‘What the hell am I doing?’ I have asked myself this question numerous times since the beginning of my degree almost two years ago, and boy, has that gone by in a flash. However, now second year is over, my next adventure is my year abroad, and I have found myself asking myself this question several times a day. What the actual flaming hell am I doing?
It will come as no surprise to you that I am a total stress head. I Google things constantly, quadruple check dates and times, refresh email inboxes like a madman: the list is endless. So naturally, now I am moving to another country for ten months of my life, my brain has gone into overdrive. If you are new to my blog, I will give you the low down: I’m an English Literature and Spanish student who is moving to study at the University of Zaragoza in Spain. Yeah, I know I’m crazy. I know you’re thinking it. My parents certainly are. The last few weeks since leaving university, I have been checking flights and train times every day, sometimes twice over. I have found myself in my university library for hours checking module classes because Spanish universities are super late and don’t tell you things until a deadline is looming (lol cannot wait for that all year), frantically emailing tutors, Google translating housing contracts that I do not understand, working out when is best to leave my job and book flights amongst all the family occasions and birthdays – it has been So Much Fun™.
Despite all of this fretting, however, I am excited. For someone who has lived in the same place her whole life, only venturing twenty minutes away for university in the last two years, this is finally the time for me to have an adventure of my own: I’m going to live in Spain for a year. SPAIN. It could be far, far worse. I am already bracing myself for the culture shock, being seriously homesick, the loneliness on my 21st birthday a week after moving out (aren’t I lucky?), the failed attempts at Skyping my friends and boyfriend on shitty wifi and wanting to pack it all in, but I guess that all comes with the territory. I just know I’m going to meet so many wonderful people from around the world, appreciate new food and cities, be able to take some weird and wonderful classes that I would not normally have a chance to in England, and get to experience everything the rest of Europe has to offer – it really does help having friends in other countries like Italy, France and Germany! However, it’s probably best for me to brush up on my politics vocab before I go in order to avoid the dreaded #Brexit talks.
I cannot wait to be living in such a beautiful city! And of course, I will be sure to keep you all updated on my time over in España, but make sure to be following my Twitter and Instagram feeds for more updates and photos (of which I’m sure there will be lots).
¡Hasta la próxima vez!
Kirstie Sutherland 