Study Abroad

I’m in England now and my life is fantastic! I’ve been having an amazing time here and it’s only been a month. This is officially the longest time I’ve ever spent in England, and I still have another 7 months to go.

I’ve been spending money like crazy here and it needs to stop. The crap exchange rate doesn’t help!
In four days I’m jetting over to Dublin for a whirlwind 20th birthday weekend. I can’t believe I’m going to get to turn 20 in Ireland, how fantastic.

Obviously, this year was worth all the work and wait it took to get here, not to mention all the money it cost. Everyone should be required to study abroad, it’s been such an amazing experience for me and I’ve only been here a month!

I have no clue how I’m going to get all my things to England! I thought I wouldn’t have a problem and I’m packing pretty light, but there just isn’t enough room! All I’m taking is a small suitcase and an internal frame backpack.
I’m going to have to mail myself a bunch of stuff, which is annoying because I don’t know my apartment number yet and won’t until a few weeks after I arrive.
It’s stressing me out a little bit because I only have 11 days until I leave and I’m still waiting on debit cards and textbooks to come through the mail, and now the packing looks like it’s going to be a much bigger job than I imagined it would be.
It doesn’t even seem like I’m leaving! It’s so hard to imagine that this time in two weeks I’ll be in ENGLAND!

The day of my pre-departure orientation! I can’t wait, I’m so excited!!

It’s weird because I definitely can’t wait to leave and be in England, but on the other hand it still doesn’t seem like I’m about to be moving there. Living in England is something that has always been so important to me, and now that I’m about to actually be spending a year there, it just seems like it’s too good to be true and I can’t really believe that it’s actually going to happen to me.

I don’t think it will sink in until I’m at the airport, and then I’ll probably be insanely happy and impatient to get there.

I just got an email from the British Consulate saying that they’ve accepted my application and have granted me a visa!!! YAY!! I’m so happy!

I can’t believe they’ve already finished reviewing my application, they only recieved it two days ago. I am extremely impressed.

That takes so much pressure off of me! Now I have everything that I need to have to go to England, and all I need to do is hang out until September when I can finally board that plane!

I finally mailed in my visa application and it feels so good to be able to just sit back and relax with that being taken care of.

Now I just need to work on my foreign studies assignments and wait for August to roll around. On the 3rd is my pre-departure orientation and I’m so excited! I’ll finally be able to meet other people who will be studying with me and find out more about my trip.

I feel like everything is falling into place now. I can’t believe this is actually going to happen!

Man, getting a visa is more complicated than I thought! I filled out the online application last night, and there were so many questions that I wasn’t sure how they wanted me to answer. They wanted my address abroad and I don’t know that yet because it’s in a dorm and I haven’t been assigned a place yet – I won’t know till August. So I just put down as much as I did know.

At the end they wanted to know how I would be submitting the application and by mistake I put in person (which is impossible, because the place I need to deliver it to is 7 hours away) so now I’m really hoping that doesn’t matter, because I don’t think I can re-do the application. At least, not without re-paying the $208!

There are so many documents that I need to turn in, and the documents that my program director told me I need don’t include many that the website told me I needed.

I know it shouldn’t happen, but still, I really hope I don’t get rejected! I’ll just be glad when this whole process is over and all I need to think about is where I’m sitting on the plane!

This is so exciting! – In 2.5 months I’m going to be leaving to spend one year studying in Birmingham, England! Typing it out like that almost makes me want to cry because I’ve spent so much of my life wanting to be in England and it’s hard to believe that something this great could actually finally be happening for me.

Spending sophmore year in England was always my ideal situation, and it looked like it wasn’t going to happen for a long time because first my program was filled up, and then, after there was one spot that opened up, my GPA wasn’t high enough. But after several miracles, it all worked out! I’ve been accepted!

I didn’t realise before how much work applying to study abroad would be. There were so many forms and so many people I had to go talk to and have sign things, so many deadlines, so many people asking for money. It was really stressful, especially because being able to go means so much to me.

It’s starting to sink in a little bit that I’m actually going to be doing this, but there’s just been so many deadlines and things left to do before I leave that I haven’t really had any time to just sit back and consider the fact that I’m going to be spending a year by myself in Europe. I’m finally going to be living in England! I can hardly even imagine how fantatic doing something that wonderful will actually feel.

So I got a summer job, and I’ve been trying to remember that all the hours I put in there will be well worth it in March, when I have 5 weeks off for spring break and the residence halls are closed to students, thus forcing me to travel. As if I even needed someone else to give me a reason.

I’ve been spending my days hoping the time until September 17th flys by quickly, and so far it has. I can’t believe June is almost over.
I’ve been trying to think up the best way for me to keep an illustrated travel journal – what it would look like, how it would function.
I’ve been dreaming and waiting.

After I come back from my year abroad, I will cross this off my list.

(PS – I won a $2500 scholarship for this too! It’s amazing how many good things can happen at once sometimes.)

I found a program that is one of the highlighted programs at U of M. It’s a semester in Florence. They don’t offer a year there, only fall or spring semester. The full budget is $15,000. Which is a lot. The cost of tuition, accomadation and health insurance is $9,000 – which is exactly the cost of one semester at on campus. So when I read that it sounded very affordable, but there’s just so many other costs involved.

There is no meal plan, so I’d have to bring a lot of extra money for that, and for spending money and excursions. It would be one very expensive year, and it would all be paid for entirely by loans.

I just want to find a really cheap semester program because my junior year I’ll be spending in England, and that will be very expensive. So I’d like to not rack up tons of debt in loans before that even starts.