Old Soul, Young Heart

I realize that I am such a blessed person, but sometimes I can't help but be annoyed that at 25 I have experienced very little culture and very few cultured places. I think that I have traveled quite a bit so far, but I've never really experienced anywhere. I look back on Europe and get so frustrated with my 16 year old self. I was in Paris, Nice, Monaco, Italy, and Switzerland and did not pay attention to anything. I didn't spend any time looking out the window or marveling at buildings and landscape the way I should have. I didn't take pictures of the things that mattered. I was there--granted, in five different countries in nine days--but I was there, and I didn't care. I was excited, but I had no idea the magnitude of the trip I was taking. Some people never leave the country they're born in and I went to Europe when I was 16 as my first trip really anywhere. Not only all of that, but I don't even remember thanking my parents for paying for it. I wou

Reflecting on the past two class periods... I've decided that I have no group and that everyone else does. I try not to let it bother me because I have to remember that it's not because I'm a person that people don't want to get to know. I realize it's because all of them work together at assistantships and also have another together on Monday. Not being a part of the group is just a biproduct of working full-time and only going to school part-time. I get it. It's just hard sometimes to feel like I don't belong and that I have nothing in common with people. The majority of them are quite a bit younger and have a lot more experience than I do in student affairs, which sucks because I feel like the underdog. I've learned a lot and sort of still feel like I'll be good at it--I just feel like I'll be less good at it than my peers. ...Sigh...

All I had on the brain today was not being at work and not being in central Illinois, which translates to: all I had on the brain today was being in England and/or moving away and "starting over." I will savor my time in the CSPA program, but I am just so anxious already for it to be over so that I can start my life as an adult.

Maybe I'm just a snob, but I don't understand what's so hard about writing a paper that actually has been thought about and, in turn, has meaning. Oh yeah, then there's the part about it actually pertaining to what was assigned. Wow.

T'is September. I am happy for that. It's been on and off autumn weather and I wish it would be here for good. Life has officially settled down, but I'm still overwhelmed with homework and need to put together a schedule somehow. I hate being a procrastinator, but you can't really help it when you're busy with other things all of the time. I have a five page paper due on Tuesday and I only have tomorrow to finish it. Five pages isn't that much, but I feel like every word has to be important in graduate school. I feel like this assignment could've been three pages and it would've sufficed for what I have to write about. I hate bullshitting to fill up space. The assignment I worked on today had to be two pages and I was suffering through that even. I just don't think I'm a wordy person. I can get to my point fairly efficiently. Maybe I'm not able to expand on my thoughts as much as I should, or maybe I just don't have enough thoughts in g