Rule No. 1 of preparations to go abroad: never schedule major dental work before your trip because the thing that makes you the most nervous is not adjusting to the culture or learning the language, but worrying about meeting your travel group and host family with terrible dragon breath.
Ah, the joy of wisdom teeth removal.
Rule No. 2 of preparations to go abroad: always check your spam folder.
I don’t know why, but emails from my housing application and my grant acceptance both went to spam.
It was only by the grace of me being curious about the 1,000 emails in my spam folder that I even found them.
No computer, this is not an ad for $500 Lasik — I need these to be alive in Spain.
Which, as a smooth segue, is where I’m going for the next six months to finish up my Spanish ? major.
It’s also a last hurrah before I graduate and become an actual functioning adult, which is a laugh because I still thoroughly enjoy the taste of Spaghettios and made myself sick one time by eating too many chicken nuggets.
But two weeks away from the date of departure, I feel myself growing more nervous.
What if the flight attendants don’t like me?
What if I don’t get along with my host family or can’t find an apartment before school begins?
What if the teacher talks too fast and the girl next to me is from some sort of large oil conglomerate-owning family and won’t share her notes with me, a simple ?plebeian?
What if the plane crashes dead in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and I’m forced to commune with dolphins in order to survive?
Do dolphins even live in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean?
Yet, finally, I had to decide not to worry.
I’ve been abroad in Spain before through the Honors Program that IU offers for high school students.
I also know that my Spanish classes on campus have prepared me for this trip. That’s what I would say to any other student considering going abroad.
I spent my freshman and sophomore year wrestling with the decision and finally had to throw my hands in the air and say, “Fine, I’m going.”
While I still get a little twinge of butterflies, more than that and more importantly, I just feel excited.
ewenning@indiana.edu
