September 17th: Back t'North

Today I'm moving back to York, for the third and final year of my degree. It's bittersweet, leaving again, another goodbye when I feel like I've only just come home, but it's also an arrival. A new beginning. A chance to see all those people I haven't seen for the last year and a half and to be in York once again - beautiful, wonderful York, who captures my heart all over again everytime I set foot in it.

I have had the most amazing year in Spain and Mallorca, full of highs and lows and experiences and opportunities. If you remember that post about the things I'd like to do before I die, you'll know that living abroad was on it; I realised a dream this year.

I've been lucky, so far, to have had opportunities like these and to have a family and a support system who made me feel like I could do it. If I had to choose the most important of all the things the last year has taught me, I think it would be that people are the most important thing in one's life. It's not money, or power, (although I wouldn't say no if someone were to offer me those things), it's love. It's the people you run to when something goes wrong; the people you call when something exciting happens; the people you recite that amusing anecdote to. Because what's the point of it all, of doing all these things, if you've got no-one to share it with?

Leaving home is scary for everyone. It was more scary for me the first time, exactly two years ago today, but even now I still get nervous about leaving. I love it once I'm there, of course, but... home is familiar. Home is comforting. Home is safe. The big wide world can't get you there, and it's so lovely to be protected, after all the time we spend in the big wide world pretending we know what we're doing. But we have to spread our wings a bit; and when we do, we realise that those things we dream about don't have to stay dreams. Some of us get to live those dreams. Don't you want to see if you'll be one of them?

Molly x

Reminders and adventures

Hola bloglings!

Just wanted to remind you all that despite the lack of posts I'm not dead; if you haven't been reading my Spain-specific blog, I am still posting (sporadically and randomly) on there. I've been back in England for almost four weeks now, and tomorrow I'm heading off to Mallorca to be an au pair for a while, so I've got plenty to say!

Fins aviat, bloglings!

Molly x

March 16th: The cogs that make the wheels turn

I went home last weekend to surprise my mum for Mother's Day, and when I left, my mum said to me "For the first time, I feel like you've actually left home". I'm not entirely sure how it's taken her that long (or indeed how far away I need to go) for it to really sink in, but it got me thinking. 

When I look back on the last few years, I really, honestly don't recognise myself. Three or four years ago, every single thing about my life was different, except for one thing. My friends. Back then, we spent every day together (even if I didn't technically know Lauren quite that far back, it feels like she's been my friend forever).

I mean, we're all different people. Becky can create beautiful art by simply picking up a paintbrush, and Charlotte can do the same with a pen. Zoe knows exactly how to capture a moment that will last forever, and Lauren chose a different path entirely. I know how humans acquire language, and how many morphemes make up a sound. And, you know, these are things that people can live without knowing. I don't need to know how a camera takes a photo; to my philistine mind, it just does. Becky and Charlotte make art and writing look so easy, though there's so much more to it than meets the eye. And we don't need to know how languages work in order to be able to speak them - we just can.

In the end, we all do the same thing. We know the intimate details of things to which most people don't give a second thought. That is what every human does; all of our interests revolve around the little components which make the big things work, and it's got me thinking about how things change. My friends and I don't see each other everyday. We don't even talk everyday. Now, instead of knowing all the little ins and outs of the other person's day, we only know the big things. Things are reversed now. But it doesn't matter, because even though we don't know all the details of the cogs that make the wheels turn, turn they do, and we're still close, almost two years after we all left for uni, even though we were warned that we'd drift apart.

I don't know where I'll be in ten years. Where I'll be, what I'll be doing, who I'll know. Hell, I don't even know where I'll be in three months. Doing an Erasmus changes you, and the idea of going back to my monolingual country and my monolingual, monocultural life just seems... flat. There's so much to be seen and so much to be done, but there's no point in any of it if there's nobody to see it and do it with you. Half the fun of this is sharing it with the people I love, and though I wish they were here to experience it with me, they're not. At least we have the internet, right?

Molly x

February 27th: Reasons I love being a linguistics student

As much as I think an exchange or an Erasmus is an invaluable experience for anybody, no matter what they study or where their interests lie, personally - and I might be a little bit biased here - I think language students and linguistics students get a little bit more out of it than somebody who studies, say, maths, for example.

That's not to say that I don't think living abroad is equally beneficial for people who don't study linguistics. Whatever you study, it's an experience that is more than worth doing and I can't recommend it enough. Go, people, see the world!

I realise that even within an area where you'd expect to find a group of people who are all passionate about what they do, this isn't always the case. Some people within my year group study English Language and Linguistics because there are lots of job prospects when you finish, or even because they think it'll be easy, or maybe just because they couldn't think of what else to do their degree on. And yes, some people may think that visiting Oxford and spending half the day sitting in the linguistics section of the Oxford University Press bookshop is sad, but not me. I am a linguistics nerd and proud of it, and I am not ashamed to admit that I spent a day in one of the most beautiful towns in England reading a textbook on the syntax of Old Norse. Luckily I've found a group of people who know exactly what it's like to feel that passionate, because all of them feel that way about what they study too.

I can take one step outside my flat and hear two languages, just like that. I am surrounded everyday by people who are fluent in three languages as a bare minimum. Some of the signs in restaurants and shops are written in five languages. Being here, my little monolingual brain is a sponge, and with every new word that I learn, I am learning more about the world. This is all fascinating to me. It's fascinating that these foreign words that are just sounds to me have actual meaning and significance to speakers of that language, and it's like I have a barrier in my head that they don't have, stopping me from understanding; it's fascinating that even if I did become fluent in a language, I will never have the same insight into it as a native speaker, because some things can not be translated.

There are many reasons I love being a linguistics student. I live with two fellow linguistics students, and it is a common occurrence in our flat to walk in and find one of us sitting at the table, staring into space, making strange noises; or hear the terms 'fricative', 'uvular' and 'alveolar ridge' floating about and not assume they mean something dirty. But the number one reasons I love being a linguistics student are all tied up with living here in Spain. I constantly want to use Spatalan words in conversations with or emails to my family or friends from home, but they won't understand and it's frustrating. Here, I can use three languages in one sentence and nobody would bat an eyelid. (This is not necessarily a good thing. If I were good enough at Spanish or Catalan to be able to speak solely in one of them, I would.)

But on Saturday night, I went clubbing with the Erasmus students for a couple of peoples' birthdays. We were all in 80s fancy dress, and while we were in the taxi, a little bit drunk, with our crazy hair and makeup, rather than talking about getting drunk like normal English girls on a night out, we were practising Catalan and Spanish with the taxi driver.

I love the fact that this is my life.

Molly x

I need your help!

Hola bloglings,

I know it's been a while since I last posted here, and I don't have time to write a full update now, but I need your help: last week my camera was either stolen or lost, and I thought I may as well try and harness the power of the internet to try to get it back!

It's a red Canon IXUS 500 HS (it looks like this):

and it was lost at the carnival in Sitges, Catalonia, Spain last Tuesday (12th February 2013).

I love this camera so much and I'm desperate to get it back - and of course all the photos on it are memories I will never get the chance to replace. Please, if you have it or think you know the person who does, please get in touch with me via the comments and I will be eternally grateful!

Thank you!

Molly x

January 9th: 2012

I realise this is a bit late, and I really have no excuse because I passed all my exams (woohoo!) so I don't even have any work to do... but by now you should all be used to me and my ridiculously sporadic updates here!

I wanted to write a New Year update (because I'm original like that) because 2012 was, frankly, a bit of a kickass year. I had a feeling it would be, but sometimes it's not until you come out the other side that you can see exactly how great something really is.

2012 was the year I visited three new countries (and three 'old' ones) and eleven new cities, started learning two new languages, worked in a pub for the first time, went on a cruise for the first time, and moved abroad for the first time (though I have a feeling it won't be the last). It was also the first full year I lived having moved out of my childhood home, though I did spend a few months back there in the summer. I also taught English for the first time, to a fourteen year old Italian boy and three Catalan children aged five and three. In 2012 I met a hell of a lot of fabulous people from all over the world, actually started enjoying nights out, experienced my first  nine-day-long Spanish festival, learnt how much fun it can be to live with friends, and fell hopelessly in love with the Catalan culture and language.

I get to spend the first half of 2013 back in Spain, and then I embark on my third and final year of university. I don't feel old enough to be halfway through my degree already and I know most of my friends feel the same way, but we'll just have to make the most of the time we have left.

Molly x