After perusing the world wide web for many weeks, I slowly came to the conclusion it wasn't quite full. No. What the internet really needed was a semi-incoherent study-abroad blog from an angsty twenty-something trying to dodge the onset of real life. Something it has never seen before. But who could be self-aggrandizing enough to assume such a momentous task?
Then, a few days ago, came a moment of realisation...
"Bloody hell!" I bellowed loudly, startling several other shoppers in the Tesco checkout queue. "I fit that description perfectly. If I could get such a thing moving, I'll have completed the internet."*
So here we go again. I'm resurrecting that lucrative "Somewhere Near ... / Ten Months in ...." blogging format, only slightly concerned that I haven't done anything too noteworthy since the I last ran away from the UK. In this time, Louise Mensch has written for every major British newspaper, been on Question Time and HIGNFY, founded a bizarre alternative to Twitter, closed down a bizarre alternative to Twitter, got involved in public spats with both Nadine Dorries AND Luke Bozier, quit a job in Parliament, and run off to New York with the manager of Metallica.
Meanwhile I spent far too long completing an abstract sketch of an elephant.
But now I'm getting ready to depart for a year-long MA course, to study International Relations at the Central European University in Budapest. It looks like a fascinating and studious year on paper, but could quite plausibly mutate into a surreal phantasmal haze fuelled by bathhouse fumes and cheap beer. (I hope so).
I'm not entirely sure how or why I ended up applying there – I vaguely remember stumbling across the website in December and it seemed fairly impressive. The university received a massive endowment when it was established in 1991, so is (hopefully!) well resourced with lecturers and books and facilities. After a few days of day-dreaming I sent off an application and forgot about it for a few months – especially as I started receiving a stack of acknowledgements from other perfectly respectable universities in lovely local cities: I could yet be happily partying in Manchester or punting in Cambridge before the end of August.
But this option started to grow on me; taking the less predictable track seemed both exciting and suitably unusual, and CEU has a very diverse student body, an interesting course, and a healthy reputation in IR circles. I accepted the place quite quickly, any twinge of hesitation disappearing when the Tab politics faculty sent through a nine-page preparatory reading list. My boat race loyalties remain (impassively) dark blue for now.
So decision made. And the blog is back, for the benefit of friends, family, acquaintances, and myself. I'll try to keep it relatively complete and up-to-date, as I still enjoy reading back and reminiscing through my Maldives scribblings. Keeping a blog is probably the most productive thing I did out there, and it's been nice to have that record, even if it did end quite abruptly. And people were very kind about those efforts, to the extent blogging will soon be listed as a skill/hobby on my CV. The others are making pad thai and trying to forge those rubber loyalty card stamps so I can get free coffee in Caffe Nero…
On to CEU in a few weeks then. I’m hitting the road first, which is why this post has been done so uncharacteristically early. Leaving London this weekend, holidaying in Cornwall, zooming around Shropshire, and then hopping over to Budapest towards the end of August.
* Didn't actually happen.
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