I'm sitting on the floor of my new home surrounded by books, pots, pans, clothes, lamps, and empty suitcases, debating whether to take what would be the third shower of the day and wondering how all this stuff fit in my car. Every inch of me aches. I feel as though I've been sitting in a tumble dryer. A very hot tumble dryer. This weather surely can't last.

And so I have a new home, but it seems to have been at the expense of my passport. The day I got my keys, that little red booklet that gives me the right to be here disappeared. There always comes a point, when I'm searching for an object, where I personify it somehow. I wonder what it's looking at right now. It has clearly not vanished or been destroyed. If only I could get into its head -- which is surely located somewhere within the faded gold coat of arms -- to see what it sees, I might be able to locate it. I have called rental car companies and hotels. I have searched and re-searched my suitcases. My frustration is made all the more poignant by just how obsessive I am about ensuring that this little booklet is safe. Failure.

What implications this loss will have remain to be seen. For now, I can only wallow in my frustration.

And so I have a home: a spacious apartment with a den and a balcony. I also own a bed, and by this weekend I'll be able to add a sofa and a desk to my new possessions (a check on the life list). This is true progress, I suppose, but it feels a little like I am stuck in limbo, waiting for something to fall from the sky as soon as classes start for real.

For now it's all about linens and plates and picture hooks. Sofas and desk chairs and power cords. Spices and shoes and books, books, books. They cover the floor. Late last night I picked out sheets for my new bed, and bought them from the same man who sold me my duvet at a 20% discount because he liked my accent. He remembered me. I left the store again last night having saved another 20%.

Today I sat in a shaft of blue-red light under neo-Gothic vaulted arches listening to the university president introduce a reem of deans. His carefully enunciated words reverberated around the cathedral like laughter. In front of me, a curly head, matted from the heat, bobbed like a heavy yoyo in an attempt to stay awake. The ears, which stuck out at dramatic right angles, were shockingly pink.

Earlier, I had walked from the back of the chapel listening to the 50-bell carillion, which apparently plays every weekday at 5 and after Sunday worship services. This, combined with the pomp and circumstance of the ceremony, gave me a surreal feeling of being between cultures. As I stood under cold stone arches and studied the stained glass, listening to the familiar cold echo hush around the vaulted space, I lost myself; that split between my two worlds ripped back together. I stood up for the invocation/prayer and bowed my head... in an English cathedral with an English voice speaking clearly. It wasn't until the Amen bounced back off the pews that I realised it had been an "Ah-men," and that the chapel's dean is English. Fitting, somehow. Given this strange cultural mix, it was more than surreal to stand before the 5,000-pipe organ and sing oh, say, can you see...

There is a certain element of religiosity to the whole convocation proceedings, even independent of the setting, the hymn, and the prayer. Praise be to the almighty "Big D". Take the Alma Mater, for example (the words and music of which is printed in the convocation program):

Dear old Duke thy name we'll sing,
To thee our voices raise (we'll raise),
To thee our anthems ring,
In everlasting praise.
And though on life's broad sea
Our fates may far us bear,
We'll ever turn to thee,
Our Alma Mater dear.

And so I am now officially a graduate student at Duke. I feel I should be studying. In truth, I probably should: I had my first class at Chapel Hill yesterday, and we will be starting with Burney's Evelina. I've read it, but should brush up...

Life is a little odd right now.