My Study Abroad #goals

     Right now, I'm sitting on my extra long twin mattress in Pearsons Hall contemplating the now-undeniable fact that I am planning a study abroad trip to the United Kingdom, which is quite literally a dream come true for me.  My "unironically enthusiastic" (to quote one of my favorite people, John Green) brain is screaming, "What is life?!" When I start to think about studying abroad, the emotions I feel are complicated-- like all emotions, I suppose.  Obviously, I am incredibly excited but I am also incredibly anxious.  It's immediate excitement and then unstoppable butterflies.  

    I'm excited and enthusiastic for all the obvious reasons-- I'm planning a trip to a place I dreamed of seeing since I was in elementary school.  I'm leaving the United States for the first time in my life.  I'm (hopefully) going to see all of the famous monuments and towns and castles (what?!) that I've been reading about since I was a child.  As a writing major, the literary tourism is what I look the most forward to on this trip.  Visiting Stratford-upon-Avon and the Globe theater have been on my bucket list since I read Romeo and Juliet for the first time.  However, I also tell folks that if I was not a writing major, I would be studying history.  Seeing the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, the British Museum, Loch Ness, and the Roman Baths (to name a few places on my list) is going to be an unforgettable and truly fantastic experience.  

     Although I am extremely happy to be going abroad, it would be dishonest of me to say I wasn't feeling any anxiety about it.  I think that all new experiences come with anxiety because we can never fully know what to expect.  I can read and research and ask as many questions as I want, but I won't actually understand what it's like to live in a foreign country until I actually do it.  I think this long state of not-knowing is the root of my butterflies.  I desperately want to make the most of this trip.  As a perfectionist, I want my experience to go exactly the way I plan, but as a realist, I understand that is going to be almost impossible.  Therefore, one of my goals, besides visiting all my tourist-y destinations, is to be open to spontaneous adventures.  

     Along with the goals I have already discussed, I also want to make as many friends as I can, write as much as possible (this is an academic as well as a personal goal), take as many photos as my 64gb SD card will allow (then buy another one and take more pictures), and learn some things about the world and about myself.  

     Also-- fifteen-year-old-Hannah would never forgive twenty-one-year-old-Hannah if she did not visit the Madame Toussauds Wax Museum so she can take a photo with the One Direction wax figures-- that is, unless she can meet the real One Direction while abroad, in which case, it won't matter how the rest of the trip goes because her life will then be complete. <3 #studyabroadgoals