Wheaton in... Wheaton?

When you’re part of a study abroad program called “Wheaton in England,” you assume that you’re actually going to be in England. But you’re not. Or at least I’m not. Not yet, anyhow. They tell me, “Don’t worry, you will be soon! But first, you have two weeks on campus in Wheaton as preparation for your time overseas.” Which sounds legit until I find out that these two weeks of “preparation” are actually a hellish concoction of significant sleep loss mashed up with 400-page books, intensive literary analysis, at least 25 hours of class time a week, plus at least twice that many hours in out-of-class work, and an absurd variation of bagged lunches. 

And I’m paying money to do this.

Thank God they provide the tea (of which I’ve consumed an ungodly number of cups).  

Most of the students in the program are living on campus in apartments, but I’m staying off campus with my grandmother. She goes bed early, so I am often left sitting alone on the couch, papers and books strewn about me, waiting for the sentient lamp to turn off of its own accord as it does every night a little after 10 pm. Sometime before midnight, I creep down to the empty basement and fall asleep on one of the guest beds, tossing my homework on the unused bed beside me. Then the next morning I begin all over again—classes 10:10 to 3:40, with an hour for lunch. There is no time for anticipating adventures in the UK, no time for anything but packing lunches, studying late, speed reading articles, and drinking tea in between classes and trips to the bathroom. There is, at the very least, the entertainment of seeing the same mess of people doing the same things as me day after day—learning the color scheme of their clothes, deciding if their jokes are actually funny or not, and finding out if their taste in books matches mine.

I’m told that our time on campus is busy so that our time in England doesn’t have to be, which makes sense, I suppose. But honestly, I doubt I’ll remember much of this week at all beyond vague memories of a black VW bug and the pristine rows of Blanchard 139. Everyone complains, making bad seventeenth century puns about being so “donne,” but while watching hand after hand go up during class, I suspect that they don’t really mind. 

Heaven knows that I complain to anyone who will listen, but the truth is, I've realized that I enjoy 400-page books, think literary analysis is sort of fun, don’t mind the long hours, and could eat boiled eggs every day for lunch and never tire of them. Of course, I hope that the time in England will be more relaxing than the time here in Wheaton, but as long as the complimentary tea remains complimentary, I have good reason to believe that the remainder of the preparation time will be satisfyingly exhausting in all the ways I love best. And I'm perfectly alright with that.