By rlubitz
For the past few weeks I’ve been abroad. That’s what I’ve been thinking and doing and talking about this whole time but since I’ve been here a while it’s finally struck me that I’m actually STUDYING abroad. Like I have to do work. Meaning papers. And maybe take an entire day in a library to get through life. Maybe there will be a week straight where I’ll exist on Tesco Only Ham sandwiches and the sacred 30 pence chocolate bar.
My first essay is due November 13th, which seems light-years away and nothing to stress about but then I realize that I have two papers due for each class and I’m taking four classes. I have to write eight papers and I haven't written a paper in six months. I have no idea what I'm doing.
On December 14th I have four essays due. On December 14th I’ll finally be done with studying but then, seriously, when do I start?
My fantasy-studying situation is I start each essay like a week early. That never happens.
What will actually happen is that I wait til the week before to start all of them. And then I survive off of Tesco Only Ham sandwiches and 30 pence chocolate bars.
I have travel plans and life in the way and also a full season of Dexter at my fingertips. It’s gonna be rough.
What I’m doing now is making rough drafts of all the papers. And by that I mean I’ve done two and watched two entire seasons of Dexter but HEY IT’S PROGRESS. What is making every abroad kid freak out is that British schools are notoriously tough on essays. I like to think all my American teachers are grading my papers in between bottle-feeding needy children and stocking up on Hurricane supplies like every year but the papers here go before a board of professors in the department. Professors with very serious British accents.
*Insert nightmares of department meeting being like LOL DID YOU READ LUBITZ’S PAPER LOL LMAO ROFL here*
What I need to do, for serious, when I get back from fall break (that’s next week WAHOO) is go to a Starbucks and lose my mind. Sit next to a couple talking about adopting from Namibia and just whip those papers out because what lies ahead of me this semester is just too good.
I’ve got a trip to Berlin and Italy and Spain and France and I need to be able to savor them before I get back to Washington, DC where the closest vacation destination is Baltimore.
So therefore I intend to lose my mind over the next three weeks…meaning after fall break. I’ll be miserable and possibly physically deteriorating at Starbucks but at least I will have the memories of Rome and Paris to keep me semi-full.
The sweetest success would be getting all my papers in a few days early and going to Paris for a day and just being able to completely relax and not worry if I spelled the word ‘favorite’ in the essay the British way or the American way.
*Insert panic attack Google search of all the words they spell differently here*