Mishaps and Madness

Oh what a crazy couple of weeks I have had! For starters, I spilled coffee all over my laptop, ran all over Boston trying to get it fixed only to fInd out it was fried and would cost a wopping $ 1,260 to bring back to life! WHAT! I mean c'mon, if my week started with that, how much worse could it get? Luckily nothing as bad as that came after my tragic loss of my laptop, just 3 midterms and 4 job interviews in one week, but thats a piece of cake in my busy busy life.  A tornado of stress let me tell you! But I really can't complain, I am healthy and have good things coming my way so there is no other option other than thinking positive and staying on the right track.

My week of madness made me think of all of my mishaps abroad, and let me tell you there were many. On top of being a dramatic person as it is, add in being in a foreign country to the mix and a mole hill can turn into a very large mountain. Broken chargers, losing my Michael Kors watch, losing money, losing train tickets, rushing to flights-the list goes on and on. Most of the time thats what would happen when I was abroad, a constant struggle to get it right, The simplest things were a battle for me, especially when I was in Greece. The first day I got there I went food shopping and I got so frustrated because all of the labels were in Greek and I couldn't read the nutrition facts or find anything that I needed. Instead of being calm about it and trying something new, I started crying, left the store and felt as if I wanted to go home from Greece because of my frustration. I have found through my travels and through college that feeling this way was completely normal, since I was in a foreign place, it was expected that it would take a while to adjust to the culture and their tricky nutrition labels.

I guess the moral of the story is patience. By no means am I the text book definition of patient person, however, studying abroad really has helped me to be more patient and to take issues for what they are and not something they are not. It is hard to work through these struggles while being abroad, but to be honest thats life. Nothing is easy, it can always be worse and ultimately what doesn't kill you makes you much stronger. There are worse things in life than a broken laptop and not being able to read the nutrition label. Its through bigger experiences that we learn what is important and what to get upset over and what not to let faze us. Its time to practice what I preach, take a deep breath and be grateful for all of the great things that I have in my life :)

Talk again soon,

Briana