The debauchery of travel

I am not at IU right now.

I am at home near Chicago, waiting for the University College London school year to start so I can fly over and take a semester in a new place.

I am currently experiencing what some actors refer to as “pre-show jitters,” a phenomenon in which everything you’ve prepared for and looked forward to has the potential to blow up in your face in front of all your friends.

And I know students can go abroad for just the stupidest reasons.

But part of my crisis comes from the fact that I cannot, for the life of me, pinpoint my own stupid reason.

Part of it comes from a recent tarot card reading that assured some prosperity but mostly violence, the devil, broken aspirations and death.

Then there’s the fact that almost all my knowledge of the U.K. comes from either “Harry Potter” or “Skins.”

So, when people ask me, “Why London?” in response to hearing my abroad plans, I have little to share. Isn’t it enough to say, “I just want a change of scenery”?

We’re all nomadically inclined. I refuse to believe that any student living at a landlocked university has not, at one time or other, had a daydream about flying away, sailing away or driving away in a car until the tank runs out.

It is human to want to leave everything. And while I love Indiana, I don’t know why I should need to provide a reason for wanting to leave. Everybody wants to get out of his or her comfort zone a little, and everybody wants to abandon their own messed-up systems for another, different messed-up system. But mark my words, if Romney wins, I’m not coming back.

To correct myself, I actually have many reasons to share, but I have little I want to share with the public. For example, I won’t say I want to go to England because they speak English there and that eliminates one step for me. I won’t say I’m going to meet cute, intelligent men, or that I’m going mostly for the library/museum scene.

I probably can’t say overcast and rainy is my favorite weather, cobblestone streets make me giddy or I really want to walk through the park where Perdita and Pongo meet in the animated film “101 Dalmatians.”

No, all these things would probably seem rather flip, so I usually say, “I just want a change of scenery,” they look at me like I’m crazy and the conversation deflates.

­— ftirado@indiana.edu