Back in Oxford, back in my routine, and training hard- the swim team is having a training camp, and we're doing three sessions a day. I'm very proud of the men's team- attendance is fantastic. The entire team is here and working hard.

Last night I went to watch Lost In Translation again, with Mindy. She wanted to watch a movie and suggested Mona Lisa Smile, which I shuddered at, and proposed Cold Mountain instead, at which she informed me she hated Nicole Kidman. So we compromised on Lost In Translation, which I have seen three times before and enjoyed very much, but she hadn't seen before.

Have you ever had the feeling where you were completely comfortable, where everything was safe, and you were completely familiar with everything around you? Many people feel that way when they go home, for example (I don't, but that's beside the point). Revisiting Lost In Translation was like revisiting an old friend, one you hadn't seen for a while, but whom you knew so well and were so familiar and comfortable with that you could pick up exactly where you left off. Everything I knew and loved was there, and for about 100 minutes I could lose myself in its little world. I followed Charlotte again as she struggled to find herself, Bob as he fought his disgust with himself, and the two of them as they found each other and bonded over mutual feelings of dislocation and disorientation.

I found that in watching the movie again, my feelings about the movie hadn't changed, but my reaction to it had. Probably it was my changed situation. In Washington, D.C. when I first saw the movie I was adrift and lonely, just as they were, and the movie spoke to me on many different levels. Here in Oxford I am back home and settled and fully occupied with all my work. So there was no longer a sense of immediacy, but rather empathy, a memory of what it was like to be lost and lonely like they were.

Yet of course I knew how the movie ended, so the reassuring thing was that it would all work out in the end. Perhaps that is the most important thing about the movie- the ending. Not a happy ending, but a realistic one, that speaks of hope and the potential for a better future while accepting the realities of the present and the responsibilities of life. It gave me hope for my own future, and looking back on the few months that have past since I first saw the movie, it was right. Things will work out. The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.