I was living in England when I really learned
what ‘torrents of rain’ meant. On the one hand, this was extremely appropriate.
On the other, I was climbing uphill cobblestones in ballet flats at the time,
and despite my masochistic inner satisfaction at having what I was sure was a ‘terribly
English’ experience, I was also the kind of miserable that comes with a head
cold, a lack of funds, and the utter certainty that absolutely everyone at your
new school would much rather talk about you than to you, and even that not much
at all, because you are not very interesting.
