Day 1: Departure

August 31st.

After almost a whole year of planning, here we are sitting in YVR waiting to board British Airways flight BA84 for London. Mixed feelings? Excited? Apprehensive? Confident?

Actually, none of the above. Exhaustion dampens all feelings entirely.

It has been a difficult year. Moving back to Vancouver after (a) France and (b) Nova Scotia was wonderful. I entered UBC expecting to fit right back into academic life and perform as a student as successfully as I had 25 years ago. Never mind the gap (more on that phrase later). Never mind that I hadn't written an essay or read a scholarly paper for quarter of a century. Never mind that I'd missed decades of advances and changes in my field. Of course I could take on three graduate courses, three evenings and a Saturday morning of private teaching, four class hours of TA work at the university plus another four hours of marking and preparation for the two discussion groups I taught, plus some office hours. That would only add up to twenty-six hours a week of mandatory in-class attendance plus another eight hours of marking and preparation. Thirty-two hours a week of work and class time would leave ample room for assigned reading of two-to-three hundred pages a week, assigned reports and summaries with biweekly 8-to-10 page essays in two classes, presentations and weekly composition exercises. I could do it!

I don't need to tell you what happened. It's just as you thought.

But still I learned a lot. More importantly, I learned that I was not going to find the kind of autonomous, in-depth and contemplative course of study that I was looking for at a graduate level. Another complication for me was the division of musicological studies into either Music Theory or Music History. I wanted a broader approach as well as the opportunity and time to deepen my understanding of new concept and ideas.

So without much hope at all, I applied to three universities in England: Durham, Oxford and Cambridge. I submitted some examples of my work, and in the case of Cambridge, spent much of my second term at UBC working on the 5-page proposal for a masters' dissertation required as part of my application. Durham and Oxford accepted me, much to my surprise and delight, and Cambridge invited me to an interview with my chosen supervisor and the professor who specialized in the subject of my proposal.

An Oxford or Cambridge interview is notorious for being gruelling and nerve-wracking. Mine was fun and I came out of it thinking how well it had gone. The next morning, I began to think how many points I had missed, and how I blagged my way through something I'd forgotten, and gradually realised that I'd talked my way out of a place at Cambridge.

So when the letter of acceptance arrived by email, I felt all the relief and excitement of my 17-year old self hearing that I'd been accepted into my first choice of art school in London.

After that, most of you know that I was swinging between Oxford or Cambridge right up until the middle of July. Talking to my supervisor at Cambridge again settled the pendulum firmly pointing to Cambridge.

So here we are at Vancouver airport, quite unbelievably en route to my new identity as a post-graduate student at Cambridge University!!!

And after dinner at the post-security airport branch of Coal Harbour's Lift Restaurant, we are sitting next to gate D62 in Vancouver airport, the most beautiful airport I know:

We saw our luggage being loaded onto the huge Airbus:

And after nine hours night flying we picked it up at London Heathrow, all ready to begin.....................

.................... Day TWO! London!! (coming soon - please return for more)..........