Here and Back Again

Sometimes life just turns itself inside out. I suspect this happens rather a lot, but right now it's happening so that I notice. See, on Saturday morning I'm flying up to my university town. In some senses, this is the standard 'moving out' box checked in the great big growing up checklist. But -

I'm actually flying back to the city I've lived in for the last two years. It's just that (except for my sister) the rest of the family aren't coming with. I'm going to end up in an area I know far better than the one I'm living in now. I'm going back to my very own bed and my desk and my books. Oh glorious books! That may seem a little ridiculous when you know that in the room I'm currently sharing with my sister, I use more shelf space for books than for clothes, but I really am looking forward to being able to pull out Brewster's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable whenever I want it or to check a detail from my biography of Lewis Carroll just as soon as I get home*. I will miss my family, but there's a strong tug from the other side too.

On the same note, I'm going back to people I already know and a bunch of systems I know how to work. Sure, some stuff will be new (we'll have to do our own banking - ick), but a lot of it won't be. And a lot of what I'm expected to struggle with seems more fun than intimidating. One girl asked me how we would manage cooking and I very nearly assured her that my parents would be  fine without us. (In my defense, I was trying to keep track of three conversations at once just then.) I'm sure we'll make grocery shopping mistakes, but I'm looking forward to 'Maritzburg supermarkets where things are organised the way they should be (not that I'm biased or anything).

I don't think the leaving/coming home paradox is at all unique to me - everybody (well, 'most everybody) grows up and moves on. I do think I have a slightly unusual logistical twist on it though! And since I won't have a new city to explore, I might need a list of books to occupy myself with until the deluge of coursework is keeping me busy. If making lists of books to read for fun ranks that high on my priority list, life really can't be that bad. I'm looking forward to seeing what 2012 sem. 1 has to throw at me^†.

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*I realise I could check details online, but that's just not the same.
†Yep, semester one. Our school year matches the calendar year. (Possibly it's different because summer holidays run over Dec/Jan in the southern hemisphere.)