Sunday, January 5, 2014

A Semester without Sweatpants

I am currently wearing my favorite pair of sweatpants, my black ones from Nordic skiing my Sophomore year of High School.  These sweatpants went with me to college my freshman year, and to Chicago with my this past summer, and for anyone who knows my well knows that I seriously LOVE these sweatpants.  But for this new adventure in my life, my sweatpants are staying here in the Prairie.  They are staying here because in Europe it is less socially acceptable to wear them in public; however, in the interest of full disclosure I am bring a pair or baggier yoga pants along.

Why does it matter that I am leaving these pants behind?  These pants symbolize my American college student, comfort first, overly stressed, and running late lifestyle.  I am leaving for ROME in two days, and I hope that over the course of the semester I will be able to meet people that are different from me and my friends from school.  I hope I will be stretched this semester, and that I will have a brand new adventure.  I want to experience people and cultures outside of what I have experienced up to this point.

 Everyone has been asking me what I am most excited for and what I am most nervous for, and I can honestly say that I do not know how to answer either question.  I've been saying that living in a new place is going to be the best part, but honestly I don't know what the best part is going to be, and in a way that is the best part.  The mystery is why this whole thing is so exciting, and why I am trying to avoid having any expectations.  As for the thing I am most nervous about... I could list about two hundred things I am nervous about, some of which are legitimate (pickpockets, getting lost, having new roommates...)  and some of them are way out of the realm of possibility.  I am trying as hard as I can to push those thoughts away, and to live by the phrase "Va Tutto Bene"  or "It's all good" in Italian.

Ciao!

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