Pre-departure

I am writing this post a 2am the day of my departure date to Germany with still a great deal of packing ahead of me, not knowing a lick of German, and without making contact with my host family. Needless to say, I am not as prepared for this trip as I probably ought to be. This is not an uncommon for me; a lack of preparation and organization has been something of a hallmark of my college career to this point. Is it healthy? Not really. Is it effective? Sometimes. Is it fun? In the loosest possible sense of the word, yes. But this case feels different. I've been looking forward to participating in this program since I first heard about it almost a full year ago and in many ways, the prospect of this program kept me motivated enough to finish the fall semester. And yet, after all that anticipation, I remain, sitting in my room, the morning of my flight, writing a last minute blog post surrounded by unpacked luggage. The weird thing for me though, is that I feel most intimidated not by the prospect of having to create a new group of friends, not by the prospect of getting lost in the bureaucracy of international travel, and not by a general lack of knowledge as to what my daily life is going to look like for the next 4 months, but rather that I'm going to have to churn out one of these blog posts each week. I can't pretend like I am not currently struggling with the anxiety of meeting the other students in the program but I generally manage to warm up to people. I know I can thrive or at least survive in whatever situation is thrown at me in the next semester. But I also failed BMEN 153 and missed out on a A VTTP because I have a problem with attendance scores. It's the little things that get me, and its the little things that scare me.