I guess the best time of my life was the eight months in 1995 when I was at Goodenough College in London, England, researching my Ph.D. thesis. (My sister had been there the year before and put in a good word for me!) Aside from my research, I saw about ten plays and visited lots of museums. I did a whole lot of walking around the city and wore out a new pair of shoes in just four months.
In the later months, I got involved in a lot of activities there. Philip Chang (a Korean-Australian law student) and I handled the video club, and we put on lots of Disney movies for the kids on Saturday afternoons. I also joined the choir (we did a Christmas concert) and collected lots of bottles and such for recycling.
My father visited me in June and my sister in September, which provided a nice change. My father said he was proud of me: it was largely the first time that I'd lived alone. I remember that when I was newly arrived there I bought some canned goods, then realized that I hadn't brought a can opener! (All those little things you don't think of...)
I also remember that in the laundromat among the coin-op dryers that would automatically stop after 10 minutes or so, there was one that would keep going forever, until you stopped it! I bought a tiny TV set but didn't watch it much. (I did watch a documentary about European silent movies on Sunday afternoons.) And I went on a couple of protest marches decrying the West's inaction over Bosnia, and went to see speeches by Christopher Hitchens and Richard Leakey.
I've visited London several times, staying at Goodenough College again. And I'm going again next month!
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