I ran with the Cambridge cross country club this morning. The pack leader looks at me and asks, “So you’re a half-miler yeah?”

I reply, “Yes, I run the half-mile and mile.” A hush fell over the group, which consisted mainly of 5k and 10k road runners and half-marathoners. After about a minute of silence the pack leader turns to me and asks, “Can you hold your distance?” in the same tone of voice senior fraternity brother would ask a pledge, “Can you hold your liquor?”

I replied in a cowboy accent, “Damn straight.”

“Good lad,” he smirked and we floored it for the remaining five miles.

All before my first class this morning.

Adaptation is kind of a funny concept. When I arrived in Cambridge 38 days ago, I had a feeling that my study abroad semester would go something like this: Leave USA, go to this “foreign” country for a few months, return to USA and life goes on completely as usual. I had in mind that Cambridge was just going to be a few months vacation. 38 days in, and with 72 days to go, I can already say this isn’t the case at all… Cambridge is starting to feel just like home.

I’m not sure exactly when or how it happened, but life here seems incredibly normal. From the outside looking in, it may seem a little absurd, considering I live and go to class in a house with fifteen other people, have to cook for myself (a big feat when it comes to myself), and am jet-setting all over Europe on the weekends. Normal to everyone? Not at all. Normal to me? Absolutely.

One of the main reasons I chose to study abroad, and quite possibly for other students as well, is the challenge that it offers you. My life has always been incredibly comfortable (not that it’s a bad thing), but my sense of adventure was asking for something a little more. I have learned to change and adapt to the setting around me, and I’m loving every minute of it.

In 72 days, which I’m sure will fly by, I’ll find that once again, I’ll be adapting. This time it will be into the life that I already know and love, in the U.S. Although I know I will probably never live in Cambridge again, I will always carry a piece of my Cambridge lifestyle with me.

Cambridge Beauty

It’s 4:45 this morning and the sun remains asleep in Scotland. The sparse streetlamps of the town Inverness quickly fade into the blackness of the highlands as my train careens forward. In order for us to make it home at a reasonable hour, we opted to leave at a unreasonable hour; the nearly nine-hour trip flies when asleep against a train window.

“The next stop is Nairn,” said the overhead. Nairn, what a pretty name, I think. It not only sounds pretty—especially when spoken with a proper Scottish accent—but it’s also aesthetically pleasing. It looks and sounds as if it was stolen from the pages of Lord of the Rings or World of Warcraft. It’s a tall, kingly name.

Inbhir Naraan is the original Celtic name of Nairn. Like most public signs in Scotland, it is listed underneath the official name in a dull yellow color. Even the jumbles of letters like “Bunsgoil Ghlinn” and “Mhonaidh” have seemingly more unpronounceable origins.

The Scots make a big deal out of names—especially family names, which are not merely a form of identification here. Your family name branches backward into the past, intertwining you with roots of human history. All the plaid designs of Scottish wool, called “tartan,” are specifically designated to a particular clan or family. Every gift shop sells garments and trinkets with Scottish family tartans. From Bruce to Lochlan to MacGregor, there’s a specific plaid pattern just for your family.

I think my scarf is a Wallace, I think glancing down towards neck. With a heavy, tired sigh, I gaze into the black highlands landscape.

While faded ghosts of Scottish pine trees whizz pass my window, I have time to contemplate my own name. Schnake is of German origin and its closest translation is somewhere between “gnat” and “mosquito,” though I’m not sure why anyone would choose that name. About four or five generations ago, Heinrich Schnake emigrated from Bavaria in Suden Deutschland to settle in southern Illinois. The strong German heritage seemed to smoothly run through the family tree—at least until my brother and I came along.

See, I don’t look very German. Derek Schnake could as well be a fair-skinned Bavarian fellow playing a tuba in a pair of lederhosen. But, my clay-brown skin and coffee-colored hair invite speculations of anything but German. Mostly, I get some variation of a Latin American country, but every now and then I get Italian, Grecian, or more rarely, Arab. The fact is I don’t match, thanks to my mother’s Filipino heritage. I usually tell people I’m Filipino instead of German because it makes the most sense to people. It matches what they see.

As the sky above the North Sea begins to brighten, I wonder what my mother’s maiden name means: Pangilinan. What does it mean? What is its history? Maybe in Manila, the capitol of the Philippines, they have gift shops with Pangilinan inscribed on an overly priced bottle-opener key chain, much like Scotland. Somehow I doubt it.

The sky has now turned to a turquoise color. Those pine trees now have more manageable silhouettes and I can begin to see the hills in the backdrop. The clouds seem to scatter away from the sun as if afraid.

Here in Highlands—and all the UK, for this matter—family history is something you wear on your sleeve, no matter how meager the origin. For the Scottish people, a name and a tartan tell the family story. For me, I stuff two very different cultures into a space fit for one.

Still, as dawn passes into day outside my window, I’m comforted and thankful. As much as I cherish my family’s history, I don’t revel in it. Unlike many of the ancient grudges alive here in Great Britain, I’m not tied down by my family’s past; I’m free to live for the moment and embrace the future.

I’m liberated by the start of a new day. Thank you, Scotland.

Approaching five weeks, I already feel as though I’m running out of time. The calendar suddenly feels much smaller when you think in terms of weekends rather than days or weeks. It then gets even smaller when measured against the ambitiously naïve list of destinations compiled at the outset of this adventure.

Where the heart leads, the wallet stubbornly remains. The dollar sign—or pound sign rather—looms hauntingly in the backdrop of every travel scheme. Energy, the only currency that matters, can be hard to find if one doesn’t know where to look. The fabled virtue of patience also seems to depreciate these days, while fear of the steadfast hourglass slowly grows with each grain of falling sand. If I’m not careful stress will soon settle in, and much like sand, stress will find its way into every crack of the human consciousness.

But I do feel my priorities shifting. I feel resigned to the unshakable truth that I will not see everything I want to see or visit every destination I wish to visit. The only comfort I get is from my own fervor to make every second count and confidence that I will be back. After all, there is not much else I can do.

I think that once the end of the semester arrives, everyone will have the initial conviction to come back and experience what they missed. The challenge is to not allow that conviction to pass into nostalgic regret—a veritable list of things “I should’ve done.” Ultimately, if one makes the most of every opportunity, then there is nothing more anyone can do.

Sunset over the Thames.