My Fears

Tonight I did something I told myself I would never do- watch horror
stories about Semester at Sea. There is a Facebook group where people
post random comments about anything from questions about their visas,
classes, field trips, or organizing non-semester at sea trips (they
are way cheaper). Someone posted this video, and I contemplated
watching it because I did not want to place any worry in my mind
seeing that I still have two months until I leave. I decided to watch
the video because I knew I needed to prepare myself for the worst so
that if I am faced with a similar situation, I would be as prepared as
I could be. The end of the video gave me a little peace of mind about
the lifeboats. I never knew anything about the features of these life
boats and would have gone onto the boat thinking very naive. Until
now, I thought that they would be similar to the Titanic not knowing
all of the features.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DBGhXI586k

Semester at Sea

For those of you who do not know what this program is about, I will be traveling literally around the world... on a cruise ship made into a small university. This study abroad experience is through the University of Virginia. The way I found out about this study abroad experience is through my sister, Heather. She did this about 5 years ago! My parents went to visit her when she was in Viet Nam. I am very excited and lucky to have my parents, my sister Jennifer, and her husband, Chris coming to visit me in Cape Town, South Africa. I want to thank my parents for all of the love and support allowing me to go on this trip.

My preparation for this trip has been endless: Scholarships, Visas, registering for classes, getting vaccinations, and signing up for “field trips.” Although this has been stressful, most everything is done now and all that is left to do is wait in anticipation for January 19th. You can check back here at my blog for updates on my travels and I will post pictures also.