Setting the Scene – Stop reading this blog and pump Lorde’s “Perfect Places” on repeat, then come back to this blog post PLACISM /pleɪs//ˈɪz(ə)m/ noun The mindset, philosophy, or perception of the world that focuses on where you are as the quotient of your happiness over all other things. Confession. I have fallen prey to the above idea time…
La Vida Cotidiana en Oviedo
I write when I am either frustrated and need to vent, or inspired and want to share. For example, I was inspired to write ‘Finding your Happy Place’ and frustrated enough to write “The Weekend from Hell’. For a while now, however, I have been neither inspired nor incredibly frustrated, which means that writing requires…
Autumn Explorations
Where to begin? That’s always the question. There’s just so much to tell…enough to fill a journal and a half already in my two months here. Some of what I write is intangible—the thoughts and feelings I have as I walk through my days in London, the invisible ways I feel myself growing— and some…
Island Time in the Archipelago?
These last few weeks have been intense and busy in Indonesia for me. I have had to study and take final exams and presentations for three of the classes I have been taking here. Now, an important and completely different phase of my study abroad experience officially starts. For the month of November, I will…
Self-Reliance
We all gotta learn it at some point. I’ve never been tested more than on my time abroad. The only thing keeping me sane these last couple of weeks — which have been exceptionally trying — is philosophy. I’ve been going hard on thinkers like Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard in class, but I’ve found time…
Visiting New Place
As a student living in Rome, we are given a week break after midterms allowing students to travel. I was fortunate to go to both Paris and Amsterdam. Both cities were extremely different but so beautiful and filled with culture. In Paris, I was able to visit all of the top attractions like the Eiffel…
October
To me, October has always been a month of transition. The sun sets earlier, the weather becomes cool and crisp, and the drawn-out languid grasp of summer gets shaken off. In Germany, this effect only seems to have magnified. I knew the change in climate would be more noticeable in Germany, since Orlando does a…
It’s not that easy
Most people believe that study abroad is just a way to skip the hard school work and relax. It’s the common expectation you know. You just want to be able to travel, and meet new people, learn about new cultures. You create this idea in your mind that it will all be easier because it…
Traveling the arctic
I am fortunate to be on a program that is saturated in travel, encouraging a hands on learning approach! I mentioned this in my last post, but I did not get to mention all the incredible places we have been as I focused on my homestay… We started off the program with two weeks in…
For Promised Joy
Only just more than 40 days until I go home. Is it strange, how entirely I miss it, how lonesome I have become? Granted, my isolation is not perfect; there are friends here, and at home, who have gone out of their way to be kind and supportive, yet this is not enough. The trouble…