- Studying abroad gives you a chance to re-make yourself. However, there is a fine line between re-making yourself and losing touch with your true self. If you don't have much confidence at home, you can go abroad and because nobody knows you, you can pretend that you are more confident than you actually are. Fake it till you make it, right? The issue comes in when you start hiding yourself from others. It doesn't matter where you go, don't pretend to like stuff just to look cool. Yes, you want to fit in, but it isn't worth giving up the things you love.
- Don't worry about money. It doesn't matter how much you have or don't have, worrying will make everything less fun. I am a big culprit of worrying, and I promise you, it takes away from just enjoying where you are. Be aware, of course. But you can be aware without being obsessive.
- Make friends. Put yourself out there. I know you probably have heard this one a lot, but it holds so much power. The difference between a semester abroad with new friends and without new friends is a vast one. From experience, it doesn't work to just sit in your room Skyping friends from home. It keeps you in a bubble. Even if you just talk to someone in one of your classes, or take walks around campus, or join clubs or a sports team. Be open, be yourself, and you will find friends.
- EXPLORE. The campus. The city. The surrounding area. I have three trips planned for this semester. London, Dublin, and the Isle of Skye/Loch Ness. I am so thankful for having the money to travel because studying abroad isn't just about studying. It is about seeing a world different than your own. Even if the culture isn't much different than your own, it is eye-opening to see the world through a lens you aren't used to. Traveling can also help you to better see the pros and cons to your own culture, because you are looking at it from a different angle.
- It is okay to cry. It is okay to have days where you crawl under your covers and eat pringles. If you have anxiety like I do, these will most likely be weekly occurrences. Before coming here, I told myself I was going to grow out of my anxiety, that I would stop being so full of fear. I haven't. But I have learned that my anxiety is a part of myself. I need to stop trying to push it away and just embrace it for what it is without letting it run my life. And in that regard, when you leave for a semester abroad, you are leaving home, leaving your family, your friends. It is a lot to take in, and yes, it gets overwhelming sometimes. Let it be. Accept that you feel like crying. And then cry. And then stop crying and go out and treat yourself to something that will make you feel better.
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Failte,
I am a Hufflepuff. Hufflepuff is the most inclusive among the four Hogwarts houses; valuing hard work, dedication, patience, loyalty, and fair play rather than a particular aptitude in its members. I have always received Ravenclaw as my house in other quizzes, but it never felt right. Now that I am in Hufflepuff, it feels right. You know that little feeling deep inside your chest that feels tight and warm? That's how I feel. I know this is a very geeky way to begin this weeks blog post, but I couldn't resist. Harry Potter's world is one rooted in fantasy, but for me, knowing I am a Hufflepuff and feeling connected to the other Hufflepuffs in the Stirling Wizarding Society; it makes me feel like I have a family here. This week was GIAG (Give it a Go), where you could try any club/society and decide if you wanted to join. I went to the Wizarding Society, the Disney Appreciation Society, and the International Society. I plan to join the first and the last. It makes me sad that I'll only be here for one semester, but I figured joining a few societies would be good for me, especially since I tend to be a shy, lonely girl. It will be good for me to get out into the vast realm of students aside from the few friends I have made so far. I visited Stirling Castle with fellow Susquehanna University student Sarah Dorko last Saturday. It was fantastic and eerie. I have always had a love for historical places, a love first discovered when I visited Boston a few years ago. The amount of history packed into one city was unbelievable, and here that feeling is a hundredfold. That is one of the reasons why I wanted to visit Europe during my time abroad. America is my home country but it is a young one. Europe has seen many more centuries of civilization than America has. Even if there have been Native Americans in America for hundreds of years, they are a people more connected to the earth, so the history they have left behind is more natural, connected to the land. Here, there are places like castles and Brochs and ruined abbeys from hundreds of years ago. It makes me shudder, having visited Stirling Castle and seen where people used to live and walk and eat and sleep. I am most excited to see more places like Stirling Castle when I travel around Scotland, to places like Edinburgh and Glasgow and the Isle of Skye. I want to touch history. I want to stand where people stood in the earlier centuries. I want to breathe the same air, feel the same rain on my cheeks. I want to feel connected to the history of this place and each person that has experienced it already. I want to hear the same waves they heard, and touch my toes to the same ground. It is overwhelming, the amount of history Scotland holds in its arms. I wish I could see it all... Beannachd leibh Failte,
It's funny. I keep thinking to myself that I have already done this whole “going to college and making friends” thing, but for some reason, it feels harder to do over here. Stirling University is much bigger than Susquehanna, and I think that makes it feel more vast. I keep wondering how I go about making friends. In the past few days, I've made some just by sitting in my suite kitchen and visiting the one friend I made earlier this week. It is almost like a pyramid. You start with making one friend, and you use that one friend to meet many more. Of course, there are always clubs as well, and clubs are a wonderful way of meeting people and finding a group to fit in with. Clubs haven't started here yet, but they will be starting next week and I am planning on attending a few. Namely: Shazam (Sci-Fi and Fantasy club), Harry Potter Club, Disney Appreciation Club, the Rock Society, the International Student Society and the Creative Writing Society. It is interesting here, however, that in order to join a club you have to pay five pounds. After thinking about it for a while, this actually seems like a pretty good idea, because it gives the club a bit of a start when it comes to fund raising. I cannot express just how beautiful this campus is. Susquehanna is a pretty small and cozy and pretty campus, but compared to here, it is nothing. There is a Loch in the middle of Stirling University. Every day when I walk from my dorm to the Atrium, I have to cross the Loch and without fail there are always swans and ducks and usually reflections of sun and trees and distant hills. A few days ago, I took a walk around the Loch and took pictures. It was very quiet and peaceful and I just wish I could find that kind of place at home. At the end of my walk, I was up behind the school by the soccer fields, where there are benches that look over a small meadow and up at the hill where the Wallace Monument sits. There are mountains in the far distance, which I hope to visit later in the semester. It really is a beautiful landscape, and I have a feeling I am going to sorely miss it once my semester here is over. Last night I got to sit with one of my suite mates from Germany and we talked a lot about politics and how social differences between our home countries and here. That is one thing I would suggest for anyone going abroad, engage people in conversation about politics and issues going on in their respective countries because it is extremely eye-opening to hear what other people think. One of the topics we discussed during our conversation was the issue of guns in America. It was nice because I got to hear her point of view, and I was able to speak my mind without feeling obligated to speak well about America. I myself have some mixed feelings towards America, and it was great to be able to speak freely with someone about it, and hear their viewpoint in return. I will definitely look for more discussions along those lines with other friends I make. When it comes to classes, they are very different than in the States. I only have six one-hour classes per week, but I am expected to do most of the work outside of class. I am more used to having class a lot during the week, and only doing a few assignments and some reading on my own. The classes themselves I really love. My Victorian Lit. professor is the kind of person who loves what she does. The passion I see in her is the kind I want to foster in myself. My Scottish Lit. teacher is less enthusiastic but she is kind and understanding and a bit eccentric. My Marketing professor is Australian and hilarious. I have never had a teacher make so many jokes during a lecture. He is a very light spirited guy. All in all, I definitely look forward to classes rather than dreading them. As a finish to this post, I am excited to say that I finally added some campus pictures to my album page! Feel free to check them out. Beannachd leibh So imagine a scenario where you are all ready to leave for your study abroad university and your flight is delayed and you wait and it delays so long that you would miss your connecting flight and have to leave the following day instead. Yeah. That was me. I was in the airport for five hours on Thursday only to go back home and return on Friday. Woopdido. I was nervous at first, but like everyone says, everything will turn out all right. I definitely had a guardian angel though, in the form of Mr. (name), who was an airport guy who let my Dad and Jess come through security to wait with me at my gate, and helped reschedule my flights. He was even there again on Friday and wished me well.
Now imagine 9/11. Flying out on that particular anniversary made me very uneasy. I knew I was safe. I also knew that the people on those planes thought the same. Life has a funny way of twisting into unforgettable moments. Whether those moments are beautiful, bitter, or full of tragedy, it is life all the same. It reminds us that we are human. It reminds us that all we can do, anyday and everyday, is express love and gratitude and respect towards our loved ones and anyone else who needs it. To that end, I feel incredibly blessed to have gotten the chance to say a second goodbye to my family to to that airline delay mishap. Thanks Universe. Since getting to Scotland, I haven't had the best of experiences. I was picked up by Stirling Direct, by a bus driver that decided to drop me and two other girls off at a random place on campus to walk the rest of the way. We tried. But one of the other girls suitcases broke, a nice girl from Cyprus who I decided to wait with (for 45 minutes in the rain) while a security car came to get us and drive us the rest of the way. I arrived in my dorm around 3 and ended up having a massive panic attack/homesickness for the rest of the night. I tried to unpack. I failed. I ended up falling asleep on and off until 8 when I went to sleep for the night. Today was a bit better. I was still having a panic attack but I managed to bury it while I went around campus collecting my ID card, attending a Study Abroad Information Session, and getting kitchen supplies for super cheap costs at the "Green and Blue" Environmental Fair Share Store. When I say super cheap, I mean like 50p for a pot and lid. It's a GREAT place to shop for dorm stuff. Great thing is, I can return anything I don't want at the end of semester for someone else to use! I haven't eaten much due to the feeling of panic fluttering around in my stomach. I also haven't talked much. My suite mates scare me. People scare me. But I know that if I want this semester to be comfortable, I need to go out and talk to them, or else they will think I'm weird and anti-social. I have to strive to make a good first impression. Classes start tomorrow and I think I might puke from being nervous. It is weird how panicked I've been since I've done this all before when first going to college two years ago. I guess the anxiety never goes away completely. But there are ways of making it better. My Mom suggested I do five things tomorrow, some pretty solid things when facing anxiety. 1-Buy a stuffed animal. A fuzzy one to have on my bed. 2-Go see a therapist first thing. To get the anxiety off my mind. 3-Find someone to help me get settled in, like an RA or someone like that. 4-Do breathing exercises 5-Buy and wrap myself in a fuzzy blanket. So yeah. That's a great list that I will work my way through this coming week. Sorry, there aren't any pictures yet because my phone isn't set up on the wi-fi. Soon, though, I promise! Failte!
My anticipation has been rising for weeks. Shopping for clothes, planning weekend trips, and now saying goodbye to people I won't see again until Christmas. It's hard. I didn't expect just how hard it would be to say goodbye to friends knowing I won't see them for months. I also didn't realize just how much planning goes into a semester of studying abroad. There are so many little things to think about. Sure, there are classes and passports, but when I sit down and think about how much money I have to spend on shampoo and how many little snacks I should buy to save money on breakfast and lunch, that's when the worry sets in. Because I can't really plan this stuff before getting to my host university. That's what makes the anticipation rise. No matter how much I plan, I know that nothing will be the way I imagine it to be. For instance, I have a one-week long break in the middle of my semester in Stirling, Scotland where I plan to visit London. Last week, I was sitting with my Mom doing my budget, trying to figure out how much money I have to spend on tours while I am there. Already, some of the tours I had wanted have been full or on the wrong day. It goes to show that planning is really, really hard when you aren't there already experiencing the place and the people and the culture. I have this feeling that once I get there, it will be much easier to plan things like meals and snacks and homework times because I will have gotten a feel for the city and the university itself. Packing is an entirely different thing. I am going crazy with the amount of stuff I think I will need, when most likely I won't end up using half of it. I have heard packing advice from tons of people, such as use vacuum seal bags or roll your clothes. Hearing and seeing all of this is like eating too much ice cream. After a while, you just can't move or think so you sit down and sleep. That has been the past few weeks for me, at least mentally. But now that I am leaving for Scotland in FOUR days, I'm getting to that panic mode where I have to just forgo the ice cream entirely and figure out how the heck I'm going to pack all of my shoes and sweaters and winter wear. The panic mode definitely messes with emotions too. Imagine that in four days you were leaving your family and friends (for the first time ever) to live across an ocean for almost four months. Now add a dash of social anxiety to the mix and there you have it. I'm a wreck. Though it is a good kind of wreck, because I know that this trip will change me as a person and I can't help but be excited for that as well as nervous. I find that usually, one does not come without the other. Beannachd leibh Fàilte is the Scottish Gaelic word for Welcome!
As my AUTHOR section reads, my name is Emily Teitsworth. I am a Junior at Susquehanna University (SU) and I am quite ready to start traveling the world. Actually, I have already started. I went with my dad to Africa a few years back on a trip to an Orphanage in Kenya, but it was only for two weeks, and I had my dad with me. This time, I'm going to be alone. If there is one thing you should know about me before I get started, its that I have severe anxiety about being alone in an unfamiliar place...yeah we'll see how well this whole "living abroad for a semester" thing goes. I'll be spending my Fall 2015 semester (from September to December) studying Literature and History in Stirling, Scotland. I chose Scotland because it:
During my stay in , I will be keeping this blog updated, partly because I am excited to share all of my adventures with my family and friends, and partly because I was chosen to be a GO Blogger. That means this blog will be updated every week for the period of my time abroad, from September 12th to December 21st. I will be filling this blog with all kinds of blog writing and accompanying photography. Though my adventure doesn't begin for another few months, I figured I would keep family members and friends as well as anyone who has sent me money for my trip through my Gofundme account (at the bottom of my ABOUT ME page), pretty closely updated. Oh, I almost forgot! The title of my blog is Taistealaiche, which means One who travels, or simply Traveler. If you are interested in how it is pronounced, here's a link Taistealaiche Pronounciation. Beannachd leibh (Scottish Gaelic for Goodbye!) |
AuthorFàilte! My name is Emily Teitsworth. I'm a Junior at SU and I'm quite ready to start traveling the world. I have a double major in Creative Writing and Publishing/Editing, with a minor in PR. I am spending my Fall 2015 semester (Sep-Dec) studying both literature and history in Stirling, Scotland. Archives |