Thankful

One week from now, I will be on the flight to Paris! After all these years of dreaming, months of preparing, and weeks of agonizing waiting, I am finally about to do this. Right now, I can say that if I were to die soon, I would know that I have lived more that a lot of people twice my age! The important thing now is to be grateful for this chance - and NOT give into those last-minute gitters.

For starters, I am going to be in the City of Lights for three entire months, almost four months in fact. Paris is one of the world's most visited sites, famous for food, architecture, romance, and snooty people. I am not too thrilled about that last one. But I take consolation in the fact that there are rude people in every big city and even in small towns. At least now, the odds are high that I won't know them personally and they will be judging me based on my cultural ignorance. They will probably be right!

This semester is going to be the time to soak up the good and the bad so that I won't end up still one of the annoying Americans who makes all the wrong mistakes and can't tell the difference between embarrassed and embarraser. (Let me tell you, the second one is French, and it doesn't mean what you think it means.)

Secondly, going to Paris won't only fulfill a life-long dream, but this trip is the opportunity to broaden my personal horizons. It will challenge my concept of myself, of my beliefs, of what it means to be American, and above all it will scare me into positive change. Since coming to college (shout-out to Hollins University), I have learned how to take risks for the sake of learning. This is a lesson from which we can each benefit. But for me taking risks isn't just something to do because I'm young and I have the world ahead of me. This is a lifestyle to which I aspire, and my term in Paris will be the biggest step I have made outside of home and Hollins.

For those of you who are reading this and who don't really believe me when I talk about risk, you're probably right. I'm hearing that word in my ears right now, and it sounds hollow. What I mean by that word is something more like reckless abandon under completely conscious control. Sound like an oxymoron yet?

I want to be able to say that I don't mind being out of control but that I also take into consideration the chance for failure or defeat. What I am most thankful for in this study abroad experience is that I won't be doing this alone. There are strong hands holding me up, and wonderful people waiting in the wings to help me back up if (when) I fall. This post is to say thanks in advance to the people who care.