There are endless aspects of the experience to analyze. Being away from home forces you to see a new side of yourself. You are tested in a multitude of small ways which contribute to your development. In Italy, I am in this fixed space, separate from the fast-paced drive of my everyday life at school. This is a time out of time for personal growth, for enjoyment of a new culture and exposure to differences I would never have encountered in the US. I have relished in many little accomplishments and in the home I have created here. There are also times where I wish I could have done more, pushed myself a little bit further to try a different activity, to see a new place or to make more of a rainy Sunday when I simply cozied up in bed with an Italian caffé. Sometimes, I think I should have found an internship here where I could have interacted more directly with Italians and given back to this incredible city that has given so much to me. I also know that I am going to miss life here more than words and that I will return someday, hopefully in the not so distant future.
At IES, we have "core" meetings where we try to dig a bit deeper into our experience abroad and the emotional stages that one typically faces. I don't think I follow the typical format. For me, I have been pretty steadily contented, with intermediate spurts of stress over travel and the nuisances of the slow-paced Italian culture, but feelings are starting to catch up a bit now. At our last "core" session, we had to stand by a quote that summed up our experience here. I can't remember mine word for word, but the idea was that this experience has only just begun and it will continue to affect me long after this program. Being abroad hasn't made me instantaneously realize what I want to do with my life. I honestly have no clue what job I'm going to have and I don't know where I'm going to be next summer or in 5 years. To be completely truthful, I thought maybe I would waltz on over here and have an epiphany. I am meant to be blank. I want to do X,Y,Z when I graduate. I need to do A,B,C to be successful. I didn't fill in that blank or replace X,Y,Z or A,B,C with the keys to my future. I still don't have all the answers.
But that's not what living in a different country does for you. It doesn't fill in the blanks of your life as if it were a Mad Libs book. No one can do that for me, but myself and I can't altar the timeline fate has set for my life. However, being here has introduced me to many versions of myself that I don't encounter on the daily at Emory. For example, abroad Alexi has met Alexi who just missed her train home from Siena. Abroad Alexi has encountered Alexi who accidentally sent her suitemate on a train to a different town in Germany (long story). And abroad me has had to figure out how to deal with these varying distressed versions of myself. Sometimes, I get totally flustered and I have to piece me back together. At times, these hectic, anxiety-producing moments of abroad really scared me, but sometimes you have to make a real mess of things just so that you learn to put all of the pieces back together. And after some difficult encounters with the foreign environment, abroad Alexi had the pleasure of meeting Alexi who could hold a conversation with an Italian student for an hour. Abroad Alexi also met Alexi who can successfully travel from San Lorenzo to the Colosseum in record time. At the risk of using my own name more times than any non-egomaniacal person should in a paragraph, abroad put me in situations I could never have faced under a cozy American security blanket. It is the stresses, controversies, intricacies, and triumphs of this new situation that have made my experience so special and rewarding.
Today was my last day of courses at IES. As I prepare for my final exams and check the final items off of my bucket list, I am dealing with a whole host of feelings that I didn't realize would surface so quickly or so fiercely. I will avoid writing you all an entire book here, but wanted to thank my family a million and one times for this unbeatable opportunity. You are the best!
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| In front of IES...an appropriate picture as the semester wraps up! Photographed by Becca |
Alexi
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