“Real life”

Senior year is a strange year. In high school, we stressed about college admission, about figuring out what we should major it, about how we are going to leave home and be ‘independent’. What we don’t realize is that that time of our lives is nothing compared to our senior year of college.

This past semester was one of my best semesters at Emerson but yet, anxiety has also begin to set in. I can only imagine my friends who graduated a semester earlier, how are they feeling, how annoyed they are of people asking them what they’re plans are, how they are dealing with their parents inquiries, etc.

“Real life” so they say, is creeping up a lot faster than I’d like. Although that term itself should be reworded, those two words give us moire anxiety than anything. It’s almost as if the last 23 years of our lives were not real. But I’d say they were, I did a lot of real things, I traveled to a lot of real places and I’d like to say I met a lot of real people.

Growing up in a well-off family, I haven’t had to worry about much, about tuition, living arrangements, food and I can’t be more thankful for it but on the flip side, there are high expectations of me to live up to that standard. The field that I want to go into and love doing is not the most looked upon. It doesn’t make half as much money as I am ‘expected’ to make. I understand that it won’t uphold the lifestyle I’m living now, but I hope you understand that I’m ok with it.

I know very well I will not be able to travel as much, go out to bars as much or even eat at as many various restaurants but I know there is a chance I can wake up every day and be happy to go into work- and that I think is the most important.

With that being said, I know the anxiety will only worsen the next couple months as I attempt to figure out my life out of school but I have faith. I believe that it will all work out. Im simply going to enjoy the last of my senior year, work hard at my internships and do what I gotta do.

Finally, to all graduating and graduated seniors, take heart. Take it one day at a time, do what you gotta do and everything will work out. Your family will still love you, your friends will still be there (with one warning, don’t lose touch of whats important as you pursue the future) and you’ll still be living “real life”.

Be a traveler, Not a tourist

Be a traveler, Not a tourist

Since interning at a hostel, I’ve started to really understand that you don’t have to be traveling to be a traveler. There are new people and things to grasp right in front of us every day. The question is, will you seek out that amazing experience?

source: http://lawsofmodernman.tumblr.com

The Travel Itch

There’s something about reading travel stories and watching travel video that refreshes my mind every day as I’m sitting in here Boston finishing my final year of university. In between my classes, two internship, Quidditch practices and work, I find a little time each day to surf Matador Network and Couchsurfing to see what adventures lies ahead of me.

I definitely have been so fortunate to travel to various places around the world, but as soon as I constructed this map of where I’ve been- I realized how many more places I have yet to explore. A travel addict’s mind and personality is one that not everyone appreciates or understands. It’s not that we don’t appreciate where we are and what we do now, it’s that we want to ‘live outside of our own bodies in the lives of others’. We want to step into other cultures shoes, other lifestyles and start to explore why the world is the way it is.

We can take as many classes as we want in regards to anthropology, intercultural exchanges, communication theories, but none of those classes will teach us as much as simply stepping into the culture for a day or two. Some of us might not have the ability to travel, but that should not stop you from meeting friends from other cultures and pry as much experiences from them as you can.

visited 27 states (12%)
Create your own visited map of The World or Like this? try: Cambrium

If there’s one motto I will follow for the rest of my life, it will be to live outside of my own life and experience others in theirs. Every year I am getting older and getting closer to real life, which according to the world means getting a job, starting a family and settling down but according to me, it means, changing those gray spots on that map to red and if it’s God’s will, I’ll be doing that with a job I enjoy and with someone who gets it and wants to accomplish this goal along side with me.

24 hour friends

Once in a while you meet someone that just gets your heart pumping, someone that you click with but will never be good friends with due to various circumstances, someone that you want to get to know and spend as much time as possible with them while you can. I guess that’s the thrill of traveling and meeting people in whom you might talk to for a few minutes, or for the next 24 hours.

This week has been a crazy week, it’s the beginning of midterms for the next three weeks. Trying to juggle my two internships, quidditch, midterm projects, tests and making sure I don’t let my busy-ness get in the way of my social life is one of the hardest things to do. I use to tell people I was busy, but that was when I simply had a lot of school work to do and I was sitting at home procrastinating. Now my definition of busy has changed drastically, busy means I am out of the house by 9:30 in the morning and don’t get back till past 10.

Despite the lack of time and sleep this week, I managed to meet a new friend from Germany and got to know him as much as I could in the span of about 24 hours. He was traveling through Boston for two nights before continuing on his journey.

It was probably the best way to de-stress. We chatted about everything from traveling experiences to our families to our beliefs. It’s interesting to think that we( or perhaps I’m over generalizing) are much more open to being brutally honest with those who have no ties with our current lives. We feel so much more comfortable telling strangers about our fears, parts of ourselves we are ashamed of, and simply letting our self be who we really are. We leave no walls or filter in what we say. It’s an interesting dynamic.

My mind is a little all over the place at the moment so I’m sorry this post has been so scattered, but just wanted to write a little of my thoughts. So now what? Sure we became facebook friends, but realistically, we are going to move on with our busy lives leaving only the memory of our evening conversations- which will become more and more blurry over time.

As we said goodbye, it was surreal knowing that we may never see each other again. The last time I felt this way was traveling through Europe a year and a half ago meeting locals everywhere I went but this time, I’m on the other side of the door, saying goodbye to travelers.

I wish we had more time to get to know each other, but thus our lives go on and I can simply say thank you for rejuvenating my love for these interactions. Thank you for reminding me that there is more to life than filling up my calender with “things I have to do.”

Until next time.

Back at it

Hello dear readers,

It’s been a while since I’ve updated and I apologize for that. Towards the end of my summer internship, I had two good friends from university come visit me in Hong Kong. Those three weeks were hectic, full of tourist activities and three of the best weeks of my summer. It is always a wonderful feeling to show friends my home town, how I grew up and why I rave about HK all day and night long. I think they understood.

I came back to Boston early September after a few days stop in New York and spent time with a special friend. I had a good weekend full of discussions, adjustments and even got to see some old high school friends. Though I enjoyed new York and wish I could be there more often, it is good to be back in Boston though.

School started just over a week ago. Classes thankfully have not started to get too busy yet, only reading so far. It has given me a chance to get everything else sorted, internships, sports, etc.

I am interning at Hostelling International in Boston this semester as a campus outreach intern. Our goal is to connect Emerson community with the Hostel community. Im honored to work there and hope that I will be able to contribute a good deal to the organization. Who would’ve thought i would work for a hostel? It’s a huge blessing and I thank God for that.

Quid ditch is starting up again, it will be busy but very exciting. I look forward to having more updates in the coming weeks to share with you. For now, enjoy your weekend!

🙂