The Library Always Finds You: A Semester in Sydney, One Year On

By Meg Luddington, University of Sydney, Australia

I am writing this as I enter the very final week of my degree. Outside my window is Manchester, a city that I love, even when it is raining, as it currently is. Endings always make me reflective, and a time I try to gather my thoughts on the chapter that has just been. As I reflect on the university chapter, I keep finding that many of my fondest memories are not from Manchester at all, but from my semester in Sydney.

I would love to tell you that one year ago today I was mid-adventure. In fairness I had just returned from one – a trip to Mungo National Park in the outback. It is vast, ancient and humbling in the way that only enormous landscapes can be. But the honest version of one year ago is that I was spending a lot of time in the library. It turns out that wherever in the world you are a student, Sydney Harbour glittering beyond the window or not, at some point the library finds you. It always does. It is useful, actually, to remind myself that I did also study … abroad. It prevents my memories becoming too rose tinted.

But it is of course not the part of the semester that has stuck most with me. That outback trip to Mungo, and the strange feeling of being a very small person in a very large, ancient, country lodged itself in my thinking. As an English and History joint honours student, I chose to write my dissertation on Voss by Patrick White and The Secret River by Kate Grenville, two texts that deal with settler relationships to to the Australian landscape. I’d like to say this was a purely academic decision, but I suspect I was just trying to make sense of my own feeling of awe in an ancient and mystical landscape, and figure out whether I could claim a sense of belonging to a place so different to what I was used to, and so far from home.

The semester taught me other things too, less poetic but equally important. The independence that came from living by myself on the other side of the world has stuck with me. It was entirely different to moving to uni in the UK, where family were close by, and things were relatively familiar. The friends I made out there helped with that, and I have kept them, although contact has simmered down to a sustainable pace. We are in it for the long haul. None of these skills and lessons, notably, were learned in the library.

Coming back home was harder than I expected. I was in the strange position of loving something that close friends back in Manchester didn’t share. I was glad to see them, and they were happy I was home, but they couldn’t reach the part of me that was still in Sydney. That taught me new lessons too. Adjusting back required patience with myself and those around me, who hadn’t been where I’d been, and couldn’t be expected to understand something they hadn’t experienced.

Looking back from the near side of the finish line of my three year degree, my time spent in Sydney taught me more than any other single part of my degree. About independence, about friendships, and what it is to be young, and have the world at your feet. I think I might spend the rest of my life chasing the feeling of freedom that it gave me.

Mostly, though, it taught me that when you are presented with opportunities, you should always say yes first and figure the rest out later. This, and many other lessons will no doubt come in handy in whatever comes after university. For the next week though, I will accept that the library has found me one final time.

Off I go.