Friday, December 14, 2012

Pre-departure.

Hello everyone!

I am leaving for Italy to study abroad in about 20 days, and I want to keep a blog while I'm there. I'll be gone for 114 days and I don't want to forget anything that I experience while I'm over there! So this is the beginning.

First, I wanted to start with how I'm feeling about being gone for so long. Here's the thing: I'm super excited, I really am. I mean, come on, I'm studying in Italy! What's better than the food, culture, language and people of another country? The culture is what's most exciting for me: I can't wait to see how I interact with the locals and conduct myself in another country. It'll be an eye-opening experience being completely independent.

But here's the other thing: This is my home. These are my friends and family and bed and cats and whatnot. So much can happen in that span of time, and it freaks me out that I won't know what's going on back home while I'm gone. Isn't that weird to think of? Here's all of these people I see every day on campus, whether it's in class or Benny's or anywhere else, and I will not see any of them for four months. It's crazy!

So I'm this weird in between about leaving right now. As excited I am, I'm also nervous. Did I mention that I'm taking all of my classes in Italian as well? Oh, yeah that's happening, too. Italians talk extremely fast, and I'm worried I won't be able to understand what's going on and then I'll fail and ahhhhh. I mean, I've been learning the Italian language for the past nine years, so hopefully that helps me out a bit. I'm supposed to be living with international and Italian students, so maybe that will help as well.

Either way, my Italian is going to become damn good. I really am going to miss everyone, though. All of my friends at school, my brothers, my parents, my kitties...it'll be difficult to adjust.

I want to get the most out of my experience, though, so I'll fight through the nervousness and anxiety and make the best of my time abroad!

Stay tuned...I will probably freak out more during the next couple weeks.

Just saying. Three weeks until I leave? What?