stuDYING abroad (but not really =])

            One day, a good friend of mine on this trip, Maggie, told me “the studying part of study abroad sucks.” I think I agree. Maybe it’s because of the workload that comes along with Biomedical Engineering, or maybe I’m just a PROcrastinator (ß on the real though, I do start all of my homework/assignments as soon as possible). I think that because the courses here are so compressed, a lot of information has thrown at us in a short time span so that we cover all of the necessary material; of course, most classes back in College Station are like that as well. However, I think that the difference between studying abroad and studying back in College Station is that while abroad, there are many other distractions that come along on a daily-weekly basis. And of course, the mindset of many students (including myself) is that “I’m only abroad for this semester. I should definitely make the most of it.” At the end of the day, the semester isn’t meant to be a vacation, but rather, a different and unique experience to exposed to while in school, yet I can’t say that I agree with spending 100% of my time abroad staring into a textbook. Honestly, it’s quite a dilemma trying to figure out the best way to spend my time abroad. I find that being organized is the most important thing in order to go visit/do the activities you’d like to do while also excelling and learning in the classroom. Usually, this means that I end up having to stay up until 2-3AM for most nights of the week, but I find that it is necessary so that I can do the other things that I want to do. Maybe I’m just weird, but I kind of like having this challenge where I have to balance school with traveling all over Europe; I’ve just always liked to challenge myself with difficult tasks. After all, nothing comes easy in life! In either case, immediately after coming back from Heidelberg, I was back on the grind. For the next 7 days, it was just studying and living at the AIB from dusk til dawn..and then some. I studied from 8AM to 9PM from Monday to Friday that week after Heidelberg. I also got a key for that weekend and basically lived at the AIB until 3AM Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in order to prepare for my Circuits and Signals test that upcoming Monday. Many of my friends actually went to Amsterdam that weekend, so pushing myself to stay motivated proved to be quite the challenge. Regardless, I managed to make it through that weekend and do well on the test, so in the end, I guess it wasn’t for nothing? OH! One small memorable thing that happened that weekend was when we went to get lunch on Sunday. We went to one of the cafes that was near Münster. Just as we ordered our food, an older lady that sat next to us started to get up and leave. I helped move the table a little further away so that she could get up comfortably. As she was getting up, she asked us if we were from here. We told her “no, we’re studying abroad from Texas.” She was very fascinated and asked if she could stay and talk with us while we ate our lunch; of course, we said that it wasn’t a problem. And honestly, I’m so glad that she asked to sit and talk with us. It turns out that she speaks Italian, English, German, and French fluently. She grew up wanting to be a stewardess, but unfortunately, at the time that she applied, there was a height requirement that she didn’t meet. My friends and I just talked and talked with her about everything American because she was genuinely interesting in all things American. She asked about our accents, about Texan stereotypes, our view on the current political situation, religion, living in the north versus the south, etc. We talked for about 3 hours in total, which took away from studying time, but it’s moments like these that I can sacrifice my own study time for. Later that next week, my friends and I sat down to figure out the rest of our semester and what do with our free weekends. Currently, we’ve made plans for each weekend until the end of the semester; it’s exciting to look into, but I know that the biggest challenge will be trying to figure out how to manage school while still enjoying my time abroad. We plan to go to Cologne, Berlin, London-Barcelona-Madrid-Lisbon for spring break, Auschwitz, Amsterdam, Rome-Florence for Easter weekend, Budapest, and Bruges. Yeah. It’s going to be real busy, and planning for all of these trips is no easy task either because of the difficulty that comes with trying to please everyone in the group, but as I've said many times before, I know that it'll all be worth it in the end.