{"id":10812,"date":"2018-03-22T06:08:02","date_gmt":"2018-03-22T10:08:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/social.rollins.edu\/wpsites\/letters\/?p=10812"},"modified":"2019-07-09T17:27:35","modified_gmt":"2019-07-09T17:27:35","slug":"the-ways-this-city-changes-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/2018\/03\/22\/the-ways-this-city-changes-me\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ways This City Changes Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve lived in London for three months now.\u00a0This is when, as a trusty friend told me, the honeymoon phase of a new flat ends. The commute to work gets longer; the neighborhood gets dingier; the city smaller and colder and less exciting.<\/p>\n

But I’m still so in love.<\/p>\n

The gut feelings I get are largely negative, i.e. “shady alley” warning signs. But I have this feeling, sitting in my\u00a0cramped little attic apartment in Shepherd’s Bush, that I am exactly where I need to be.\u00a0When your best friend Skypes in and immediately says, “You look better than you have in a long time,” you know something’s going right.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nA comprehensive List of Things Going Right:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I’m taking care of my body for the first time in my life. I run three times a week and even just in the beginning phases of being a Properly Fit Adult, I can execute a 13 minute mile. This is only possible because I have ample distraction: a 35-minute run takes me all the way to Hammersmith Bridge, where I can run along the River Thames and breathe a little deeper.\u00a0On my off days, I do yoga in my flat in the little section where the sun streams through the attic window. I eat\u00a0smaller amounts of better-tasting food\u00a0(because gorging would ruin my run) and I cook (because I am poor) while my cassette player winds through my tape collection and I\u00a0scribble away\u00a0at\u00a0the\u00a0Evening Standard\u00a0<\/em>puzzles.<\/li>\n
  2. I’m\u00a0making connections with theatre industry professionals, who all love my American candor and spirit, in my role as a stage manager and electrician at Jermyn Street, and I’m rehearsing audition material every day in the space I have from a lighter course load, so my acting\u00a0doesn’t get stale. When I feel a monologue or song is sufficiently good, I bring it in to Mike\u2014my only professor here and a celebrated playwright\u2014who celebrates my successes, offers insight on the next steps, and then connects me to other actors, agents, and\u00a0opportunities, all of whom are helping me establish myself as a performer in the city that has been so good to me. I have never been shown such grace and enthusiasm by a group of theatre people; all of those I’ve been lucky enough to work with have gone above and beyond their call to make sure I have a Next Step.<\/li>\n
  3. I still haven’t run out of places to discover. London is massive\u2014the kind of massive you can only imagine when you’re 40 stories in the air at a 24-hour waffle restaurant, sitting by a window and seeing for the first time the sprawl of the city. Every day I have free I go out and explore. Sometimes, it’s to old favorites\u2014the Prince Charles Cinema is a 5-minute walk from where I work, and I’ve gotten a membership so I can leave a morning shift and catch a matin\u00e9e in Leicester Square. Other days, it’s\u00a0a ride to a Tube station I know well and an imperative to keep walking upon arrival until I see something new. There’s always something new.<\/li>\n
  4. I have amazing friends who work through a literal ocean of problems\u2014time zones, Daylight Savings Time,\u00a0awful Facetime reception, their own hectic schedules and mine\u2014to make sure I see their faces and hear their voices as they remind me I am loved. There’s a realization, at this 3-month mark, that when I come to work in London,\u00a0there will be a permanent absence of my loved ones, but to know that those who matter are already\u00a0staking their places in staying relevant to my life… that’s comforting in\u00a0this sea of newness and beginnings.<\/li>\n
  5. The UK has finally gotten season 5 of\u00a0Brooklyn Nine-Nine,<\/em> which I watch every Thursday on E4 at 9 p.m. GST with Nando’s take-away. It is my greatest joy, even though we are so behind American air times that last week’s episode was the annual Halloween Heist. I couldn’t have cared less.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    I am blessed. I am so, so lucky. I am, for once, Exactly Where I Need To Be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I’ve lived in London for three months now.\u00a0This is when, as a trusty friend told me, the honeymoon phase of a new flat ends. The commute to work gets longer; the neighborhood gets dingier; the city smaller and colder and less exciting. But I’m still so in love. The gut feelings I get are largely…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-capa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10812"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14014,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10812\/revisions\/14014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}