It\u2019s a little over halfway through my study abroad semester now. The semester is broken up in such a strange way for American students studying abroad at Lancaster; our orientation program was a month long, there\u2019s a two-week break, and then the actual term is only ten weeks. It really is starting to feel like I\u2019m halfway there, though, even if it\u2019s a bit past the halfway point.<\/p>\n
Prior to leaving, I wrote myself a letter with some questions I had for my future self about this experience:<\/p>\n
Hi Future me!<\/p>\n
How\u2019s it going? Is it cold? Are you still alive? Did you get there okay? I\u2019m hoping the answers to those are good, a little, yes, and yes, but studying abroad seems like such a big, scary adventure right now that I would totally understand if those answers are a bit different. I guess my biggest questions are about classes \u2013 what\u2019s it like at a big university? Right now, I\u2019m kind of worried about how I\u2019ll do in such a different setting. It seems so impersonal, whereas at Rollins I\u2019m used to accidentally spending an hour in Carnegie just running into professors and having conversations completely outside of coursework. Is it difficult not having that close of a bond with your professors?<\/p>\n
And how\u2019s the school newspaper? Right now, I can\u2019t imagine a semester without constantly having a Sandspur article to work on. Does the Lancaster University paper work the same way as The Sandspur?<\/p>\n
I guess my last major concern is keeping in contact with people from home. It all seems so weird, going away for that long and not being around my sisters, my girlfriend, my family, or anyone. Right now, I imagine Skype will become my best friend, but how do you really keep in contact with people at this point?<\/p>\n
Good luck, dude!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So, I\u2019ve written a letter in response to Past Me\u2019s very inquisitive letter:<\/p>\n
Hi, Past Me!<\/p>\n
Well, you\u2019re right on the answers to those questions, for the most part \u2013 it\u2019s going well, it is very cold, I\u2019m somehow still alive, and I did eventually get here okay, even if my original flight plans did fall apart almost immediately upon entering MCO. Studying abroad definitely is a big, scary thing, but I\u2019m doing okay with it. Almost everything here is out of your comfort zone, and eventually, being out of your comfort zone becomes your comfort zone. That\u2019s pretty cool though, because that\u2019s where I\u2019m learning the most.<\/p>\n
Classes are extremely impersonal. My professors still probably don\u2019t recognize me as anyone but \u201cthe girl who always wears several layers of clothing and still looks cold.\u201d It\u2019s not what I\u2019m used to, but they\u2019re all nice, so it\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n
I actually haven\u2019t ventured into the realm of SCAN \u2013 the Lancaster University newspaper. I did submit to the Lancaster Flash Journal, which is kind of like Brushings<\/em>, and had a short story published in there about a month ago. That was probably the best part of my study abroad experience so far \u2013 I never expected to go abroad and have my first piece of fiction published.<\/p>\n
As for keeping in touch with people from home, that\u2019s a little tricky. I\u2019m using Messenger constantly, Snapchatting as often as possible, and glued to Facebook in a way I never wanted to be. I Skyped with people from home for the first couple of months, but then when the semester got busy for my friends, we stopped and started relying more on Messenger again. It\u2019s not too bad keeping in touch this way, but I miss everyone.<\/p>\n
I hope that answers your questions \u2013 soon, we\u2019ll be home, and we can reflect on the second half of the semester I\u2019m now calling \u201cSianna Takes
Lancaster<\/del> England.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a little over halfway through my study abroad semester now. The semester is broken up in such a strange way for American students studying abroad at Lancaster; our orientation program was a month long, there\u2019s a two-week break, and then the actual term is only ten weeks. It really is starting to feel like…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":478,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lancaster"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/478"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6785"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15730,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6785\/revisions\/15730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}