Goodbye England.

So, this will be the last post that I make in this blog. I can't believe how fast 5 months went by. As of tomorrow (two hours from now) I will have only 11 days left in the UK. It's crazy how much I've learned. Unfortunately, as far as academics go, I have to say that I mainly perfected the skill of cramming last minute. That's just how it's set up here...one week of work, and zero work for 4 months. I was talking to an English guy who just got back from studying abroad in America, and he says we work way harder in the US. Go us! I guess we are better for something than McDonalds and obesity.

Kidding. I love America and being here has made me realize it so much. But, I will always have a really special place in my heart for England and all of the places I was blessed enough to visit while over here. Coming here has given me the need to visit so many more places in my life. I have a running list including Greece, Egypt, Japan, Morocco, and SYDNEY to visit Joanna. Something I've been reflecting on a lot in the past few days is what the most important things I have learned over here are. Even though I'm not sure who reads this anymore, I figured I would make this list for myself so that I can look back and appreciate these things. A lot of these things are simple things that I find myself learning, forgetting, and then relearning again in different stages of my life.

There is more to life than Rochester, New York.
I love my home and family and everything that has contributed to who I have become-- but I think that moving to a foreign country across the world for 5 months and living with people who come from cultures that do not particularly like America is a very testing experience. I did not exactly get what I bargained for in terms of flatmates. However, I don't regret that I ended up where I was. Living in this environment taught me that there really is a lot more to the world than I generally focus on in my day-to-day life, and that knowing about what is going on and being educated is a lot more important that I realized before. All of this may seem really self-explanatory, and I thought I had it all figured out before I came here. Meeting people from all over the world made me realize that there is so much to the world and so much to be explored.

I am 20 years old, not 90.
I realized (recently, actually) that sometimes I live if the rest of my life is to be lived in the next 5 years, not 70. Before I came here, I spent so much time analyzing the minute details of every aspect of my life, worrying, analyzing, and trying to micromanage and plan everything. I won't lie and say I've stopped doing this-- I will probably always do this. I will say that I have recognized more than I have before than all of this planning is somewhat fruitless. We have the rest of our lives to do so many great things, and I have really realized for myself that anything that prevents me from focusing on my goals and doing what I need to do for myself in this life is not something that I should spend time on.

I love Le Moyne college.
I have always loved Le Moyne, and I have developed the same kind of love for Essex. Essex has been an amazing home away from home to me, but Le Moyne is my home. Le Moyne is where I have really grown up into what I would consider (I guess my parents are the real test of this) a real adult. I walked into Dablon Hall freshman year on the first day of the semester as a complete baby. I had no idea, my head was up in the clouds and the world was so fresh and new and scary. I can honestly say, even after overlooking Paris from the top of the Eiffel at night, throwing a coin in the Trevi fountain in Rome, stumbling upon Big Ben by accident, and drinking a Guiness in the top of the Guiness factory in Dublin that I have had the best times of my life in Syracuse, New York. LMC is where I have made the best friends that I have ever had in my life and will ever have. I am absolutely dying to see anyone who has the link to this blog, so this all refers to you!! I by no means have any regrets about coming here, and I have loved everything about this place and the people I have met. However, with that said, I have realized that I would rather be no where else in the world for my senior year that at Le Moyne running around downtown with all of you guys.

No matter where you run, you're going to end up running into yourself.
My original intent for studying abroad was for a complete fresh start and a renewal. I can most definitely say that I got that here with a group of new faces of all different cultures, new campus, new country, new everything. However, as time goes on, fresh starts stop being fresh and you are left with the person that you were before you left your home. I wouldn't say this is a bad thing, because I would say that I'm proud of the person that I have become, no matter how many idiotic mistakes I have made. I guess I can say that coming here and realizing that you are the same person with the same past wherever you go was kind of refreshing to me in an odd way. This realization made me want to continue to work on being a better person in any way that I can as I progress onward to the next stages of my life.

Well, I am one exam, twelve days, and a lot of really sad goodbyes away from returning home and starting the next chapter.

Cheers England, I'll be seeing you.