Panic. Excitement. Panic. Excitement...

So today we had our pre-departure workshop in Magee, gathering with other students from study abroad programmes such as StudyAmerica, erasmus and ISEP (which was the group I was going with).

I've started going through these moments of extreme excitement, wishing that I was already on the plane, Colorado bound. Then in the space of 10minutes I could go into shear panic and think how on earth am I going to do this? Especially by myself, getting on the plane for the first time alone... I hope I'm not the only person going through this. Realistically, I'm not. I am going is because I heard about this programme through other students who have went and managed to come back in one piece, true.

I would never have considered myself to be home sick but can I really have an option on this feeling until I am put into the position to be by yourself?

I thought the workshop was to give us a list of more things that we had to sort before leaving, a chance for them to bombard us with even more stuff; but to my surprise it was just a chat, the opportunity to talk to the people that are helping us out, it helped to put a face to the person on the other side of the email, which is always nice! We split up into our programme groups and basically got chatting about where each of us were going. Judith who ran the workshop had literally been everywhere in america, which meant she was able to give us lots of information on each state and more importantly a detailed whether forecast. The short version.... I'm basically going to be running from tree shade to tree shade with my pale skin, trying not to get burnt! (Thats what a Ginger loves to hear)

Today allowed me to appreciate that the opportunity I was getting shouldn't be taken for granted, that first of all not everyone gets the chance to do anything like this, ever and some people could never do this because their fear over weighs the pro's of going. I still get those fear moments but every time I do, I think back to the excitement I felt when I left the first ever information talk in November last year, I couldn't wait to fill out the forms and get everything sorted.

I never considered this to make sense to anyone, but hopefully these random bites of information and blabber that I'm taking could aid someone at some point if they ever choose to study abroad. Lets just hope that everything works out and I actually get going...

I would have always considered myself an adventurous person but I'm glad that I am finally getting to prove this to everyone and more importantly myself!.... Que the cheese.