Before I embarked on my Study Abroad adventure, I was re-introduced to the idea of reverse culture shock. Reverse culture shock was initially introduced to me 5 years prior when I returned from my short romp around Western Europe, but I didn’t feel it quite as badly as I had thought I would. There were no huge adjustments to make (mostly because then I was a lowly teenager), and the only real “issue” I had to deal with was wanting to go back. (more…)
At least one of the lemon flavored things I tried this week could be labeled a miracle. (more…)
This week was, surprisingly, jam-packed full of stuff. Less stressful than last week (maybe), but the beginning was certainly frustrating. I’m getting closer and closer to the new friends I made here, and as with every other aspect of study abroad, I’m experiencing many new activities. (more…)
Hooo boy I finally have time to crank some of these backlogged entries out. Now that the semester is more or less over (with a few stray assignments sprinkled about), I now don’t feel like I’m dying all the time due to stress! This first entry captures the essence of what will forever be known as Hell Month for me
(I apologize if there are more typos and errors than there usually are: my shift key is having a few issues) (more…)
While the commitment of having to sit down and write something that isn’t academic is pretty daunting at the moment, I will take some time to comment/post on something that may be of mild interest to some (namely my American friends).
One weekend my flat was actually clean and tidy, so I decided to take a few pictures of it to illustrate what it’s like living here as a student. It’s mildly different from the dorms back at home, and unsurprisingly much cheaper. (more…)
Yikes, I’m really behind on postings. My apologies, honestly, but the end of the Estonian semester is a lot more jam packed with activities than I previously expected. That being said, I’m not sure when you can expect chapter updates. I hope it’s soon, otherwise I will forget a lot of what I’ve done. I hope to return soon!
I have valid excuses as to why this is so late, and they all involve school work. Don’t you just love the end of the school year? I don’t 🙂
Despite me thinking this week held little content, my actually writing and thoughts say otherwise. I have to get better at remembering details, sure, but I also need to stay sharp on my observations. Because it’s not until I write these things that my observations come out in full swing, and I realize “Hey, this was actually pretty cool and significant! Hell yeah!”
Let’s get into it.
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As I sit at my desk, pondering what I could possibly focus my opening paragraph on, I realize there is no rhyme or reason to how I formulate my opening prose. Usually it comes naturally, reflecting on the sort of content I contribute to my chapters. And most of the time it’s easy because the content inspires itself and it just needs human hands to pound haphazardly on a keyboard for about 3 hours for it to be understood. However, there are some mornings or afternoons where the inspiration train pulls into the station a bit late, but I don’t mind much, since the openings aren’t the content you, reader, come for. “Can’t you revise the opening as you write?” And I did just that, and it didn’t really help. Along the way I learned this is probably the most normal/casual week I’ve had, reminiscent of my weeks back at home. Is that a bad thing? Not entirely, but it made finding the inspiration to write tricky. So, we examine the little things that made this week noteworthy. (more…)
Hitting you all with a double whammy this weekend! With this post, I’m finally back on schedule, even if by some off chance it doesn’t get published until Monday. The normalcy of my life is also starting to fall back into place, and the fact that there’s only a month left of class kind of helps drive that point home. I may be in a different country, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m still doing classes and I still have a bunch of final work to do. Oh man. Finals. Papers. Presentations. Hmmmmm. Let’s talk about my recent adventure to distract from responsibilities, shall we? (more…)
So as of writing this, this post is a week overdue. I don’t find it really OK, since I had every intention of maintaining this blog on a strict weekly schedule (for consistency’s sake), but I realized it wasn’t worth putting myself down for not following my own high expectations. Sometimes things pop up out of nowhere and slow me down, but hey: that’s life. Now ignore the fact that the biggest chunk of my time last week was spent figuring out how to write the short novel that is Munich, but other things, such as studying, did play a large factor. And with that, we begin perhaps one of the shortest posts Tampa to Tartu will see, mostly out of how exhausted I have been with writing. (more…)
Tampa to Tartu 