A Bend in the Road

I’ve been holed up at home for the past two days. Normally this would not be a problem – we’re all aware I’m a homebody. A bit of studying, a bit of writing, a bit of baking, pottering around with the house all to myself. The only barricade between me and the enjoyment of this peace and quiet is the fact that I’ve been practically maimed by the influenza virus. Take your Vitamin C supplements kids, the one going round right now is a whopper. I have felt absolutely rotten.

There, that’s my geriatric-style whinge about the state of my health over and done with. Now we can move on to more important issues. Like how emotional I just became reading the end of Anne of the Island. Yes, I’m aware that I probably do invest too much emotional energy in fictional characters, but I felt an enormous sense of relief and joy when Anne finally accepted Gilbert’s proposal, and they

walked home together in the dusk, along winding paths fringed with the sweetest flowers that ever bloomed, and over haunted meadows where winds of hope and memory blew.

Anne Shirley really is one of the greatest literary heroines, and the strong characters, wonderful humour and descriptive writing style of L.M. Montgomery means that the Anne of Green Gables series never fails to carry me away and make me feel better in “times of trial”.

Speaking of trial, I really believe I’m going to have to give up Japanese. I've been thinking about it for a while, and it’s going to feel so surreal and a little heartbreaking, as this is my tenth year studying it. The revised course at university however is just miles too complicated, and it’s taken the joy out of learning Japanese that I once felt. It’s a shame to give it up, but I’m determined to keep going with it in my own time. The other disadvantage is that it means there’ll be an extra semester at the end of my degree in order to fit in all the units for a new major. But I think it will be worth it in the end. Better to change now than to struggle and be miserable for another two years, and it has been something which I’ve been stressing about since the beginning of semester.

Choosing either French or Writing as my new major is what my gut is telling me is the right thing to do, so begins a new chapter I suppose. It will definitely alter my career trajectory not having Japanese as a major, and it will take a little while to get used to not studying Japanese as it's something that's been a part of my life for so long. I hope I'm making the right decision.

I guess I'm learning that even the most carefully-made plans can be derailed, blowing everything wide open and making things uncertain which you thought would always be a constant. The future is so much more uncertain than we expect or want it to be. But I trust that it will all turn out alright in the end.

There is a quote from Anne of Green Gables which is always a comfort to me when life is uncertain:

There’s always another bend in the road.