Happy Sunday everybody!
To be completely honest, this past week was not that exciting—or even that great for that matter. It was the first time I started to feel stressed and overwhelmed since leaving to study abroad, and I found it extremely difficult to accept those emotions. There is such a stigma with studying abroad where you are always supposed to be having an incredible time without any bad days. While being in such a beautiful place, I’m still taking classes and having to submit assignments and study for exams. Since my program consists of only 22 other people, it was especially difficult to not build tensions between one another when we live in such close quarters and everybody is just as stressed.
Despite the stress, one of the highlights of my week was playing soccer with our “Spanish & Chilean Culture” professor, along with a bunch of students from the local university in Puerto Natales. Being able to let loose for a bit and make new friends was a great experience, and we even made plans to meet up with them in the future for more soccer games.
Now that it’s Sunday and everything that was due is now finished, I’m able to reflect on how I felt and understand that IT’S OKAY to have bad days when being abroad. I remember my college telling us (the students that were going abroad the following semester) that this type of feeling will happen, but I did not pay much attention to it since I was in the mindset that it wouldn’t happen to me. Taking a couple deep breaths, going for walks, and talking to others about topics unrelated to school helped so much. Not every second of my experience here will be full of adventure and fun, and sometimes I’ll have days where I’m too busy with schoolwork to be able to explore Puerto Natales or relax at the center. Stress will happen, but life goes on. I’ve learned that it’s all about the way one deals with stress that is important, not the stress itself.
Looking forward, I can now get excited for my program’s next trip, which is to Torres del Paine National Park! We’ll be leaving tomorrow to spend the next four days trekking on part of the “W trek.” We’ll still be having our class lectures and assignments, but they will all be related to Torres del Paine. It’ll also be refreshing to get out of the center for a few days and into the mountains (fingers crossed that we see a puma!). Plenty of photos will be taken, so get excited! Additional pictures from my boat trip have also been uploaded in this post, so I hope you enjoy 🙂
Also! Feel free to follow @thesfs and @thesfs_chile to see more photos and get the inside scoop of what I’ll be doing!
Abroad Patagonia. 