“Being 25 is weird…I’ve gone from Clean and Clear to Biore and Garnier. And soon it will be L’Oreal…and then Olay! Followed by decay and death.”
– C.
Full disclosure, I actually use Clinique. Under this newly minted aging categorizing technique of mine, how old does that make me?
“Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.”
– Julia Cameron
How’s that for a title, piglets? Doesn’t that just thrill your soul? Aren’t you just mad afire to solve this Agatha Christie sounding mystery? Are you already twirling your Poirot-ish mustache and cracking your knuckles, ready to pounce and out the murderer, find the money, unmask the fiend, and kick up your heels after with a glass of port and the knowledge of a mystery tidily wrapped up?
Well, I’m sorry to disappoint because this, my enterprising sleuths, is about the silliest, least exciting, and yet most perplexing case I’ve yet to be a part of.
It all started when a young traveler coming in from China to our campus went missing. I was called into a meeting where very many men in smart suits were sitting dourly at a table with our police officers. They represented various university and otherwise organizations and they had misplaced a young woman. Or rather, after flying into the country she had misplaced herself.
My duty in all of this was the fulfillment of dreams spawned from watching illogical cop dramas – I got to fill out the white board! I traced timelines, physical descriptions, suspicions, all of it. There was talk of embassies, visas, the FBI, human trafficking, slavery, kidnapping, scandal! They shipped investigators all over, avoided the media, and formulated theories like champs.
And it turns out, that after flying all the way here, going through the visa process, paying for her trip, she got here, got cold feet, and turned right around and went back to China. With narry an scorned heiress, missing fortune, or diabolical butler to be seen.
“Assume you’ll need to adapt to local things unless you want to spend way more than necessary! When I moved to the Caribbean, I found that food and toiletries and clothes (even the fully-non-brand name variety) were all two to three times more expensive than the States. On the other hand, if you learn to live like the locals, you’ll save quite a lot: for example local fruit (and rum!) was practically free, and local bakeries and goat dairies were cheap. One of my roommates was suspicious of everything not imported from the States and spent WAY too much money; I risked the local route and not only saved but got a much more interesting experience.”
– Scarlett, who has not only lived and done volunteer work in the Caribbean, she also applying to do more in Rwanda. Fingers crossed!
Email chain twixt Scarlett and myself about our then-impending birthdays, but two days apart. I’m 25 today, a full quarter century. Many happy returns/Condolences!
Scarlett:
So PLEASE tell me I am not the only one freaking out here about our impending birthdays. 25 is PETRIFYING. the last hallmark before “Qualifies for Senior Discounts”. The end of the “18-24” check-box. The end of pretending you’re sort of maybe still a “young adult” and can justify things like hitchhiking and trespassing and running around on roofs and switching jobs every six months because you’re still kind of college-aged and therefore still kind of post-adolescent and therefore still kind of justifiably enjoying your youth. 25 is “No More Excuses For Not Having Your Merde Together”-Land. It’s doom and destruction and HOLY LORD I AM HALFWAY TO FIFTY and I Am Actually An Adult And Need To Start Behaving As Such. It’s like AGH HOW AM I NOT PUBLISHED YET AND WHERE HAS MY LIFE GONE AND I HAVE BEEN FREAKING OUT ABOUT GETTING OLD SINCE I WAS ABOUT TO TURN *FOURTEEN*, SO THIS IS DIRE! And knowing that for every year after this I’ll be begging the fates to be “only” 25 again.
Oh the problems that come with living in America. Such a tragic and difficult life I lead, with so many real and legitimate problems!
Enjoy your last days of youth…
C.:
Sorry, beloved, I did this particular freak out when I got married at AGE TWENTY-THREE and WHAT AM I THINKING?! I have to be a Real Live Grown Up now, what the hell – what do you MEAN a 401k plan?! However, to be fair, the “AUGH HOW AM I NOT PUBLISHED YET AND WHERE HAS MY LIFE GONE” I can totally relate to. I think I’ve just decided to (in public) age gracefully and act as childish as possible in private. So far it has served me well. I don’t mind going to a new age grouping as I suspect that I shall never have my merde together, no matter what age I am.
Scarlett:
I laugh at myself on this point as well. It’s odd because part of me relaly doesn’t care, in terms of how society-at-large tends to freak out about aging…it’s just the not-published/waste-of-life thing that freaks me out! I seriously remember (as I’m sure you recall as well) running around school like a crazed person on my 14th birthday. Having spent my childhood DESPERATE to be 13 because TEENAGERS WERE SO COOL, I was completely unable to deal with being 14 because it sounded “too old to be a child prodigy” and I hadn’t written a symphony or been published yet. Oh, 8th-grade Scarlett, if only you knew how LITTLE you would actually accomplish OVER THE NEXT 11 YEARS.
C.:
I remember dying to be a teenage and then realizing it didn’t feel too different from being a pre-teen. My aging angst died at that moment. I realized that some people spend their lives racing to be a certain point and they dedicating the rest of their lives to staying at that point, and it frankly seemed more than a little ridiculous. Ah, pseudo maturity! How I shall abandon thee when the wrinkles come!
“A child is a curly dimpled lunatic.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
As excited as I am about our move (and as daunted by the still colossal amount of work we have to do), life goes on here at the police department.
During summer campus is divided up between sports campus, youth groups, lecturers, exhibitions, and (of course) the Mob of Idiots. Officers debate which of these events are the most stressful to work, but I find I get the best stories out of the kids running around.
However, nothing will beat the day many summers ago when I was interning at NATO. It was the one day a year the embassy was open to school groups and a small horde of five year olds were invading to be led around, fed cookies, and meet the ambassador. Halfway through their visit, alarms went off. Someone had threatened the compound with a bomb.
We had several procedures in place for this sort of thing. We dismantled our computers and locked various things away in explosion proof safes and lockers as per normal. The soldiers were supposed to come through and verify that everything was secure before exiting. I say “supposed to” because in reality they were suddenly charged with herding scores of excited children towards the nearest exit (“Is this a fire drill? A bomb threat? Cool!”). I’ve never seen so many brawny, overly muscled men look so haggard.
“Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.”
– Ayn Rand
Alright, minions, so you want to live/go to school in a foreign country (or in my case a “foreign” country, emphasis on the air quotes)? Where to start? The answer, as it so often is: It’s About the Money, Stupid.
Know your numbers, research them exhaustively. Are you going to be able to work? Do you have to show any amount of money in order to get a visa? How do you plan on financing your jaunt abroad? Where will that financing come from? Living expenses, travel expenses, school expenses, and of course the all-important play money, all of this has to be taken into account.
If it seems daunting, good. Know exactly what you’re getting into. I’ve had friends who have bankrupted themselves with studying abroad and just-for-fun travel because they failed utterly to examine what they were undertaking financially. Even good, lovely, enriching, and personally fulfilling things cost money sometimes, kittens, and only a fool jumps in without a few honest conversations with themselves.
When J. and I were discussing whether or not to go to the UK for school, we had to take a lot of things into account, but the biggest factor was money. We ultimately decided that the prestige of the school, the benefits of international education in an increasingly globalized world, and the (we admit) awesomeness of the opportunity were worth the debt. We always knew we’d have to take out loans for grad school, but going abroad means we’ll be taking on nearly three times as much…and we did not do that lightly. J.’s program is only one year, if it had been more , in all likelihood we would have chosen a US school. Yes, I would have pouted for a few minutes, and then got to work financing that move instead. I’m a do-er.
Alright, turtledoves, sound off! What other tidbits can you offer for the would-be scholar/traveler abroad when it comes to financial planning?
“If I’ve been here a long time, I think: I must go to London and speak to someone or see a bus.”
– Julian Clary
As a result of our recent announcement (to recapitulate: LONDON!), and as you have probably rightly assumed, we are going to be busy for the next few months. Saving money, getting visas, selling most of what we own, packing up what’s left – horrifyingly, delightfully busy. Travel junkie and pro that I am, I’m already straining at the lead to get started.
And so, we’re going to be having a theme here at Small Dog Inc. for the next 3 – 4 months: upping sticks. We’ll be talking paperwork, packing, selling stuff, and about adventures abroad (past and future).
As you may recall, I’ve rather extensive experience in the matters of cross continental hops, but why shouldn’t you get to participate in the fun? Vicariously, I mean, I would never ask it of you to haul furniture and sort kitchen utensils! I have better uses for such lovely minions as yourselves than manual labor. In fact, here’s an assignment, email me your travel tips and misadventures starting now, everyone’s invited to this blog party and I want to feature you and your good ideas and stories.
So sit back and enjoy the fun, my darlings! I’m going to be asking your opinions on many things so do participate. I will even try and get some of my mates to do guest posts about moving and their adventures abroad. And when the boxes tumble and crush me, all of the appliances break last minute as we are trying to sell them, the car needs last minute repairs that wipe out our savings, and the locusts eat all our crops, you will be the first to know.
“Curiosity may have killed the cat but it sure has earned a lot of people graduated degrees.”
– Robyn Irving
It’s official! Barring misfiling of paperwork, collapse of government, and/or the continual eruptions of Icelandic volcanoes…we are going to the U.K. for grad school! We got an unconditional offer in the mail yesterday, and J. is in at the London School of Economics! Let me tell you, just when I think that man can’t get any more impressive…he rises.
A part of me is sad, we had several offers and many of them would have taken us closer to family and friends (now I must wait even longer to try Janssen’s various and impressive selections of homemade ice cream)…but a bigger part of me is selfishly thrilled. We get to have one last adventure before we “grow up” and I get to go home.
I’ve been homesick for England for years now and it’s almost surreal to realize we’ll be going back. After getting home from visiting my parents over Christmas two years ago, as you may recall, I had a minor breakdown and J. promised that someday he would get me home. And, behold. He’s actually been pretty smug about it, saying he’s off the hook now in our marriage for at least a decade. But Scarlett pointed out that he’s actually set a dangerous precedent for himself as it regards me: all major wishes fulfilled within two years, guaranteed!
Information forthcoming, darlings, as my entire focus is going to be on our move this Fall, so watch this space. And for the record, any and all of you are welcome! Come and visit! You can sleep on the floor of our studio flat (heck, if we really like you we’ll even give up our bed for you!) and we’ll take you around the city. I’ve got a great crepe place you need to try, plus the best cheese shop in the United Kingdom. We’ll catch a couple shows in the West End, or even just find a nice patch of sun in Hyde Park and gossip before taking afternoon tea together. And yes, I am serious. You are expected.
There exists somewhere the real quote but for the life of me, I can’t find it. Here’s a rough overview. “When God wants to punish someone, he gives them what they asked for.”
– poorly paraphrased by C.
For myself, I’m sort of wishing the world had spun off into the screaming void. Mondays often have that effect on me, but today has been particularly challenging, pumpkins.
Ever since the term ended I have been literally begging for more work to do, and finally Lt. Citrus informed me that I would be assisting him to prepare for a campus showcase in which our department would participate. My delight quickly turned to dismay when it transpired that I would be in charge of making posters and handout cards in the hundreds. Why dismay, you ask? Because in order to get these made in the cheapest way possible I would have to use the campus print and copy center.
Only someone who has spent the hours I have – cutting out hundreds of laminated booklets, having packets made up (only to have an officer come to me hours later and say that he now wanted another version instead – after approving the first version multiple times), stamping, printing, reconfiguring, scanning, and weeping – can comprehend the sense of futility the print and copy center brings me. I am inevitably helped by a well meaning but still-being-trained-sorry! freshman who can’t operate the machinery. The power goes out in the middle of a massive scanning job. Against all odds and common sense my projects are cut the wrong way sending half pages (containing words and data!) into a garbage bin.
Already they have had to reprint the posters I requested because they came out with myriad ink lines streaking them – the employee didn’t notice these glaring gashes of black and blue – and they have had to re-cut 500 cards. And to cap it all off, as I was coming back to the office, the heavens opened and the rain. Came. Down.
Sigh. Cheer me up, ducklings, any fun stories of customer service?
“And after this there is void. Absolutely nothing…except, of course, for the sweet trolley and our fine selection of Aldebaran liqueurs. And now, at the risk of putting a damper on the wonderful sense of doom and futility here, well I’d like to welcome a few parties.”
– Douglas Adams
Barring those who have, in fact, been living under rocks you will no doubt be aware that according to some, the End Times kick off tomorrow. Sorry about those brand new, still green bananas you bought and the fact that you just cleaned your house. I, for one, am disappointed. Where are the zombies?!
Editor’s Note: Here they are. In theory. I wish more survival classes had been taught with a dash of humor.
In any event, no I am not one of those who thinks the world will collapse into the screaming blackness of nothing tomorrow morning. But it’s a slow day at work, minions, and so Wise and I banded together and sold Susie on the idea of an End of the World/Zombie Apocalypse/It’s Friday party. Cupcakes provided.
Anyone have a good “End of the World” story to share? Here’s one. My family never freaked out about Y2K and generally found the panic rather funny. A couple neighbors tried to warn us of the perils that awaited (some religious, some not) but we politely thanked them for their concern and went along as usual. The evening of December 31st, my parents went off to their normal New Years’ Eve party and Peregrine came over to help me babysit my siblings. After they’d gone to bed we stayed up watching old monster movies (Godzilla featured heavily) and black and white films. When midnight came we annoyed all our neighbors by running into the yard and shouting, “HAPPY NEW YEAR!”
Then, quite suddenly, there was a massive, crashing roll of thunder right over our house and a crack of lightening. We glanced at each other.
“D’you think…?”
“Nope. But…”
“Back inside?”
“Yes!”
See you Monday, kittens.
Small Dog Syndrome 