silence of settling.

I know I've let you down lately. My devotion to the blog has become awry as I grow more and more comfortable here. Don't blame me though, blame the experience. As my days tick on, I am feeling less and less the excitement of the mundane. It's not a sad thing, so do not fret. It is more a settling of self; a slipping into comfort. Think of it as putting on a pair of trousers fresh from the warm dryer.

A couple of months ago a trip to the grocery store would have been a cultural experience, worthy of some lofty thought like, "The patterns and rhythms by which people nourish themselves indicate more than just a cultural difference... and so on" (A lifetime in academia has taught me to fluff with the best of them.) But now the grocery store is nothing more than an institution where my math skills are contrasted with my palette - Chicken breast for £3 or a loaf of bread, tub of butter, pack of digestives and bag of carrots for £2.50? It's always a tough choice, but my wallet usually wins.

A couple of months ago I may have mentioned to you my life plan. Some array of the following might have come out, in no particular order: Graduate school, journalist, politics, law school, hobo, Trinidad and Tobago, university professor, optometrist, restaurant, business or prostitution. (Okay, just kidding on the last one - really.) But now I am possibly a little less set on having one certain goal, and more excited about seeing where opportunity lets me drift.

I know all these changes were probably inevitable, and with due time they might have happened in Elon. But London has been like a catalyst, giving me the room and nourishment to reassess myself and my goals. I am left with one question though, and I am not entirely sure that I will ever know the answer. How much of an effect does environment truly have on a person? Will I be different because of my time here? Or has experiencing myself in a different culture only allowed me to see things that were there all along?