Life after uni

I just had a re-read of all my posts on here from France... the main reason being I couldn't remember our landlord's name and it was bugging me! M. Bride! How could I forget. But forget I did, and not only that I'm forgetting the most basic vocabulary:  my French has gone d o  w   n    h     i     l      l. The last time I spoke good French was in my oral exam in - hmm - May! I was so pleased with how it went but since then I've had no need to speak any. And university French, doing synthese comparees and what-have-you, is different from the everyday colloquial stuff I was used to when I lived there. I'm hoping I can do some tutoring once I'm living back up in Egham: at least that way I'd be keeping it up.

Reading through this blog has made me really miss France. But what I miss isn't being in another country, but living in it - becoming one of them, not merely a tourist. I've been on holiday several times in the last year - Switzerland, Italy Germany, Spain... but it's not the same. I hope I get to live somewhere abroad again. Probably not forever, but a year or something. I look at people's photos of travelling and I'm jealous, because I want to do it all again. I know I've done my big adventure abroad, which is more than a lot of people... but I would like another one! But there are no opportunities for that in the near future - which is ok, but part of me would like the excitement of it.

Funny how I haven't thought about any of this in ages though. Life is good in England and I'm really happy. Ending uni has been a bit of a reality check in lots of ways. No more student loans, no more no taxes and no no council tax. No more luxuries such as having people come to clean your kitchen. Though technically I have yet to suffer from these things as I am living at home for the summer! But come September I will be back in the Green, surrounded by students, in a student house - but without the free money and all the discounts. I'm excited about the BIG year, a year of me going deeper with God, growing in freedom, growing up more. But all the same - even though Royal Holloway is right on my doorstep, I'm going to miss being a student there.