“Who are you and what do you want?”
Hi friends,
I wanted to give an update on life here in London and talk about what I’ve experienced month by month. In general, I’m doing well but I am also utterly exhausted. If you have texted me “How’s London/school?”, thank you for reaching out and sorry for taking a long time to respond. To be completely honest, I don’t know how to answer that question. It brings up all sorts of emotions that I can’t find the right words for, it’s frustrating. I’ll try to paint a picture for you, though.
This Instagram post pretty much sums up the overwhelm I’ve been feeling in my first month here. Technically it’s been 6 weeks in London now and 3 weeks since starting moving into my own shared flat + starting my MA degree at Rose Bruford College. Still early days, but time has a weird way of passing very quickly yet at the same time not passing at all.
It feels like I’ve been settling into this country forever when I’ve been getting furniture here and there every weekend since I landed. My wardrobe is finally set up by a handyman this week and for the first time in 5 months, I don’t have to fish a shirt out of my suitcase. I still have to get bathroom cleaning spray and talk to unhelpful people about lowering the rent (this flat is not really furnished and my housemates and I found out after we signed the lease). I don’t have the energy because every day in school we are making new shapes on the ground with our bodies for 3 hours in the morning, 3 more in the afternoon clapping, breathing, and stomping a new rhythm as a group. Then we discuss what story we see from what we just did, how we feel about it, what that says about our type of artistry.
I don’t know??
I mean…
I’ve never had anyone ask me every day exactly what kind of art I see myself making, what genre I like, why, and how they can help me get there. Thank you, but we just got a kettle last week, and I finally stowed my last big suitcase under my bed. I look at my talented classmates who graduated from a BA theatre programme last year and think, ‘They’ve covered this before, and I still need to read books by those famous artists.’ I know I don’t have to know all the theory to be good at what I’m doing, but I just want to know what people are referring to.
It feels really good to create something together, though. To be given all the space you need to experiment with an idea and play around with your walking speed or to whoosh! past your duet partner. What did you notice about that? Again, I don’t know. Please stop asking me this. My brain’s dead and all my internal organs hurt.
So many kind people sent me so many links to shows and festivals to check out. Everything sounds really really good, but I still have writing homework to do that I haven’t started. Then it’s time to think about what I’ll eat for dinner. Groceries are cheap here, which is a saving grace. It’s easy to find healthy stuff in the supermarket like natural peanut butter and almond milk. Then before you know it, it’s time for bed.
It’s strange to feel culture shock because it’s not the first time I’ve started over in a new country. I’ve planned a long time for this, and when the big reveal comes, it’s nothing like I expected. Why do I still feel cold in 13-degree rainy weather when I’ve walked to school in -30 degree snow before? Then I remember that last move across the world was 11 years ago. Of course I’d feel this way.
I don’t know which home to miss. Am I a Canadian expat or a migrant (immigrant?) from Hong Kong who left everything behind? When people say Asian here, they mean brown people, not me. A bag of dumplings cost £6.99 for 12 pieces. It’s mostly Korean ones though.
The last thing I’ll say is I really took for granted how close everything is in Hong Kong. London is huge and I found myself not wanting to explore the city in my free time because it usually takes more than 60 minutes one way from where I live, and it’s not even that far out already. Transport often breaks down or has delays, and the next train takes ages to come. I feel bad for complaining when a lot of my classmates come from places with even worse public transport (how??) I try to see it as having extra time to read for fun, but I can’t get over the fact that I’m losing time commuting when I could’ve had more time doing activities I like. I used to be able to fit two to three things in the same evening, but now I can just do one because it’s dangerous to stay out late, or the other option is to spend money on taxis, which I’d rather spend on groceries. I feel very disconnected from my friends outside school who can get home from an event/dinner/show in 30 minutes just by taking the Tube, who know all the station names by heart. I want to build a life outside of school too, and it feels like it’ll take three times the effort.
I miss doing improv with a team.
I want to get a part-time job soon.
But I can only handle swing dancing once a week.
Why does it feel like I’m doing so little yet I’ve been doing everything?
