I lived in Cardiff, Wales from September 2015 to September 2016 while I was completing my MA degree in Myth, Narrative and Theory. At times, it was a difficult year for me because I struggled to make friends; people mostly stuck with people from the same country and there were very few Americans. Besides the lack of Americans, I had come to study abroad to have new experiences and interact with different cultures, so I didn’t just want to hang out with familiar people.
I still traveled as much as I could and tried to keep myself busy, but there is only so much time that you can entertain yourself alone. Therefore, I spent a lot of time in my room alone. This made me feel very isolated at times and I spent at least an hour of each day on the phone with my Mom.
The other thing that I would occasionally do, is film outside the window or record random audio snippets on my tape recorder. Without fully knowing it, I had constructed an interesting image of my own isolation. I started editing this together right after I moved away from Wales, but was never fully happy with the outcome. Last week at work, I came across a Welsh choir singing the national anthem of Wales and I remembered this unfinished edit. It randomly inspired me to finish the project and after a lot of searching, I found the original project file, made a few tweaks and finished it.
So here it is, a picture inside my own isolation during my year in Cardiff: