Where I'm At

As of the beginning of September, I moved back out of my parents' basement and returned to Halifax.  This is a good thing.  I love my parents, and it's not like they're strict or even tried to control my life in any way at all, but after being independent for several years, moving back in with them was kind of brutal.  So I'm glad to be back out on my own.

Most of friends graduated with me last year, and have moved away to jobs/further education in other parts of the province/country/world, including both of my roommates.  And all of the friends who did stick around kept the same living arrangements as they had before, which left me kind of stuck for housing options.  I considered living completely on my own, and that was always the back-up plan, but I'm scared that if I lived alone I would just become a complete hermit, and never leave home except to go to class, and talk to myself all the time, and fall out of touch with all of my friends, and just generally not be in a good state of mental health.  So instead I moved into a house where all the rooms are rented out separately, meaning that I now live with three total strangers.  Well, I guess they're not entirely strangers any more, since we've lived together for a few weeks, but it's still weird.  They're all really nice, but it still seems odd to be living with them.  Living with strangers is just a completely different way of life than living with friends (or parents).

I love the house, though.  It's bigger than my old apartment, and it's above ground instead of in a basement, so having enormous windows in my room feels like such a luxury and I love it.  Also there's a nice backyard with a deck, and the "furnished downstairs" includes a PIANO in the dining room, which is really exciting.  Plus it's closer to campus than my old place, which is nice (and will be even nicer once winter hits, I'm sure).

Of course, the reason I'm back in Halifax at all is because I've just started law school, which is also weird.  I can't even decide yet whether or not I like it.  It's just all so completely different than anything I've studied before that it's hard to get my head wrapped around it.  On the bright side, I was sort of expecting the profs to be strict and stern but they're totally just regular profs, and the other students aren't as competitive and snobby as I was afraid they would be, so that's all good.

Other than that, at the end of summer my friends and I went on our annual backwoods camping trip, which was excellent, and we went for five days instead of just three like we usually do, so it was extra-excellent.  This past weekend I went rock-climbing for the first time, which was fun but also difficult and somewhat frustrating.  I would really like to go again, because by the time I felt like I was starting to figure out the strategy and technique side of it, I was getting too physically tired to actually do it.  Also this weekend I went to the Word on the Street Festival and appreciated all the books and all the book/writing/literacy related organizations and all the people being interested in and excited about books, and I picked up a copy of Ransom Riggs' Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, which I'm really excited to start reading.

I think that is everything important (and a bunch of things that aren't).

I would if I could

Something that I absolutely love is long, leisurely meals with a large crowd of people.  The kind of meals where you have a long table full of people who can talk and laugh for hours.  Meals with lots of courses.  It doesn't have to be a fancy meal.  Just slow.  Relaxed.  I love that sort of shared time, just appreciating each other's company without distractions or disturbances, but just being in everyone's company, enjoying the simple sensory pleasures of the meal.  I don't get to do this very often because it's hard to get that many people together and usually the only places you can get multi-course meals are expensive restaurants.

I also enjoy summer Saturdays on my own.  A typical Saturday like this would usually involve going to the farmer's market, wandering around and smelling all the wonderful things and watching all the interesting people, having crêpes for breakfast and buying some fresh produce and flowers.  Then I'd curl up at my favourite coffee shop with a chai latte and my notebook to write for a while, and stop in at the used book store and the thrift store on my way home.  I like having adventures with other people too, of course, but there's just something satisfying about doing things by myself, so that I can go at exactly my own pace and stop to look at all the things I find interesting without feeling like I'm slowing down everyone else.  I don't get to have these sorts of days very often because summer only has so many weekends, and I can't spend all of them on my own.

I also love camping, like really really really love, but sadly I only get to go once or twice a year now that my family doesn't really go any more and my friends are more dispersed and it's just harder to organize.