Teesa

Perusing through old blog posts is an activity I highly enjoy. A high school friend once wrote on the back of a staged prom photo, “Pictures are worth a thousand words; pictures can be the greatest liars,” a thought I strongly agree with. In a way, though, I think writing can do the same. Maybe it’s because I’m (again, surprise, surprise) in a foreign country, or maybe the amount of sweat release rivals that of backyard sprinkler systems; whatever the reason, it’s making me revisit the days of Southeast Asia. In similar fashion to the staged poses, unnaturally white smiles, hair styled to perfection, my excessive use of the exclamation mark and the word “amazing” in describing the days of studying abroad kind of makes me vomit a little in the mouth.

But what’s done is done; it’s cheating to go back and edit. Beneath the façade, I guess a few remnants of what Southeast Asia was like at the time can still be extracted. Had one of those “wow, I’m really not in college anymore moments” when I realized that at that time, my responsibilities were twofold: putting in some semblance of an effort into passing class, and putting in maximum effort into living life to best of a 21 year old’s ability…which really isn’t that hard in that region of the world. Travels and escapades aside, I don’t think the actual region actually mattered in the larger picture.

I cringe at the cliché statement, “Studying abroad was life changing” and similar ones like it, but I wonder if it holds some truth. If I didn’t get on that plane to Asia the first time, would I have gone the second time next year? And if the second time didn’t happen, would there have been this time in Micronesia?

I’m tired of feeling like I made a series of bad decisions in the eyes of others. My roommate Mackenzie just got a puppy, I think we’re naming it Cabbage. She’s received about 20 “best ways to raise/train a puppy” lectures. The effective training strategy ended up being from Google, found by a search we conducted ourselves. The melodramatic teenager inside is screaming “let me live my life!” Except, I am nearing the mid twenties mark (scary). No, scary can be in a sentence by itself. Scary.