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17 August 2004—Brooke Christensen
So today I bought a journal--this journal to be more accurate. Today I also woke up in a panic because I am leaving the country in nine days. All summer I have been attaching to my answer of what school I attend a very proud, very excited, "But this semester I will studying abroad, in London"
London--one of the capitals of premiere theatre and home to Queens and Princes, stuff of fairytales to a girl from Iowa, I've wanted to go to London since August 16 th 1989. I realize that this is a pretty precise date and this all stems from the fact that on that precise date a very nice man, a friend of my family's, made a very nice very official looking pass from the Queen of England to travel in her lands. It states:
Elizabeth II Queen of Britain and Domains of the Commonwealth Bestows the Freedom of Travel and Access to Hospitality therein to:
Brooke Christensen
Citizen of Buck Ridge Iowa and that she may travel and pass unhindered by any servant of the Queen in any of her lands.
It even has an official looking red stamp with the Queen's head on it. Granted I'm a bit older since I received my "official pass to England" but that doesn't change my desire to go. Yet, none of this has anything to do with my rude awakening this morning.
I awoke thinking, "What if I don't really have a plane ticket? Computer jerks do tend to lie to poor college students such as myself." And, "What if I forget something as super important as my contacts, I can't just get new ones without a prescription and what is the point of sightseeing if I'm blind as a bat?" But mostly the panic is, "What if I hate it? What it I hate it ?" Because not only am I stuck there for three months but I will be destroying a childhood dream that started on August 16, 1989! Needless to say, today I bought this journal.
I hate journals. I'm left handed and the spiral ones bother my hand and because I prefer pencils to pens even with my hook it is inevitable that everything I will write will get smudgy (not to mention the fact that I dislike my handwriting) so inevitably the aesthetic experience of reading whatever I write will interfere with the actual content. I like computers. You can always fix typos and no matter how fast your fingers are flying, which usually corresponds to how fast your thoughts are flying, the letters are always neat and consistent and more importantly easy on the eyes. However, I own the farthest thing from a laptop and since I will eventually be writing in London parks, on Paris benches and maybe even an Irish pub, this is the format I will be forced to use.
It took me close to forty minutes to decide on this journal--and that decision was made only by the grace of God as my best friend randomly happened to be in Barnes and Noble during the end of that forty minutes and reaffirmed that this journal is pretty fabulous. (Only God know how long it would have taken me if she hadn't tapped me on my shoulder...) This leads me to the idea that if I can't pick out my own travel journal should I really be travelling as I might not really have purchased plane tickets, have forgotten my contacts all while ruining my childhood fantasy? Ugh.
As I place my "official pass" back on my shelf after dusting off the edges of its frame I realize that all this puts me in a state of concern when all summer I have been itching for freedom, experience, and a chance to see a new part of the world. The clock next to my bed reads one AM--eight days. I need some sleep.
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