Fearless

This entry is dedicated to all my classmates, embarking on fearless adventures across the globe this summer.

I love country music, and I am a huge fan of Taylor Swift. I was listening the title track of her 2nd album called Fearless, and inspiration came to me. I remember at one point listening to an interview with her and why she chose this title and she said something along the lines of 'the word fearless doesn't necessarily mean not having any fears, sometimes fearless means having fears but jumping anyway'.

I think that each of us in this class is fearless, I don't think any of us has gone these entire two terms and never had any fears about the program or about our placements, but I think it comes down to the fact that even among those fears we are 'jumping anyway'. Of all the struggles we've encountered, individually and as a whole we have overcome, stuck with it and here we are today with less than a month before we are on our way.

And of course, as many have said, this isn't the end, it's really only the beginning, it's the moment we've all been preparing for during the past eight months. And as ti is the beginning we have yet to encounter many of our fears and struggles, which will come while we are in our placements. So I just want to encourage each of us to keep this attitude of fearlessness, to acknowledge our fears, but to jump anyway, to make the most of this experience and not hold back from all that it can be.

Courageous

Courage doesn't always roar.
Sometimes courage is the quiet voice
at the end of the day saying,
"I will try again tomorrow"
- Mary Anne Radmacher

I know that no amount of 'what ifs' could ever
envision every situation I might encounter this summer.
So when I come across anything that makes me feel like giving up,
I am going to remember to have courage :)

Struggling

This entire past week has felt like a struggle. I feel unable to pinpoint any one source but I feel that I am constantly struggling with everything. Yesterday I had a midterm that was fairly difficult and so all last week was spent studying for that and finalizing details for our pancake breakfast fundraiser on Sunday (which I will speak of in a bit). I was so focused on those two things that I fell behind in many other small things that have all added up. I have several novels to read for my classes, an essay to write and a fundraising event coming up this weekend. My to do list seems to be growing exponentially every few minutes and the amount of items that get transferred from one day to the next leaves with a sense somewhat like drowning. Speaking of drowning, I could not focus today until I cleared the sea of debris from my desk that had accumulated from the past week's busyness.
On top of all else I have been hard-core neglecting this blog, which actually saddens me because I was missing but didn't have any idea what to write and wanted to write something meaningful.

Despite all else I have found a great support network with my Beyond Borders class. In planning the fundraiser I feel I have come to know many of the other students a lot better and I guess I really just realized how much we're all in this together. I have found that the other students are so supportive and have a way of just popping up and saying the nicest things to absolutely make my day when its 9 in the morning and its already not going well. Offering a hug of reassurance when I'm over-stressing and just trying to generally trying to do too much. Or sending a quick message to wish me well on my exam. It's really all the smallest things that mean the most. I guess this is really saying thank you to all of you, you're more than wonderful :) I can't wait to spend more of our time together and to learn more about everyone. Also, thanks to our prof, whom I had the most wonderful reassuring talk with today.

That's all for now but rest assured there is more coming soon. I actually have another post sitting on my desk but it was written in semi-darkness last night, so I will have to decipher it and then I will post it :)