Exactly one month from today --on February 8th, 2011-- I will embark on my six month direct exchange at la Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Nicaragua, in Managua. As of now, I know nothing about my future host family, the other students in the program, or the courses I will take at UNAN. My Spanish is fairly rusty, having been put on the back burner since the end of my Freshman year of college. I am currently a Junior.
...I may be extremely unprepared for all of this.
Knowing so little about what lies ahead is both terribly exciting and, quite frankly, slightly terrifying. I recently began a writing in a journal that I plan to keep during my time abroad, and as I began writing in it for the first time, I sat back and and reveled in the fact that right then, on the first page of that blank book, I had no way of even imagining the people, places and events that will fill the rest of its currently quiet pages.
Before I can find out what lies ahead, I will be soaking up all the grey skies, coffee shops, great friends, rain drops and secure comforts that I have spent the first twenty years of my life surrounded by in the Pacific Northwest. I will miss Seattle, but I am ready for a few new places, though currently unknown.
Impatiently yours,
RM
"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware." -Martin Buber
No comments:
Post a Comment