Crunch Time

Today marks three weeks until I leave for Spain! I am finally home from school and finished with finals. #blessed I did great in my classes, especially my Spanish courses, and I cannot wait to get to Spain and use the skills I have gained this semester. I will be spending my final days home working, spending time with family and friends, and preparing myself to leave. I am also doing an online global scholar certificate which will count for three credit hours if approved by a board, so I have been doing that homework as well. The next blog post I do will be from Madrid, Spain!!!! (how exciting)

Something my online course wants me to consider before I go abroad is what I want to accomplish while I am there. What IS my true goal? My usual answer is learning to adapt in uncomfortable situations in order to better myself and grow as a person. I think it's important to push your limits and be uncomfortable (whatever that means to you, it's different for different people) because that's when real change happens in your life. Without that, you stay stagnant and unmoving which is more than okay, but there isn't a lot of progress. Studying abroad is a great way to test and force yourself to get out there, and that's why I wanted to do it so bad in the first place.
On twitter the other day, I came across a quote that I also felt enveloped my thoughts about studying abroad. The quote is from the book Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, and he wrote, "Travel far enough, you meet yourself." This resonated with me because I do believe that I will learn a lot about myself and what I really want as a person once I am away from my home and where I am most comfortable. I will have roughly four and a half months to reflect on who I am/what I want from life all by myself away from other's influences. I hope this time is truly eye opening, and I look forward to this aspect of going away.

The closer to leaving I get, the more at ease I feel. It's not intimidating anymore. A few weeks ago, one of my friends at Tech told me, "It's okay for you to go away. I know that you can't be here and be in Spain at the same time." That was something I really needed to hear as obvious as it sounds. I have already promised multiple people that I would talk to them every day, but the time change and being on wifi are going to play a huge part in my ability to communicate with home. Although I will miss everyone from Texas, one of the things I am most excited about in going abroad is not being attached to my phone all the time. The fact that not being on your phone is a part of life there seems fascinating to me, and I am interested to see what it will be like and how it will affect how much I'm on my phone when I get back. I am very excited to be able to soak up the culture first-hand and through my Canon camera. (I'll be posting photos to my Instagram and Twitter - @cgressett25)

I think that's all folks. Until January 10th. (:

xoxo,
Caroline

P.S. - I feel that I need to clarify that "Mi Viaje" can mean a lot of things, and the interpretation I am choosing is "My Journey."