It's hard to believe I'll be getting on a plane - that in just eight hours - will drop me off in my new home for the next nine months; and this is less than 48 hours into my future!
For the 2012-13 school year I'll be studying abroad in Worcester, England at the University of Worcester. I chose the UMD Study in England Programme for a couple of reasons: I had been to London before on an AP European History field trip and fell in love with the city and I wanted to study abroad in a country that made it easy to travel to other countries and where there wouldn't be a huge language barrier to deal with on a day-to-day basis. As I researched the programme a little more, I found there to be many other reasons to apply but I'll explain some of those as we go along; I don't feel like sounding like an advertisement :) Maybe I'll sound like an advertisement in my final post nine months from now!
Just to give you a sense of who I am, if you don't already know me: I'm a sophomore in college and I'm majoring in Art History (no specialty yet, I only declared a few months before freshman year ended). I love art and travel (I'm pumped to be able to go to the British Museum when we get over there). I also enjoy cooking and baking (cupcakes are my favorite thing to bake; my Snickerdoodle cupcakes are famous in my house) as well as singing and dancing (in private or with close friends and family who, for the most part I think, don't mind :P). I loved going to UMD last year; I made such good friends and it was just an amazing year so it's hard to leave for an entire school year. What else... well, I think I'll just leave it at that for now; I'll have many more chances to reveal more about myself.
I'm hoping this coming year will be one of growth. I want to become more independent (which I think is kind of inevitable) and feel like I'm totally able to provide for myself. I also want to learn more about the world and different cultures, oh! that's another reason why I wanted to be part of this particular programme: since it is a full school year, I thought that would make it easier to become fully immersed in the culture rather than just skimming over it. Semesters go by so fast... I wanted to be able to feel at home in another country rather than just feel like I was passing through for a visit.
I plan on posting a few times per week, so look for another one of these sometime soon! If you have any questions, I think I have comment boxes available (I've never tried to make a serious blog before so bear with me as I work through how to do this) so feel free to ask!
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