginning of my very last week in Aberdeen, and after spending a week and a half with two girls who have also done the study abroad thing, my head is full of nothing but Big Thoughts about how much the last 10 months have Changed My Life. Aahhhh!

Right now, I feel remarkably similar to how I felt a week before leaving America back in September -- there is this queasy impression that I am counting down to a death sentence, since I am saying goodbye to life as I know it on my way to the utter unknown. You might think it would be easier this way around, but holy shit. I am way more freaked out now than I was 10 months ago.

I understand now why nobody studies abroad in their last year of university. I can’t even get a transcript from the University of Aberdeen until July, and only then can UW convert my foreign study credits into actual credits that count towards my degree. And only then will I know if I’ve graduated or not. Until then, I’m in a state of limbo, which is pretty inconvenient because at this point I have no idea (a) whether or not to register for fall classes, (b) if so, how many, (c) my registration period was over a month ago so I don’t even know if I still can, so I might have to wait until January, (d) whether I’m going to live in Seattle or Los Angeles, (e) how long I’m going to be there, (f) what kind of job to look for when I get there, (h) etc, etc, etc.

And then there’s reverse-culture shock to worry about...

I have decided to close this entry by sharing some information with you I forgot to include in my Amsterdam entries. You know how clowns have those never-ending ribbons they pull out of their mouths? There was a stripper in the Red Light District whose act consisted of slowly pulling one of those out of her vagina.