Moderation day!

In less than an hour...
Things I have done this morning:
- SLEPT!!! What an incredible feeling to lie in for longer than 5 hours, and get up when everybody is already out, and feel quite refreshed (quite, yes...it will take a while to recover...a while, and my proper bed at home...)
- booked the bus ticket from London to Salisbury for tomorrow
- bought a book;
- prepared a goodbye present for my wonderful Ian (the best I could come up with, seen as the Union's shop is not exactly the best place for presents...)

But I haven't had breakfast yet...I think I'll go just now (Africanism for "in a while". Funny, hei?)
Update on the rest of this English time to come soon...which means, uhm...in a week, I'd say...Stay tuned!

Last week in Brighton (and we're packed...)

Too many things!
And too many emotional moments I cannot really take in, I'm still overwhelmed.
People, somebody likes me. I mean, he doesn't simply say "I like you" and then walks away with somebody else, he says "I like you" and then wants to be with me! He reads in my mind and in my heart like nobody has ever done before, and it is strange and beautiful.
We have things to clear, and to find out about each other, that's for sure. But we have decided to take things slowly and work on this special thing together, properly. It feels good.
This is the last week of the course and we are so extremely busy: exams tomorrow and on Wednesday, tomorrow I have my last teaching practice (and so does he), then more revision and preparation of files for the moderation which will be held on Friday, our last day...
On Saturday I will catch a train at some impossible time of the morning (just booked it...it's at 5.30 am...) and go pick up my mum from the airport...to spend a few days in Salisbury, then back home to prepare my things and leave for Brighton where I intend to move, but you already know this.
Thing is, I need to do so many things before leaving: go to post-grad office for more information, ask about references, find someone who can write one for me (ex boss's wife is ready, and I want to ask my tutor here), decide for accomodation, find a job (desperately), and all this (well, maybe the job bit can be done later too, although I am already working on it) in four days...Pray for me, people, I need it. Although someone is already doing his part of prayers, and this I appreciate. He's a wonderful person, it takes my breath away when I actually stop and think of the wonders he's doing to me. I feel complete now, although a bit fogged because of all this messy time where we cannot think of anything but lesson plans and revisions and all that jazz. But once I'm at home-home, and I have time to think and reflect, I am sure we can start working on a lot of other things together, before meeting again in Brighton.
Anyway...My lesson plan is waiting...Thankfully tomorrow this time I'll be over and done with; mind you, I love teaching, it's really satisfactory, it makes me happy and fills me with energy. I just don't like teaching with a tutor looking at me and taking note of every word and movement I do, as if the destiny of the world depended on that. But it is good, I have learnt things, I have improved, in so many ways.
This has been one of the best months of my life.
Stay tuned for more, everybody, although I cannot really say when the next news will come...

Things are in motion

Things that I have done so far (and look: it's only 9.14! I've been here for almost 2 hours...):
- sent emails like mad...must keep the situation up to date, my friends are just so amazed at what is going on here...
- read emails like mad...my friends are very supportive and happy for me, and this makes me feel good. My mum is still (probably) trying to take it in, it is such an unexpected event (yeah, tell me about it!), but she understands I am happy, and she is ready to support too. Cool. All in all, everything is going fine.
- applied for TWO FANTASTIC JOBS RIGHT HERE, and people cross your fingers, my lucky star is working so hard these days! I have found a wonderful guy, like no one in the world, and I am already so blessed, but finding the job of my dreams? Am I ready for all this happiness?
- sent email asking for info on the admission to a MA in Film Studies here in Brighton, just to know a few things before I enroll. I can't wait. Things are just going so well, it's hard to believe.

...I should get on with my work, now. The course is halfway through, and there is still so much we have to work on.
Ian is worried I am rushing with my decision to move here. I keep thinking that I am moving here for him, yes, because this thing is so special and I can't just leave and go back to my boring, meaningless life. So he is THE reason I am going to stay. But being here, coming here has been the best thing to do, it's awaken my real me, the adventurous, free, strong me, the ME that will decide what's best and work hard to get it. So, the question I asked myself was: what do I want?
And the answer is: I want to study Film Studies and live in England! Which is the only place where I can study what I want and be happy about it (no interesting or useful stuff back home, that's for sure...), the place where there are a lot more chances to find a job I REALLY like and be generally content, not ranting, complaining, being depressed and on the verge of suicide like I was up to a few months ago. Ian is (as a classmate said) "the icing on the cake": the most special, wonderful, beautiful person I could meet, and I am so incredibly lucky I found him. I feel that my life can be complete, now, and I want to work for this thing to develop and be even more special.
So people, in case it is not clear, I AM HAPPY!

One week on Sunday

...Guys, I am so happy like I thought I would never be.
As I cannot write on the blog very often (too busy...this course is amazing) I am keeping an old-fashioned diary, and it is simply exploding with happiness...
Ian is such a wonderful person like I had never met before in my entire life...We have so many things in common, and our hearts and minds are so tuned in, so perfect. I love every moment I spend with him, and my only desire is to make him happy.
We have been talking about the future...and the news is that I am going to move to Brighton next month! I am over the moon!
We really want this thing to grow, he is so committed, he is so fantastic. I am so lucky I found him. So lucky. So unbelievably happy.
But I am also so busy now, and I'd better go...

IAN

Sunday, 8th – early afternoon

Oh boy what is going on here...
I went to the IT centre after leaving a message to say that whatever his plans were I would have liked to join him. After a while I went back home and as I started climbing to number 28 I saw him before me and I knew he was going to number 28 too, to call me. We meet in front of my house, “good timing”, he says, and invites me over for a cup of coffee. We have lunch with T., who then leaves us alone, and we keep talking for a while, before he gets up to do the dishes. I asks him if he needs a hand, and he replies that “you can talk to me while I do them” (you call that a hand, I say?, and we laugh). He notices that I keep on sighing. When he finishes he talls me that he’ll walk me home, and on the way to number 28 he asks me if I have a boyfriend at home, and I say no, and we talk about being independent and getting lonely. Out of number 28 we are both reluctant to say goodbye, we chat a little more, then we say goodbye. I enter the house and I am so happy I cannot wipe a smile off my face.
I think about last night, when we went to the Slope and spent some time after, sitting next to one another outside, before going inside and watching the last part of the Live Earth with Madonna singing; eventually we sit down and after a while T. leaves us alone (about time too…), and we talk a bit more, before the pub staff chases us away and we head home. On the way up he asks me about my thoughts prompted by our conversation of the evening before, and I try to explain a few things. We keep on talking. Eventually he tells me that “I’ve enjoyed getting to know you, I’m a bit of a shy person”, and this is when we both agree on the importance of deep conversations over superficial chats, and I get to tell him about my feeling of “I want to know what makes you happy so I will be able to make you happy”. When we get home (we get lost a few times) he tells me that he will pop up sometimes the day after, and he says that he will probably go to church, which is when I should have asked him if he wanted me to go with him, but I was too overwhelmed by feelings. We say goodnight.
Boy oh boy...
I feel our hearts and souls singing together, I swear I do. Whatever he says seems to be coming straight out of my mind, when our eyes meet I lose the power to speak. When he asked me if I had a boyfriend my heart missed a beat; when I think of him my heart misses more than a beat. I feel hungry and the thought of eating is unbearable. I feel shaky. As I’m writing this I am nearly crying, and I don’t know if it’s from joy or what.
Someone please help me.

Sunday, 8th – evening

I’m shaking and I can’t stop. I feel like I’m going to cry, and it is joy I feel.
Do you wanna hold hands, he said, and he caressed my hand after we tried to find a position to entangle them together. Cold hands, warm heart.
We sit there talking a little, our fingers caress each other’s hand.
We go for a walk, our hands locked together, we talk, we smile, we are silent as we walk around. He holds my hand, holds it tight, squeezing it, caressing it. Sometimes he pulls me near.
Before I came here I prayed to God that He would give me a girlfriend.
My heart sing in joy at the sound of his words.
Our hands are locked together, getting warmer, holding each other’s tight, when I squeeze his he squeezes mine, caressing it.
We arrive home, and we say goodbye; I enter the house in a fog, unable to think.
You’ve already given me an incredible gift just by holding my hand, I say. I’m happy too, he replies.
He says my hair has a nice colour; he says that I’m very nice.
I go to the kitchen and put on the kettle, I put away the dishes in the cupboard. I am still carrying my bag on a shoulder, my hand is shaking, still warm from his.
I go to my room and I start writing.
I prayed to God that He would give me a girlfriend.
Do you wanna hold hands?
Do you wanna hold hands?
Do you wanna hold hands.
Boy what have you done to me.

Trying, desperately trying to update

End of week One in Brighton as a TESOL trainee. And it's going too well. I'm having fun, learning, practising, I've met new interesting people, I am spending beautiful days in spite of the first rainy time, and the cold...But it's lovely.
Currently I am worried about a file I saved yesterday and cannot find now...It didn't take me long to write, but still, WHERE IS IT??? (I am talking of my UNL assignment...Oh, well).
News of the week: I have met a wonderful person. And this feeling won't make me sleep, my mind is buzzing with thoughts and ideas, and feelings are all over me, and I am so happy.
We spent some time talking on Friday, and I don't mean chatting, I mean serious, deep, good talking; do you have any idea how much I missed that? And how much I loved those hours with him? When I woke up later that night, one o'clock, full of words whirling in my head, everything looked so perfectly in the right place, so beautiful. Love and beauty and faith, everything fell into place perfectly, I am so happy, almost peaceful.
See now? Things change, new perspectives create new, wonderful worlds, the awareness that there is a meaning.
We seem to have a huge amount of things in common, to be so alike: this too is quite strange, and good.
I have a lot of things to do and I feel so well: I am already thinking about not going back home, after all, I feel so well here, I feel at home. Things must be planned carefully, thought over, decided with the right state of mind which, for the moment, I lack. I need to concentrate, not rush.
But boy, it feels so good to be here.
P.s., are you thinking what happened to my "feelings" for the Guy? Well, I am wondering myself. But again, obviously changing perspective can clear your mind and make you understand what you really feel.
And now, back to work.