Yesterday was kind of a big day in terms of our repatriation to the US. It was my last day of work and the day the movers came to pack up all the stuff we're shipping to Portland.
My workday went by in a bewildering, frantic flash. Because I had to do one-on-one assessment (grading) with 35 students from Monday through Thursday, I didn't have any time to do all the stuff you need to do to effectively hand over your job to someone else. I had to try to pack it all into one day, which didn't really work because I had so much to do. And I had a lot of students coming by to say goodbye with various tokens of their appreciation. It was overwhelming, but really nice to get so much good feedback and know that I will be missed.
During the last couple of hours of the day I was rushing around like a headless chicken giving this stuff to that person, dropping these off in the office over there, saying bye to various colleagues, and generally fretting about all the stuff I didn't get to finish. In fact, I was the last person to leave the office because I carried on working for an hour after the college closed. My plan to leave a clean, clear desk and all the loose ends tied up had been severely downgraded to getting the bare essentials done and getting out of there.
Then I had a somewhat odd final exit of the building. Because I had decided to leave my office keys on the manager's desk, I had to lock the office from the inside and then exit from the fire escape into the back courtyard. I was in a bit of a rush because my bus was due in about 5 minutes, so I tried to cut back around the side and into the ground floor of the building so I could go out the doors nearest the bus stop, but when I got inside I discovered the main doors locked. So I had to make my way down a pitch-black corridor, past the film studios, up a small flight stairs and out another fire exit (luckily, all the fire exits in this building have non-functioning alarms), which I then had trouble closing from the outside despite the fact that EVERY other time anyone has exited from there they have to take extra precautions to make sure the door didn't latch closed if they needed to get back in that way.
Alas, I made my escape, in a hurry, and made it to the bus stop just in time to be able to wait around for the 10-minutes-late bus. Then it started to dawn on me that I am actually quite annoyed that I couldn't have a nice, calm last day saying farewell to people, walking around the campus to see things for the last time, and then leave peacefully. I suppose my exit is in keeping with the tumultuous nature of how things work there, especially on the film course. Oh well!
While all this was happening at work, Kristen was at home waiting for the movers to pack up our stuff and load it on a truck. It went quite smoothly and we actually came in under the original 180 cubic foot estimate; our stuff totaling about 120 instead. That should make it a bit cheaper. They came around 11am and it only took them 2-3 hours to finish. Now our boxes are probably sitting on a palette in London somewhere, waiting to be loaded into a shipping container bound for the Port of Los Angeles. I think it's kind of cool that our stuff is going to get on a ship and travel through the Panama Canal. Oh, the things it will see!
This flat is furnished, so when you walk around, it kind of seems like the movers haven't been here, which only adds to the illusion that we're not actually moving. We're just packing our suitcases and going on vacation.
Last night, Kristen and I met up with my (now) former colleagues and went to a couple of pubs. Not Kristen's preferred activity by any stretch of the imagination, but she relented! It was fun to pal around with them a bit and I was able to resist their attempts to get me completely smashed. Though no one vomited, it was a great display of British drunkenness on a "night out". Particularly in the second (and last) pub we went to, The Goat & Tricycle. As we were getting ready to leave, a pugilistic, drunk couple of girls started arguing with one of my colleagues (who admittedly is a bit of a shit-stirrer). They made us leave by separate entrances and then we stood outside on the sidewalk carrying on for about 15 minutes. It was a fitting end to our social life in England, except for one last thing: they're taking me paintballing on Sunday. I have heard rumors that I will be target Numero Uno, so I have a feeling I am going to have a lot of bruises and welts by the end of the day!
On Monday, Kristen is going to her campus for the last time to have a final meeting and lunch with her PhD supervisor, as well as making arrangements to have her PhD printed and bound in leather (as required by the university). We could have gotten that done a long time ago if the external examiners would have acted a bit quicker. Kristen finally heard back from one of them (an approval of her changes), but is still waiting on the second one (the one that asked for the most changes). We will probably end up having to do the printing from the US. Luckily, there is a company on the Arts Institute campus that can do it and we have enlisted the help of one of my colleagues to collect them when they are done and deliver them to the university.
Though we only have a little over three days left here, we are anxious to leave. No point hanging around here any longer!
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