A Soft Place To Fall

So in my emails, I've really avoided talking about what's been going on inside of me since I've been over here. It's not that I don't reckon with it myself, but I haven't really explained anything. I guess I'm putting this up here to give a little bit of insight. In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Dedalus firmly defines his mission: "I will tell you what I would do and what I would not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use--silence, exile, and cunning" (Joyce 268-269). Now, I don't want anyone to take this the wrong way. I am in no way disavowing my country or my church or my home. I am simply agreeing with Stephen's declaration of himself as his own master. He refuses to be subject to the expectations and definitions others impose upon him. That is the single greatest lesson I have learned while abroad.