One Year

Once upon a time I had a bicycle accident. I broke my arm and was in a series of casts for six months. I was cast free for two months when one cold icy day in Boston I slipped on the ice covered cobblestones of Harvard Square. Naturally, when falling on ice, I used my hands to catch myself and felt tension and pressure in my very unflexible wrist. Xrays and MRI's did not show any new break but the doctors felt the need to put me back in a cast for six weeks "to make sure".

The new cast lasted a week. It took three days of constant sawing with a steak knife, cutting little pieces off at a time, before I was free. After six months, and no detectable injury, I couldn't endure another six weeks of being bound.

Thursday will be my one year anniversary here in the UK. I have loved almost every single day. England is a beautiful country and I can't believe I've been lucky enough to live here and to do my graduate degree. I've worked hard during my Master's, rarely taking any breaks. The Master's was recently submitted and now I'm on to the PhD, which is a little less time and space restrictive.

I will be doing my field research in the States, and suddenly, my living conditions have become like the six week cast. Once endurable because of the need to be here, I am claustrophobic and eager to move on now that the time has come to do so. A year is a long time for me to be in any one place, but I live in one room and yet have no privacy. I can only afford weekly groceries, but even if I had money to spare, material goods like proper fitting running shoes don't exist here. I haven't the money to travel and see the sights, and at the same time work odd unstructured hours so I wouldn't have multiple days off to go far anyway.

I have no idea when or where my next stop will be but I'm anxious to get there.