I have to have a strong sense of importance. Living in my home town all my life did just that. Nothing was terribly new to me, so it made it possible for me to step farther out of myself because I felt comfortable and at home. I could waltz into a coffee shoppe and choose a new person to talk to. No matter how much I say I love Cardiff, which I do very much, I'm not at home yet. I've not yet been able to walk into a bar or cafe and meet somebody new. I almost feel like I'm intruding. I do not feel that as a foreigner, I have any importance to be able to impose my views on someone else. But that's not my aim anyway. When I meet people, I want to hear about their lives and views. What really is tying me down? As I look back on the words I've just written, I'm tempted to strike them through, but because I'm trying to sort myself out, I will now. I think that perhaps I am afraid. I am an easily adaptable person. I've not noticed any conscious fear in moving here, but I do have an unexplored few of the people here perhaps...perhaps not. I perhaps I fear that I will make a fool of myself. I'm relatively certain that the times in life when we all feel discord in our interpersonal relationships, it is very closely linked to an element of fear in our lives. I think I've been struck by the definite difference in the attitude toward self-expression in the British Isles. Though Americans are not completely expressive, It seems to me that the Welsh are more reserved than I am used to. There are, however, more English people in my course than Welsh, but I am in Wales. Wales is supposedly more friendly, as a whole, than England, but I have no first-hand experience of that. One of my tutors, Martin, did say that I should be careful about being too hurried or impatient with my time here. I just don't think that three years is very long. I want to make the most of it, but there is the old proverb: 'Everything in moderation, including moderation itself.'