When I was in undergrad, I had the opportunity to study abroad. At the time, I was feeling really disconnected from my university, from my friends, and from myself. I was trying to be serious writer and also figure out who I wanted to be in a transsexual sense. So, I decided that I would study abroad to Hull, UK—the Brits on this app will get it—and I had a seriously bad time.
Hull is quite small but somehow quite hard to get around. Philip Larking was so right when he said “Isolate city spread alongside water, / Posted with white towers, she keeps her face / Half turned to Europe, lonely northern daughter, / Holding through centuries her separate place.”
Andrew Marvel writing about Hull said “I by the river would complain.”
Turns out, I’m not somebody who thrives in old and isolated cities. I am somebody who gets lonely and complains. (I also desperately needed to transition. ((Larkin might have been happier if he did too.)) I started drinking way too much, descended into an absolute wreck, spent every dollar I could outside of Hull and never attended class. I didn’t even finish out the year.
All of this is to say that if you know the things that make you happy are inaccessible in Morocco, you should study somewhere else.
