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Posted by: Hopkins Insider | 
February 22 2010 | 
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Name: Alexandra Byer
Year: Class of 2011
Hometown: Carlisle, MA
Major: Film & Media Studies, Writing Seminars minor
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It was only a month ago that I was living and studying and London. Now I’m back in my apartment on West 
University Parkway, looking out at the snowy Baltimore cityscape. I feel as though 2010 is a wall I’ve walked face first into. I am still writing 2009 in my notebooks and can’t really get the hang of saying twenty-ten. Instead, I awkwardly refer to the year as two-thousand-ten, which seems forcefully formal and cumbersome. And though denial won’t do me any good, I can’t help but reflect on the past year and where I was just a couple months ago.
London was a whirlwind of classes and cultures and traveling. I fell in love with the city life (coming from a small town outside of Boston, this was new to me) and reached a new level of independence and sophistication. Discovering not only London (with its ‘bangers and mash,’ tube, and lifts), but also Europe was an awakening experience. It’s hard to talk about studying abroad without its sounding like a huge cliché, so I’ll skip the “life changing experience” stuff, because more than anything studying abroad was a learning experience. There is nothing quite like taking a night train from Amsterdam to Berlin with rowdy Germans or trying to decipher the Paris or Berlin metro systems (I am no longer intimidated by the NYC subway). I now relish maps and finding my way alone through a city. Study abroad, more than anything, sparked a newfound autonomy. But for the months I was gone, there was always this small nagging homesickness for Hopkins.
I was lucky to have a few Hopkins friends in London at different universities, so when I needed a dose of 
Hop friends I just jumped on the tube and saw them. There was also the luxury of having friends in almost every major European city, so a trip to Paris or Rome was met with a friendly face. Though there’s something to be said for being away from campus, there’s a liveliness, intensity, and camaraderie to Hopkins and its brick walkways and Georgian architecture. It’s a comfort to know a place so well and I’m happy that most things have remained the same. The same security guards still hold their posts and the path behind the freshman dorms still smells like whatever the Fresh Food Café is cooking. I don’t live on campus anymore and there are many more people walking around the quads whose faces I don’t recognize. But change is new and good.
It’s been quite a transition returning to Baltimore and getting back into the working mode. The reading has already 
piled up, and meetings and appointments have been penned into my planner. As an upperclassman though I have more freedom with class choice so the work is more interesting and less painful to get through. It’s been exciting to reconnect with all my friends, some of whom I haven’t seen for almost nine months. And to top it all off, the film I interned on this summer (directed by a Hopkins professor) was just accepted to one of the world’s biggest film festivals, the Berlinale in Berlin. I’ve been working on fundraising for the movie and am still in shock that I was part of it. (Shameless plug, but check out the film here: http://puttyhillmovie.com/)
It may still be crazy to me that I’m a second semester junior, but as far as I can tell 2010 is off to a great start. Spring is coming up and that’s the best time to be at Hopkins. I cannot wait for the warm sun and hanging out on the beach and lacrosse games. I may not be able to weekend in Edinburgh anymore, but I’m back at my Hopkins home and it feels right. There’s something serene and satisfying in a homecoming. It’s like everything begins to fall back into place.
