I wrote this last fall and for reasons I can’t identify, I never posted it. Since I will be returning to Ghana for spring break in a few short weeks, it seems especially appropriate now, even if it is a bit different from the vast majority of posts on this blog.

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“Morning is the worst idea ever.” I send this tweet out from bed before I pull my new duvet tighter around me. I can hear the courtyard being hosed down through my window and sifting through my front door are the sounds of people conversing in this language I still don’t understand as they exit the elevator.

The joys of living on the ground floor.

Fine. I’ll wake up. I scroll through my Twitter feed a bit before emerging from my bed. I haven’t gotten used to the fact that all of my friends are anywhere from six to nine hours behind me.

I turn on my spastic coffee maker and take a quick shower. The quick shower turns into a long one because I get distracted watching the steam rise and drift out the window. I amble about the kitchen in my towel, drinking my first of many cups of coffee for the day, and scramble two eggs for breakfast.

I poke around Twitter and Facebook a little more over breakfast, seeing what everyone is doing and reading back home. I turn on my computer and start drafting an assignment for one of my classes.

At ten till noon I start gathering up reading assignments, pens, and my notebook for class. I still haven’t figured out how to lock my door without a bit of a fight. I hurry past cafes and a creperie along Rue Saint Dominique, getting to Avenue Bosquet just as the light changes for me to cross.

Late at night, almost four years ago, I was sitting on a train to New York where I would board a flight to London and then another to Accra, Ghana. After months of relative calm over the distant prospect of my semester abroad, I suddenly felt butterflies made of steel punching my insides. I got out my brand new travel notebook and struggled to find the right words. I wrote for half the ride but everything felt ridiculous. I was nervous as hell, but equally as excited. It struck me all at once that I was starting an adventure, and that it would be a big one.

A rare breeze filters through the classroom. We are discussing responses to development theory in communications. Kwame Nkrumah’s name is mentioned and I get a little giddy at the reference to Ghana’s first president, and the feeling of possessing some sort of special knowledge. I write the name in my notebook with an exclamation point as though this is all that needs to be said on the subject of neo-colonialism.

On a typically blistering day in Accra, a guide at the Nkrumah memorial tried to explain to us the way in which his country’s relationship with Nkrumah’s memory changed over the years. The subtle way in which time changes perceptions. Then, too, I was distracted by the fountains. I wished I could get away with running through them. It was only much later that I actually thought about what he was saying.

As class ends we are reminded that we will have to submit our research proposals soon. I still haven’t decided on a topic. I walk home mulling over different ways to analyze communications and media theory in the so-called developing world. Graduate school still feels like a shock to my system, even five weeks in.

The sun peeks through the trees as I cross Avenue Bosquet again. I trade my reading assignments for my laptop and head back out, navigating my way past shoe shops and boulangeries towards Rue Amelie and our graduate student lounge.

Armed with a cup of Nespresso loaded with milk and sugar, I turn on my laptop. Another few minutes is devoted to trolling the digital lives of faraway friends before getting back to coursework. A former coworker has a thousand questions about Paris. I appreciate the reminder that I am here, that I am traveling. But grad school in Paris is still grad school; I have emails from professors and I need to double-check the syllabus for one of my classes. The red items in my calendar — DUE! EXAM! — seem frighteningly close on the horizon.

The days of hauling my suitcase on and off of planes, trains, automobiles, and a couple buses were marked by that unrelenting tension of those over-caffeinated butterflies in my stomach. For a little over a week after that moment on the train, I had this ever-present feeling that something was happening and that there was some greater significance I just wasn’t getting. Something big was starting.

Through the grad lounge window I can see that the light outside is waning, beckoning me home to my little appartement. The end of another day in my little adventure.