Hello Letters to America readers! I am writing to you from a brightly lit, corner seat in the JFK International Airport in New York City. In a few hours, I will board a plane to Dublin, Ireland and begin my study abroad journey.<\/p>\n
This is my first blog ~ever~, so bear with me. I write infrequently in a diary, so I do have some practice at this type of thing. I arrived about a half of an hour ago from the airport in Charleston, South Carolina, where I currently live with my family. It is ironically perfect timing for me to leave the States \u2013 specifically, the south. Hurricane Irma is rumbling its way up to Florida and will eventually hit many southern states, including the Carolinas. I shared the airport with many escapees. I am glad to not be \u2018escaping from\u2019, but rather, \u2018going to\u2019. I\u2019ve looked forward to this date and imagined my time in Maynooth for over a year.<\/p>\n
I am usually a pretty calm person. My friends like to say \u201cchill\u201d. For the past few weeks, even months, people have asked me if I\u2019m excited to study abroad, or nervous, or any other emotion one might feel in this situation. During that time I did feel excited and grateful \u2013 in a sort of peaceful, contented way. It still hasn\u2019t hit me, sitting in this semi-comfortable\/mostly-hard chair with all sorts of other travelers. Yet, before leaving, I had lunch with my parents and the realness started to creep in \u2013 sort of a giddy excitement, along with \u201coh my gosh what am I doing\u201d and \u201cwait what am I supposed to do when I need to convert money\u201d and \u201cI really hope the plane won\u2019t crash into the ocean on the way there\u201d types of thoughts. Still, I\u2019m so ready to experience something different from the United States. The people, the culture, the environment, the weather. My blood isn\u2019t ready for the move to the North, but my heart is. Even with the hype of the experience, I am nervous \u2013 yet confident \u2013 about being alone in a foreign country. I know I can figure everything out, but it\u2019s hard to plan when I don\u2019t know exactly what to expect. For instance, my first act of independence will be to convert my money to Euros and then find a shuttle that will take me to Maynooth. I can do it, I just don\u2019t know how it works over there. Also, it doesn\u2019t help when I know I\u2019ll be lugging around two very large and very heavy suitcases. Needless to say, I DEFINITELY over-packed. This is what I was looking for, however. To do things on my own, to be uncomfortable, and to go with the flow and problem solve.<\/p>\n
Big events never hit me until they are about to happen. Being nervous for my swimming event at the state meet didn\u2019t ensue until I was stretching at the blocks; feeling apprehensive never occurred to me until I was getting on the roller coaster. The same is going on now: I get instances of excitement and nervousness, but overall, I\u2019m pretty calm and ready to get the show on the road. The one time that I did start to get emotional (which always happens) is when I said goodbye to my parents at the security gate in Charleston. I hugged\/kissed them twice and told them to be safe in the hurricane (Dad has been playing it down a lot, claiming the news is \u201cembellishing\u201d). Leaving them made the trip more real for me. The rest of my feelings will likely flood in when we start our descent to the Dublin Airport.<\/p>\n
I feel like I should also mention that it\u2019s my birthday today! It\u2019s been a bit overshadowed by my departure from the country, but that in itself is a wonderful birthday present. Thanks for reading! I\u2019m looking forward to all the adventures to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hello Letters to America readers! I am writing to you from a brightly lit, corner seat in the JFK International Airport in New York City. In a few hours, I will board a plane to Dublin, Ireland and begin my study abroad journey. This is my first blog ~ever~, so bear with me. I write…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":527,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maynooth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9137","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\/527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14766,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9137\/revisions\/14766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}