"SELF 820: A Summer Course"
(.pdf version)
By Kelly Kussmaul
A moment: I am standing alongside a rutted road in a field next to a wooden signpost, watching the horizon. There is not a car or a person in sight, or any evidence of human habitation. The landscape is beautiful, all rolling, verdant hills dotted with picturesque sheep, but the famous English weather is decidedly un-beautiful at the moment: low banks of grey clouds move swiftly over the hills, spraying me with a thin sheet of rain. I have no umbrella and my wet, unbound hair hangs in thick skeins to my waist. I am wearing a thin sweater and jeans, my feet are soaked, and I have wrapped a scarf around my shoulders to keep the rain off, which I keep adjusting for better coverage. It is a laughable effort, and I shiver in the gusts of rainy wind as my eyes scan the distant bend in the road.
I cling to my guidebook and purse, both sodden from the rain but reassuring nevertheless, familiar and solid and real in an unknown world shrouded in grey mists. I have a cell phone but no one to call within approximately 3761 miles, a credit card in my wallet but nothing to use it on, an American passport but no one to impress my flashing it in a self-important manner. All of my anchors and safety lines are worthless in this field, this moment, and all I can do is watch the road for a bus that I have been told will come.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
The experience of standing by that road stays with me as emblematic of my entire study abroad experience. For me, that rainy day in rural Warwickshire was about uncertainty, sometimes-painful optimism, a certain recklessness, and abandoning security in exchange for adventure. In the spring of 2007, I spent a lot of time arguing with myself about doing an international internship in my field (communication) in London. Eventually, I talked myself into it. I had traveled abroad by myself several times, but I knew that it was never enough, and I thought wistfully of making a home, even a temporary one, in one of those huge breathing cities. I was in such a hurry to finish my undergrad that I didn't take the time to study abroad, but the desire was always there, just below the surface of my daily life, until the longings to go became louder than the reasons not to and I boarded the plane.
Dazed and disoriented, I soldiered through the jet lag and dragged myself to orientation, preparing to begin work. I was genuinely surprised to find that, rather than being the pretext for a summer of adventures, my job became an integral part of the adventure in itself. I walked in the door of my first professional job in a new business suit with a nervous stomachache and my portfolio. While waiting to be buzzed in, I almost turned around and walked back to the train station, and may have done so had I been confident that I could find it again. But after a few weeks of taking good-natured ribbing about making stupid mistakes (like screwing up employment contracts, writing the date incorrectly, and not being able to use a fax machine), I settled comfortably into a workplace routine.
I was in the Human Resources department in one of London's largest hospitals, King's College, and walked each morning from the decidedly shabby train station through lively and unsafe neighborhoods with fish markets, overripe fruit stalls, and baguette shops. This noisy immigrant area is not the London of the camera-toting tourist, or the sterile middle-class where I lived. Denmark Hill is the London of the urban working class, the overworked nurse, the petty thief and the grocery clerk. This corner of the city felt like life, a river of human energy and experience sweeping me along every morning and evening. No matter how tired I was, Denmark Hill could pick me up and sweep me along in its wake.
I enthusiastically imitated my coworkers, trying to immerse myself in the whole British experience. I watched dreadful British reality television, placed bets on Harry Potter outcomes, followed celebrity gossip compulsively, groused about the weather (a recurring theme of my stay in England) and complained with everyone else about the amazing public transportation in London. We went out to lunch at tiny local cafes, and the HR team told me where to go and what to avoid. They told me of their extensive American travels ("I really loved Madison," one coworker told me, "but then, I love everything about Wisconsin, don't you?"), and I, who had believed myself well-traveled at home, took notes.
They asked me about everything they considered "American:" lawsuits, buffet-style dining, religion in politics, personal handguns, big cars, the Republican Party, and Paris Hilton. In return, I asked them about the Queen, bank holidays, traffic roundabouts, socialized medicine, the pound versus the euro, rugby, political corruption scandals, and how to make good tea. We rolled our eyes at each other and laughed together at our feeble explanations of complex cultural institutions.
At the end of the day, my friends/colleagues and I were content to not understand one another. It was enough to share things: a good laugh, photos of family and home, a pile of urgent work, a cup of tea, a moment. By the end, we had become people to one another, rather than The Brits and The American Intern, and when I left, they gave me hugs and presents and concerned advice. No tourist experience could ever have given me access to locals in such a meaningful way. I loved them and the little world in London that I had created for myself, and I left those comforts behind again to backpack across Europe, striding off into more unknown landscapes.
I was on the move almost continually for over four months. I saw tiny villages and bustling cities in England, France, Wales, Germany, Italy, Spain, Slovenia and Croatia. It was on one of these trips that I had my memorable moment on the roadside, as I attempted to visit a grand manor house via public transport. The promised bus came, eventually, and I sat there shivering in the blasts of the air conditioning on the way back toward civilization, toward hot showers and tea and dry clothes. At the time, I could have done without the precipitation, but I like to look back at that moment as one that defines the whole experience of travel. Sometimes I was lost, sometimes I was afraid, and sometimes I was uncomfortable, but sometimes I experienced the sense of hyper-reality that comes of being uprooted so completely from the world of my past experience. Sometimes I felt alive to the marrow of my bones.
If nothing else, my study abroad experience was a master's course in self-exploration, a haphazardly designed field research project using myself as the subject, the control group, and the scientist. "The self," says Kahlil Gibran, "is a sea boundless and measureless," and studying abroad set me adrift on that sea every day. Cut lose from routines, from loved ones, from accustomed comforts, what do you become? Who are you when your support system and surroundings disappear? These human questions never really get answered, certainly not in a single summer, but I now have more information in front of me. Mostly, I like what that experience tells me about myself: that I am willing to abandon common sense at times to achieve my goals, that I have the recklessness to step off of the map, that I need less than I would ever have thought, and that I can be patient (when no other option presents itself, that is).
I am convinced that dealing with continual uncertainty is an essential skill. This is because, like it or not, life is inherently uncertain: graduation will leave me by the roadside of career options, relationships will drench me in confusion and spatter me with self-doubt, and there will be moments when I am unable to see opportunities as they approach, hidden by the far bend in the road. I may lose my way, or at least my confidence, but I can find it again in a coworker or bus driver. Trust in my own preparations and believe that my hard work will pay off. Keep my eyes on the horizon. Always carry an umbrella.
