But you just touch the distance...

Everything on campus is under construction, it seems. False green and yellow walls erect themselves, dictating my path and I cannot seem to find the Arts Millennium Building. I swear I was just here yesterday....

The quadrangle. Just your typical building here in Galway!

I'm sweating. I am nervous. I have taken way too long off of school to be back.  

Will they expect me to use British English? 

Am I allowed to use MLA formatting? 

How does one spell honor? Honour? Center? Centre?

Where the hell is this classroom? 

What time is it?

Am I already late?

Do I remember how to read?

What was I supposed to read again?

I hope I brought the right books....

Where the HELL is this classroom?! 

I climb some scaffolding-type temporary stairs and suddenly I am in the right building. 

Of course...climb THROUGH the construction to get to class.

It's this thing I am learning. Don't bother going around anything, just get THROUGH it.

It's tiny, this building. A small little space, with a few small rooms and some lecture halls of sorts. Room 203 is what I am searching for...

I look for signs, anything similar to what I am studying... 

Doors are labeled "French" or "Mandarin"... not quite what I am going for, though I am sure they are interesting classes nonetheless. I find a sign that says "200-206 --->" and assume that's my best bet. It is a corridor of doors. None of them are labeled, the hall is very tight. I feel like I am in a closet of closets. The walls are a dark charcoal grey and there are suddenly no windows. 
This cannot be the right place...In my panicked thinking I don't look up and walk directly into a human being. I almost scream she has startled me so in this dark little corner. 

"Oh. Um. Hi, sorry!" I gasp at her. This is why I shouldn't be allowed in public. This is why I should not have gone back to school. I'm flushed and almost drop my books.

"It is okay. Are you for MACC?" Her accent, thick and Polish, throws me for a second. I am just beginning to differentiate between Irish dialects and accents, and I always take a second to register new sounds. 

"I am. Are you?" I smile nervously at her, though she seems very kind and gentle. She smiles back. 

"Yes."

I look around and realize there are a few of us here, about six, waiting to be let into what I can only imagine will also be a small room. A few minutes later two Professors arrive and laugh at all of us.

 "Good to see you are on time. Just so you know, there is a key just for this occasion, hidden here." One of them lifts up a picture frame and a single key falls to the ground with a special sort of clack. "This classroom is yours, now. If ever you need to get in early, just remember the key is here for you. Please just make sure you put it back." 

With the door open we all file in, and suddenly everything seems okay. A small table, a small group of students, and a few Professors. I am calmed by this, this scholastic setting. We get a list of students and I realize there are only nine others in my program. I am excited by the thought of getting to know a group of students so well. Even more excited am I to meet all the Professors that will truly impact my education here. 

We sit and casual introductions begin. 
"This is your room, for the rest of the year this is your space." 

"Hi, I'm an English Major..."
"Hi, I studied Economics..."
"I focused on history and literature..."
"I studied Literature..."
....
The introductions are great. We get a chance to hear about each other, about ourselves, about the Professors and what this class will be like. Arduous, tenuous, strenuous and wondrous. I find myself getting more and more excited and far less nervous.  Throughout it all I tap my fingers together. The cheap jewelry I am wearing has turned my fingers green, but I don't care. I am finally back at school. If I thought I felt at home in the water I feel even more at home in school. I guess the perfect mix will be school near water. Perhaps one day they can make a school, for cultural studies, underwater, and then I will be truly happy. Until then, this will suffice. One of the professors, in particular, says exciting things. 

"I like to look at how literature is shaped, changed and dictated by colonialism. I like to look at language and the way its structure changes on impact with other, colonial languages. I am excited to look at visual language, as well." He looks at me. I had mentioned that I tried to look at the carving in New Zealand as a written language and was trying to look at the impact of colonial British English on written languages in other countries. I can tell we would work closely together. 
 I am reminded  of my all time favorite passage ever written by anybody ever in the entire world of writing ever (can you tell I like it?)

 

 "Oiseau de Cham, you write. Very nice. I, Solibo, I speak. You see the distance? In your book on the watermama, you want to capture the word in your writing, I see the rhythm you try to put into it, how you want to grab words so they ring in the mouth. You say to me: Am I doing the right thing, Papa? Me, I say: One writes but words, not the word, you should have spoken. To write is to take the conch out of the sea to shout: here's the conch! The word replies: Where's the sea? But that's not the important thing.  I am going and you're staying. I spoke but you, you're writing, announcing that you come from the word. You give me your hand over the distance. It's all very nice, but you just touch the distance..."

-Patrick Chamoiseau, Solibo Magnificent