Coming to England as an English major was going to affect my literary side one way or another; I knew it. When you read back home about the mist, the gray days, and the black alleys at night, you can't help but think that your life in here will be no less than a novel. At the beginning I just sat in Essex, staring at the blue sky, the horizon line and the greenery of the country side interrupted by high roofs of brick houses. At that point I was so desperate for inspiration or for something that connected me to my English major side that almost forced the assimilation of the surroundings as magical rather than just let it happen. Everything changed when I came to my project. Before I even thought of the opening song of Sweeny Todd and pranced around saying “there is no place like London,” I wanted to take some time and be the tourist. While visiting all the must sees in the city, I read the sign about the horses, but it wasn’t until a month later that my mind turned it into a metaphor. Horses, as royal as they are, may bite or kick because they are horses linked to an instinctive nature. English people, as polite and proper as I keep thinking they generally are, are just people; they may behave accordingly. I came here to find that people were no puzzle to me. I was to face with them the same situations I encountered back home.
The story might have some omens as well. One of these days, as I came to a crossroad, I could hear the sound of a crow from the nearest treetop. It might not mean anything since I’m in England now and crows abound in here, but I couldn’t help but go back to my study of archetypal symbols and feel threatened. Is this event foreseeing something? My literary side is inclined to believe yes, while my reason keeps telling me such worry does not have reason to be.
The third and most interesting literary figure in my life is something simpler but not less important. There’s a flyer that I pasted on my door that keeps falling every day. I picked it up while walking in Soho; the radiant smile of the girl who was giving them away was so compelling that I had to even walk closer and take it. I kept it with me and taped it against the door as a reminder of one of my daily battles, an ideal I definitely have to pick up from the floor constantly. The funny part is that every day that the flyer falls down and I have to post it again, I can’t help but read the inscription and feel challenged; it's because of the metaphor. What does the flyer say? Two words: End Homophobia.