From London to Edinburgh in 6 Days (Part the First)

The first of my friends came to visit me in England this past week. I can’t explain how amazing it was to see her after nine months of being separated by the Atlantic. The most amazing thing is that we were able to pick up our friendship right where it had left off last September. Over the course of six days we explored the UK from London to Durham to Edinburgh. This is a brief retelling of our adventures.

25 May 2014 – Day One: London

I took an early train to London on Sunday. I packed lightly, carrying only my rucksack with enough clothes to last me the two days and two nights I would be in the city. The weather report had insisted it would be chilly and rainy; a report I desperately wanted to ignore because the past few days in Durham had been among the most beautiful so far. The train was delayed, as per usual for a bank holiday weekend and I arrived at King’s Cross Station a little after twelve.

Erika was running in the BUPA 10K that morning with a friend of hers who I only knew as Lee. I had received a mysterious text message from Lee stating that he had Erika and was willing to ransom her for a small fee. I laughed as I stepped onto the platform and headed toward the underground. I was to meet them on Dean Street. I took the Piccadilly Line to Covent Garden and walked along the surprisingly sunny London Streets. I should have packed my summer dress, I thought disappointingly. It was turning out to be a gorgeous day after all.

I made a right onto Dean Street and was greeted with a street fair. People were rummaging through stalls, lunching at outdoor tables, and milling about enjoying the weather. Then I spotted my friend sitting at a table with Lee and his girlfriend, Sarah.

“Hey there,” I said casually, belying the excitement and happiness I felt at seeing my old friend. We hugged and I had a seat. I was formally introduced to Lee and Sarah and had to disappoint them as I had no ransom money to hand over. We enjoyed a pleasant brunch with two bottles of white.

Erika is as organised as I am when it comes to travelling. She pulled out her itinerary for London, made hastily on the back of a napkin. We were to proceed to Westminster Abbey after lunch to hear evensong at 3:00 pm before potentially heading over to the Tate Britain to take in some art. We strolled through the London streets, stopping to snap pictures of Big Ben and Parliament before heading to the Abbey.

We were seated near Poet’s Corner and during the readings and sermon I allowed myself to look at the names on the stone floor and etched into the stained glass windows. C.S. Lewis, Lewis Carroll, Shelley, Oscar Wilde, Byron; not all are buried here but their names resound throughout the decades just as the pure tones of perfectly in tune English voices resounded in the cavernous space of the grand abbey. After the service, Lee and I hunted, as best we could while being quickly ushered out, for Charles Darwin. As we made a left into the nave and began heading toward the doors, I caught sight of Hershel. I was nerdily overjoyed and reasoned that Darwin must be around here as Newton’s name also appeared. Sure enough, we finally found dear old Chuck, his name hidden beneath on of the metal stands holding up the rope barriers which were lining our route.

Once outside, Lee and Sarah made their way back home while Erika and I decided to head to Green Park for ice cream and sun. We didn’t make it, however once she discovered she had left her running shoes in a locker back in Piccadilly. We took the tube back to where we started but were again thwarted when we reached the LA Fitness. It was closed. We turned to each other and decided to call it an evening and headed to our lodgings for the night.

We were staying with another friend of Erika’s, she is quite a connoisseur of friends and I have always enjoyed meeting the many people she has come to know. Ibrahim had been a running friend and was now living in London. We arrived at his apartment after a really lovely walk along Regents Canal. If you enjoy canal boats, I highly recommend the walk as you will see a wide variety of boats. The romantic in me once looked up the prices of canal boats in the hope of perhaps purchasing one and living a much more transient life motoring up and down the English canals from Oxford to London.

Though both of us were exhausted upon reaching the apartment, we soon found our second wind. We enjoyed a light supper of cheese, crackers, and olives while chatting with Ibrahim and his friend Georg. We ended up heading out to Hoxton Square for a few drinks before Erika and I finally began to feel the effects of the long day.

26 May 2014 – Day Two: London

We had decided to wake up early and get to the Tower of London before the crowds set in. I was excited. I had wanted to go to the heritage site for what felt like ages and I was finally going to get the chance. As we walked back along Regents Canal, we faced the grim possibility that we would have to deal with the stereotypical English weather. As promised by the forecast, it was overcast, chilly, and the clouds overhead were biding their time before they decided to soak the city.

We took the tube to Tower Hill and purchased our tickets at the tube station. Erika had brought along a handy guidebook which featured all sorts of brilliant hacks for negotiating the city and sites. It had recommended arriving early, buying tickets at the station, and leaving about two hours to tour the site. It was spot on in all regards save the last. As we walked over the medieval cobblestones and took in the sites which had changed dramatically over the centuries since the first fortification was built on the River Thames, we found that we would require much longer than two hours to see it all.

We did our best. We saw the White Tower, the torture chamber, the royal apartments, Traitor’s Gate, the armour, the Crown Jewels, and we walked the battlements. We read about the ravens, Mary Queen of Scots, the Princes in the Tower, and saw the amazingly well preserved examples of ancient graffiti found throughout the site. We were coming upon almost four hours when we decided that if we were to make it back to Piccadilly to retrieve the shoes, we would have to leave.

Photograph by Erika Beth

Photograph by Erika Beth

I cannot recommend going to the Tower of London enough. There is so much to see and do there that you will need a full day to really do it justice. I also recommend tea at the café there. It is pricey but well worth the short respite it provides.

We took the tube to Piccadilly and thankfully recovered Erika’s lost treasures. As we looked at the time, we realised that if we hurried we could just make it to St. Paul’s with time to climb the over 500 steps to the very top. We rushed back to the tube and headed over to London’s most impressive church. Of course that is merely my opinion, but compared with Westminster Abbey, it is truly a remarkably gorgeous place. The interior decoration is richly opulent the closer to the high altar you go. The choir stalls beautifully carved, and the dome, incredible.

Photograph by Erika Beth

We had only an hour and a half to make our ascent. We began with very gently sloping wooden spiral stairs. Then we reached the whispering gallery. We neglected to test the validity of its name but the very kind warden who greeted us at that stage invited us to have a rest and look around before heading up to the next stop. These stairs were stone and were much steeper. After another climb, we found ourselves outside in the gently misting London afternoon. We could see a great deal of the city stretching out from us way up there. The Tate Modern, the Millennium Bridge, the Globe Theatre, the Shard, the London Eye. Is was all covered in a grey haze but it was all there. We determined to reach the top. This last climb was the most difficult. The metal, grated spiral steps were dizzying and we were forced into a single file which stopped and started frequently. Along the way though, it was fascinating to see the dome from the other side. The head clearance was short and my tall companion had to duck to make it through the last portion of the climb. Then we emerged onto the tiny gallery and saw the whole of London. The climb was worth the views from the top.

We retraced our steps, spiraling downward at a dizzying pace before we left St. Paul’s and headed out into drizzly London. Erika wanted to see Fleet Street and we were both hungry so we walked a short distance to the Cock Tavern for some early dinner and a couple of well-earned ciders. After, we headed back to Ibrahim’s and packed our things before sleeping the sleep of the victorious and the completely tuckered out. The next morning we were catching an early train to Durham.

Upon further examination...

Friday. Exam Day.

Much of Friday was wasted. My exam wasn’t until 2:30 and we had been given terribly strict instructions that anyone arriving late to the exam would suffer the penalty of death. Okay, not quite, but the regulations surrounding these exams reminded me of my teaching days when I would have to proctor the state standardised test. Each of us was given an anonymous code to ensure unbiased marking and we had to arrive to the examination room ten minutes early. The room would close five minutes before and if you were late you would be held up in the corridor until five minutes after the exam began. All bags, coats, and phones were to be placed in the front of the examination room and phones turned off. Any bag with a phone in it that began to ring during the exam would be placed in the corridor and the university not held responsible when…er, if it was stolen. You were allowed a calculator, a clear pencil case, a clear water bottle, and a snack that could be eaten silently (no crisps, apples, etc.). Once the exam began you could not leave the room for thirty minutes. If you finished at least fifteen minutes before the end of the allotted time you could raise your hand and be excused. Past that mark and you were stuck in that room until the bitter end. The exam room was in a building I had never stepped foot in previously and I couldn’t help but feel a bit intimidated by the whole process.

Friday morning I putzed about the flat. I made myself a late breakfast of a pepper, mushroom, and cheese omelette and some vegetarian sausage. I had a good appetite, none of that anxious starvation I used to experience when it came to testing. To be honest, I felt confident. I had called up past examination papers from the university’s website and taken one and a half for practice. I reasoned that whatever I didn’t remember at this point could not be recalled in the few hours before the examination and rather than torture myself over it, I would enjoy my breakfast and cup of Earl Grey.

Back in my room I watched a movie and generally sat around waiting for 1:45 to roll around so I could take the bus into town. In my boredom I called up another past exam and went through it. If I didn’t remember something, I just looked it up and wrote down the answer. I was calm. There was no panic today. How odd!

Soon I was meeting Sophie at the bus stop and we were climbing aboard the PR2 heading to our fate. We got off at the second stop and hurried through the rain towards Elvet Riverside where our exam was being held. Once we stepped inside I was ever so glad I had not had the pleasure of having classes in this building. It was a dingy, mid-twentieth century construction. The carpets were stained, the staircases well worn, and the furniture in the corridor soiled. The dark yellow walls (dark simply because of grime) did nothing to cheer. It was a depressing environment and hardly worthy of a top 100 university. This was where I would be taking my exam.

The corridor began to fill and soon students were standing practically on top of one another. The cacophony of nervous chatter filled the space and I began to feel as though my head would explode. I was bored. I just wanted to do something. I just wanted to take the damn test. Waiting in this hall filled with people who were anxiously joking, hurriedly review flashcards, or staring off into space was beginning to test my patience.

Finally an older gentleman poked his head out of our exam room. We would be taking our exam with another module. They were called in first and then we were seated. I dutifully placed all of my things against the wall and brought only three pencils, an eraser, a clear ruler, and my calculator to my seat. There were two blank examination booklets and a folded psychometric chart with the exam tucked inside. We also had a blue identification card.

Then came the routine I knew so well. Read the script with all of the instructions. Have the students fill out the information on the ID card and the examination booklet. Wait for the clock to strike…….and GO!

I opened the exam and saw that the questions were the same ones from the practice exams I had taken the day before and that morning. I chuckled and smiled. This was going to be a piece of piss. I tore through each question, only getting stumped once but writing my way around the answer as best I could. When I got to the relative humidity questions I nearly laughed out loud. I had done these this morning on the practice exam. I could almost remember the answers without doing the calculations. I finished the last few thoughts and looked at the clock. I had ten minutes before the room would be closed. I raised my hand, my booklet and materials were collected, I grabbed my things, and rushed out.

The door closed silently behind me and I was DONE.

I began to pack my pencils and calculator and put my jacket on when Sophie emerged from the examination room. We smiled at each other.

“That was…” she began.

“Easy?” I finished.

“Yeah, really easy.”

We both laughed as we exited the building back into the rainy May afternoon. 

Anobium Punctatum

I must apologise for neglecting my posting duties over the past two weeks. Oddly enough, I had so many demands on my time due to my coursework. It’s almost as if they expect me to do work for this degree. Shocking really.

To be honest, the past two weeks I have been gearing up for an exam in my Care of Collections module. Everyone off the course has been preparing and over-preparing. I myself went through all eighteen lecture presentations and made flashcards for only the most important points, which, unfortunately, meant ALL of the points. You see this was an exam that could and would ask anything about anything. The tiniest little afterthought in a lecture could turn into a question that would make even the most well-studied of us think they were suffering from the early stages of acute memory loss. In order to combat the stress and encourage us to band together in our time of need, four of us set up four group study sessions. We reserved a room in the Dawson Building twice and week in the hopes that at the very least the misery-loves-company adage would get us through.

The first revision session (okay so over here you don’t “study” you “revise” for an exam) was two Mondays ago. We met in the Birley Room and pulled up the first lecture’s PowerPoint presentation on the large projector. Then for the next two hours we went through each slide, furiously writing flashcards for ourselves. It was a bit inefficient and it was then that we came up with a plan for the next two sessions. On Thursday we would discuss and then practice using our psychometric charts to figure out relative humidity levels in various manufactured situations. The Monday after I was tasked with developing Pest Jeopardy. No not pest as in your annoying co-worker, pest as in fungi, insects, and rodents. You see, dear Reader, we had to know the scientific names of common insects found in museums because all museum professional can readily identify any insect by its scientific name. (That was sarcasm in case you were wondering.)

So over the weekend, well Sunday night to be more accurate, I put together a Jeopardy round on PowerPoint which featured all questions you could possibly think of regarding moulds and fungi and rots. Gems such as:

These fungi feed on both cellulose and lignin, their hyphae penetrate through the cell lumens of wood and eat away the whole cell wall.  This depletes the wood of all its substance and strength; it invariably cracks with a cuboid fracture.

What is holy-crap-we’re-all-going-to-fail-this-exam?

Then I put together a Double Jeopardy round for our insect friends. Three categories were devoted to scientific names of species from the Anobius Punctatem to Lepisma Saccharina. (Yes, I was able to just type those out without looking them up and that would be the Furniture Beetle and Silverfish.) I even constructed a Final Jeopardy question. The category was light and I knew most of us wouldn’t be wagering that much.

Monday was a truly gorgeous day. The sun was shining so brightly and it was at least 21˚C. I had left my sweaters and jeans behind and wore one of my light summer skirts and a tank top with a jacket. The jacket came off almost immediately. The sky was the perfect shade of blue and everyone was wearing smiles and sunglasses. Damn you, England! No one wants to go inside and study on a day like this!

Side note: I’ve been having various arguments with England over its peculiar weather patterns recently. You see I bought myself an astronomy kit over a month ago and I have been reading and studying the charts. All I’ve wanted to do since then was get outside at night and look up at the stars. So far most of my attempts have been foiled by cloud cover. I can be sure that no ancient civilisations in Britain could have ever worshipped the stars because YOU CAN NEVER SEE THEM!

I had to turn in an assignment on Monday before noon. The fifty pages of essay, evaluation, and appendices were burning a hole in my brand new rucksack so I headed down early. I was lucky enough to bump into Sophie and Alex. We agreed to meet up with Kate at New Inn in thirty minutes for a leisurely lunch before heading over to the Dawson Building for Jeopardy.

Oh that lunch was lush, to use a phrase I’ve learned here. Sophie and I arrived first and grabbed a table outside under an umbrella. Everything was summer. Everyone who passed by was dressed in their light clothes with sunglasses. The sun beamed down over everything and it was as though someone had turned the world to HD. The greens were greener, the blues bluer, and the very few puffy clouds in the sky were whiter. The smells, too, they were just like the summer smells from back home. Grass, fragrant flowers, the smell of sun-kissed skin. There is a very distinct summer smell I remember from being a kid and to this day I can’t identify what it is or where it comes from but it is absolutely the smell of summer. It was there as well.

We were soon joined by Alex and Kate and Amanda and Jeremy found us as well. We all sat around the table chatting, eating, and drinking in the day. Desperately unwilling to go to our self-imposed revision session. Finally, I stood up. All good things…

Pest Jeopardy was definitely a hit. It began as a terrifyingly humbling experience as none of us, not even me who had written some of the questions, could answer them all effectively. As we went through the questions over and over again they began to soak into our summer-addled skulls. By the time we got to the scientific names we were slightly punchy. This turned out to be to our advantage as we began coming up with the most bizarre (and effective) pneumonic devices.

“How are we ever going to remember that Anobium Punctatum is the Furniture Beetle, or any of these for that matter?” decried Kate.

I thought for a moment.

“What if we turned them into Harry Potter spells?” I suggested. I waved an imaginary wand and pronounced, “Anobium Punctatum” as though it were the levitation spell Wingardium Leviosa.

“Oh my gosh that’s brilliant!” Said Sophie.

We went through a few more. Kate made the brilliant observation that Lepisma Saccharina would fit nicely into the Maccarena song. So of course we all began singing: “Heyyyyy saccharina!”

There was also the story we made up to remember the four most common moulds, Aspergillus, Cladisporium, Paecilomyces and Penicillium. I’m not quite sure how it evolved really but it involved Jesus trying to buy asparagus and Penicillin with Pesos. Hey whatever works right?

By the end of the session we were all feeling much more confident about pests. As we turned off the lights in the room and closed the door Ill confess that I was humming the Lepisma Saccharina song. 

The Other Durham

May has come to Durham and it has brought with it longer days and warmer weather. It has also brought more deadlines. I have been struggling to get through essays, projects, and I still have an exam to prepare for. I had spent most of April working seven days a week and the stress and anxiety had begun to take its toll. I guess grad school really is hard, my friends weren’t lying. I was beginning to feel sick, rundown, irritable, and I was beginning to question what the hell I was doing here in the first place. Those friends that told me grad school was hard also told me that it had a way of crushing your soul and I found myself being flattened under the weight of it all. I hadn’t had a true break since December and one was not forthcoming until after this month. I’m fairly certain I was beginning to go quite mad. Last weekend I made the conscious decision not to do any work. It was a bank holiday (a three day weekend for my friends in the States) and I informed myself that on pain of insanity, no work would be completed, attempted, or even contemplated until Tuesday.

On Saturday I decided to walk into town. There wasn’t any specific reason to go except to get out of my tiny cell of a study bedroom. Staring at the walls was perhaps the least effective way to keep from doing work. Instead I headed outside with the vague notion of buying a new mug at Wittard’s. I set off on my normal route into town: head up South Road past the Science Site and make a left at the DSU to cross at Kingsgate Bridge then a right onto North Bailey and then onward to Market Square. I sighed at the mind-numbing familiarity of it all.

This has become normal. Oh God, this is…..ROUTINE!  I thought in horror. How had this happened? How had I begun to take Durham and living in England for granted? When had this happened? I felt ill. My time in England was rapidly coming to a close and there would only be a few more months during which I would call England home. The worst possible thing I could think of was to take that time for granted.

I veered off my path and up Elvet Hill Road. I decided to at least change my route and cross at Prebends Bridge, maybe this minute change in my route would reenergise me.

Prebends Bridge

I reached the roundabout and headed off toward the gate that lead to the river footpaths and my favourite bridge in Durham. Maybe seeing the Cathedral and Castle from there would remind me of the first time I stood there way back in September. As I rounded the corner and the bridge came into view I found myself turning away from the direction of town. I had never explored the river footpaths which ran south from the bridge and as I had nothing to do, I followed the wooded path away from my destination.

The sounds of the road died out very quickly and were replaced with bird songs, chattering squirrels, and the river. I felt my shoulder release and I took my first deep breath in months. I could feel my blood pressure begin to lower and the entire world began to slow down. It was as though I can slipped into a pool of clarity and I felt all my senses begin to retune to the sights, sounds, and smells around me. My mind erased the stress from previous months and…actually I can’t even tell you what my thoughts were. They simply existed and were gone. I do remember I thought nothing of the course, my essays, my obligations. I thought nothing about the loneliness that on occasion grips me so tightly as to choke any pleasure. I do remember thinking of my grandmother and I felt truly sad that I could not share this walk with her. It wasn’t a negative sadness though; it was that brand of sadness that help you recall the best of times. Those memories bubbled to the surface, danced around my thoughts, and then were gone. I continued walking.

The path

The omnipresent Cathedral

St. Oswald's

St. Oswald's churchyard with the Cathedral in the distance

 I looked up to my right and saw some old graves above me. I wasn’t sure where I was having never walked this way before. I looked at the river to my left and up on the opposite bank I saw the Cathedral. It’s one of those things that you cannot escape when you are in Durham. It is omnipresent. Perhaps that was the intent. My path petered out and I found myself in St. Oswald’s churchyard. I knew precisely where I was and I was terribly disappointed to have been dumped back onto the route I had purposely tried to avoid. I crossed Kingsgate Bridge and turned right down North Bailey and entered Market Square.

It was alive with people and my quiet fled before the masses. I hurried on to Wittard’s where I purchased another Alice in Wonderland mug. I had begun collecting them after the choir had given me the teapot as a gift after our March concert. It was one of the most thoughtful and unexpected gifts I’ve received and even now as I write this it is sitting on my shelf in a place of honour. I left the shop and headed back toward the Cathedral. I was determined to walk along the river back towards Howlands. I couldn’t stand to be out among so many people.

I stopped. Well, my thoughts stopped. I had just come back from London, a place brimming with humanity and I hadn’t had a problem dealing with the crowds. Did I? I reached Kingsgate and turned down the set of stairs alongside it which led to the footpaths. Maybe that was part of the stress? How long had it been since I had truly had a moment to myself? How long had it been that I had a chance to focus on anything but what was right in front of me; the trees, birds, river, pathway? I had been going like a freight train since January, trying to bury myself in work, trying desperately to get a first, clawing my way through assignments, and desperately hoping I wasn’t disappointing anyone along the way. This walk was the first time amid all of that that I had stopped to take in my surroundings. To remember that I was in another country and why I had decided to come here. I had sacrificed a lot to make it here and now I felt that I had been wasting a lot of my time burying myself in my work. Even when I hadn’t been working, I had been thinking about work.

I finally made it to the bottom of the stairs and I looked up at Kingsgate. Kingsgate had always been one of my least favourite of the bridges in Durham. It was built in the sixties and it was just this ugly concrete slab of a thing. Now that I saw it from underneath, it looked so different. It looked beautiful. How odd. All it needed was a different view point. Maybe that’s all I needed, too.

Kingsgate Bridge from a new perspective.

My thoughts slowed as I began to walk south along the footpath. The river was so near and I stopped several times to just stare at how it sparkled in the sunlight. I passed the wooden sheds where the rowing boats and equipment were kept. I stared into the woods to my right and saw abandoned stone walls overgrown with foliage. I passed under the archways of tree branches and along a stretch of the path lined with wild garlic. My breath slowed and found a rhythm more in tune with my surroundings and I decided that this was something I had to do more regularly. No. As often as I possibly could. I wanted to be able to find this sort of peace whenever I felt my sanity slipping away under the crushing weight of grad school and societal obligations.

The River Wear

The path and boathouses

A gorgeous tree hidden near the path

Prebends Bridge

Sunlight on the Wear

Prebends Bridge

A little friend I met on my way

I finally made it up to Prebends Bridge and I realised that my journey was nearing its end. I would be reentering the realm of grad school with its work, people, and stress. As I crossed the bridge, I felt that comforting mantle of nature slip from my shoulders. My thoughts began to tune into a different channel and the quiet calm was gone. Yet, it wasn’t gone completely. The memory of it was thick and palpable and I knew that it would stay with me for at least the rest of the weekend. When it left me for good, I would know it was time for another walk in the other Durham.

You can't take the sky from me

There is something interesting about revisiting favourite films or television shows sporadically over the course of your life. It’s a growth chart of sorts. As your circumstances change you find yourself identifying differently with characters and situations. Sometimes it comes as a complete surprise when you find yourself on a completely different side of a story, rooting for a completely different character. You begin to think about where you were in life the last time you watched that show and all the things that have happened to change your perspective. You mentally pencil in a mark on the growth chart of life and carry on until the next time you come across it again.

I had an experience like that very recently. Some dear friends of mine introduced me to Firefly about ten years ago. Instantly, I fell in love with that universe (or ‘verse I should say). The aesthetic was gorgeous to a fan of Westerns and science fiction. I loved the use of language and the extrapolation that English and Mandarin would be the surviving tongues from Earth That Was. It was clever. It was intellectual. What’s more, the characters were real. They never felt scripted like so many television shows do where the characters know exactly what to say in every situation. These seemed to be real people; people who found themselves in extraordinary circumstances, but more often in ordinary ones. Needless to say, I ploughed through all fourteen episodes within a week.

The Me of Ten Years Ago instantly latched on to Inara. I recognised some of myself there and more of who I wanted to be. Years of dance had given me some of the grace and physical poise she possessed. I absolutely shared her love of fine things. I was never as measured as she was. I strove for that controlled, witty, playfulness wrapped up in a package of calm and elegance. I wanted that sort of polish and in certain social situations I even managed to achieve it. None of this is to say that I didn’t love the other characters and empathise with them to a certain point. In fact when asked I always said my favourite character was Mal (he still is actually), but I saw more of myself and who I wanted to be in Inara.

It has probably been about three or so years since I watched Firefly. It wasn’t because I stopped liking the show, but more because I’d get sad that there weren’t more stories. My empathy with Inara had mildly fallen away over that time, but she was still the one that I would identify with most out of the female cast. One night about a week ago, I just wanted to be back in the‘verse. I missed it and so I began watching again. I remembered why I had fallen in love with it and I laughed at the jokes all over again as if they were new and I got anxious whenever the crew was in a tight spot. I noticed a few new things about how I was feeling, too.

Up until I had moved abroad, I had always had a place to go to if I needed to, a place that was within two hours of wherever I was. I had a home. Living abroad, has given me a really different perspective. For one thing, while I may have campus housing, it’s only guaranteed through September. After that, me and all my stuff has to hightail it to somewhere else. Over here in England, I don’t really have a place to fall back on. I don’t have the security I had when I was home. Everything here is mutable. It is a subtle but powerful realisation and suddenly I truly understood instability feels like and some of the characters began to look and feel different to me.

As I watched the familiar episodes which were feeling so different, I began to recognise something else. I was getting rather annoyed with Inara. Honestly, why was the pretence so important? I found myself rolling my eyes at some of the things she would say and do. Not terribly often because she is still a well written character, but I just couldn’t agree with her. That was odd. Why was I not understanding her anymore? I was getting more and more frustrated with her for not being forthright with Mal. Of course, there is all that companion stuff, but is a job really more important than your happiness? 

Oh. Ohhhhh!

I realised two years ago that no job was more important than my happiness. I had floated from teaching job to teaching job, never feeling quite happy or fulfilled. Often I found myself completely at odds with administrators who put their own egos and desires above the needs of the students. I found myself in a job that was being vilified by politicians. I began to wonder why I was spending so much of my life doing something that was crushing my spirit from the top down. I suppose I kept going because that’s what you're supposed to do. Losing my job two years ago changed me. I decided that I never wanted to work for people who so aggressive and egotistical that their solution is to remove as many people with different view points as they can. I never again wanted to work for people who didn't value me as a human being and who didn't value my perspectives. I would not allow a huge portion of my life to be spent feeling the way I felt that last year I taught. My life is too precious to waste on depression and anxiety. I decided I’d rather be unemployed than work in a job that stifled my spirit and creativity. It's how I still feel. No job is worth your happiness.

As I reached the halfway point in the series I found myself identifying hugely with Zoe. This was a great surprise to me. When I was twenty I liked Zoe but for the most part she never really appeared on my radar when I watched the show. Now, as I watched I really saw her and she was me. Here was someone with no fixed place, just a ship in space. Here was someone who had been maligned by the powers that be and had fought to do what was right. Here was someone trying to carve out a life on her own terms. I also began to admire her interactions with Wash. Here (finally!) was a healthy television relationship where a couple actually talked (and argued) about how they were feeling. No more of the pretence and dancing around. Nothing perfect, just life.

As I finished watching the series, I began to trace the course of my life over the past ten years. I thought about the situations and relationships that I had had. I thought about how far I had traveled physically and as a human. Overall, I'd say I'm pretty happy being a Zoe. Much happier than I would be if I were still an Inara I think. Of course, I begin to wonder who will I be in another ten years.