Do I Need a Title?

This break is flying by! I can't believe that it's almost Christmas (my favorite holiday). I just finished all of my shopping so I've just gotta wrap up a few things. For some reason it doesn't feel like Christmas, hopefully it will in the next few days.

I will be flying off in no time at all...WWHHAATT!! It's not even real.

The 12 hour flight to London is what is going to be the least fun. I'm planning on sleeping and bothering everybody around me. I'm going to also stock up on some magazines to read, I love magazines.

I saw a list of places that we get to go as a part of our programme, in our first week we are going to Bath. Then Stonehenge, Windsor Castle and then if I pay 10 to 20 quid I can go to Birmingham, Liverpool, Cardiff and Brighton! Absolutely brilliant. I'd like to go to Manchester also and of course London, that's a given.

I plan on going to mainland Europe also which will be a dream come true as well! I want to go to Paris for my birthday and see the Eiffel Tower and le Musee d'Orsay. My ancestors were Parisian so I feel that it is only fit that I spend time there.

Goals will be posted. My anticipation will also be posted here.

Home

Home is a good place to be. For me whenever I am home, it allows me to reflect upon my life and also do some of the things that I love to do like reading, writing and listening to music. Typically at school I don't get much alone time (which is fine by me) so when I get to shut myself up in my room for a few weeks I can recharge mentally.

I've gotten to spend loads of time with my family which has been great since I won't see them for a long time. It's good to have all of the fun we can now while I'm here so we can hold onto those memories while I'm away.

Speaking of being away, I am getting more and more excited as the days pass. I have just been sitting around thinking about exactly how loud I'm going to scream when we land at Heathrow Airport.  The moment we step outside the airport I will probably die from a combination of disbelief and excitement.

Once Christmas has passed I will be even more ready to pack up and go. Christmas is my favorite holiday so once that happens then there really is nothing else to look forward to in the new year until my birthday or Easter, which ever comes first.

This week I am going to create a list of goals I want to accomplish while abroad. They will include traveling, dining places, meeting people, seeing live music and visiting my friends who will be spread all across Europe. Two of my friends will be in Ireland, two more in London a friend in Italy and then in May another will be in Spain.  I couldn't be more excited to visit these places that they will all soon enough call home.

Alright then, so once I make my list and check it twice I will post it on here. And to keep myself accountable for each goal, I am going to get photographic proof then post about it. Sounds good? Great.

Peace Philly

As of yesterday I have officially left Philadelphia and am no longer a Temple student. It's such a cliche to say but it feels like the semester went by so quick.  It feels like last week my friends and I were shopping for Halloween costumes!

My final weeks were filled with little sleep and lots of laughs (just the way I like it).  Other than being crazy busy doing school work, my roommates/sistas came down for the weekend! We had such a wonderful time eating food, going to Reading Terminal Market and Love Park for Christmas Village.

It was great to see them since we didn't get to be together this semester. They are hopefully coming to spend some of Christmas break with me which is going to rule.

This past week before leaving was sad since it was a lot of lasts. Last time staying up until almost 4 a.m. (it was before my 8 o'clock final and it was 100% worth it), last time riding SEPTA and last time eating poorly crafted food. But most importantly I will miss the people that I have met and now call my friends.

This semester I didn't think that I would make friends (for some odd reason) because I assumed that everybody already had their friend groups pre-determined. I was most certainly wrong.  The friends that I have made are some that I hope to keep for next year at Messiah and hopefully for the rest of my life. I cannot wait to see them all again!

Through the people I met I learned more about myself than I ever imagined and talked about things indepthly that I never had before.

Along with the city I have learned to be more confident in myself as a woman overall.  That really was the big thing.  I'm not quite certain how it happened but it did and I'm grateful for it.  By taking this more firm grasp at femininity, I can begin to get closer to the woman that I want to be.

This semester was awesome and I wouldn't trade my experiences for the world!

Goodbye Philly, hello UK! My next stop after home is Cheltenham in western England.  This is going to be the biggest thing that I've done in my life thus far and I could not be more thrilled for it to begin. I have less than a month away and I'm not even close to being physically or mentally ready. All of the paper work is in, I now must finalize classes, pack (this should be fun, not) and create a list of goals.

The future is uncertain for next semester but all I know for certain is that it will be the best.

Finals, the joy

This past few days have been crazy busy with working on projects and attempting to have fun with my housemates before we never see one another again.

Tonight I just finished my term paper for my sustainability class, thank the Lord! I absolutely hate big papers.  Being a journalist we are taught to write very briefly and only make the key points known. One sentence is considered a paragraph in journalism.  When one writes a real paper, there has to be tons of words and pages that it blows my mind.  I don't know if I'm cut out for this kind of work anymore.

For the rest of my academic time here I have to finish two projects and study for three exams. That sounds like a blast to me...

Other than that my two roommates from last year are coming down to visit this weekend! Hurray! Since it is also my last weekend in the city we are going to be doing absolutely everything. Most of the kids in the house will hopefully come along when we go and see the lights that the city put up in Center City.  We are all going to go out to eat which of course will be a good time.

As I look back on my time here at Temple I do not wish that I would have gone here for all four years of college. I love Messiah too much to leave it for somewhere else. I see faults in both systems but Messiah is my home so I can't even hate on it.

I have also gotten to learn more about myself as a person even though I had once thought that I knew myself really well.  I really value this and I wouldn't unwish anything that happened here in Philly! I did a lot of learning and discovering things about me that I never even knew.

I will post again during my final week (hopefully).