Jubilant June
Now that my Gap Year is coming to a close (and yes, as sad as I am), there is plenty that I know I should be happy about. I’m starting college, a completely new experience for me. Before I start my year at Florida State, I’d like to reflect on my past travels in this blog post.
My 3 most favorite experiences from my Gap Year all have to do with the volunteer work that I was allowed to do. I love spending my birthday in Lithuania on the horse farm that I was volunteering at. I spent it in the company of my other volunteer friends from Spain and Germany, riding horses and eating homemade carrot cake. I also loved when I was working in Malaysia at a hostel that hosted ‘Open Mic Nights.’ Getting to work and be able to listen to other backpackers sing and have a good time in each other’s presence didn’t feel like ‘work’ at all. My most memorable experience from my Gap Year though was when I was in Sweden, working on building a roof for an old boat shed. At this volunteer opportunity, they didn’t have running water — so in order to feel any semblance of clean, we would jump into the fjord every night and shampoo our hair with homemade seaweed shampoo. Nothing beat heating ourselves up in their small European styled sauna, running out onto the dock (making sure to check the water with a flashlight for jellyfish) and then jumping into the water. THE BEST PART though was that the water would light up every time you moved because of the bioluminescent algae that lived in the water. Our hosts called it ‘sea sparkle,’ and being able to swim in this water every night was truly breathtaking.
My Gap Year however, was not all fun and games. There were many challenges I faced whilst traveling. Easily, I can say that the most challenging aspect of my trip was traveling itself. Getting from country to country, having to make sure you had all the things necessary for a Visa (if there was anything needed), getting to the airport on time, making sure your bag was properly packed…it was stressful to say the least. There was a day I had traveling from Scotland to Belgium, where I had flown from Scotland to Germany first, then took a bus to Belgium…it was by far the worst day of my travels. I felt so down, I wanted to give up. It was so challenging being alone and scared and stuck in the rain, everything out of my control. It was a great learning experience however, because being able to overcome that helped me get through the rest of my year easily.
My perspective on really everything has changed since taking my Gap Year. Prior to this, I never really knew how many people had waited a long time to finally go out and travel. One of the first things people would always say to me is that they wished they had done it when they were my age. It’s amazing to know how much people backpacking do so for the sake of their own happiness, which is something I never really realized before. I met people who quit their jobs to travel — I even met families with small children that traveled the world together. What had started out as just a year off to learn about myself, I ended up learning a lot more about other people and what traveling can really do for them. My perspective and insight on other cultures has certainly changed. Being able to live in different countries for periods of times and experiencing different races, religions, and economic backgrounds…was very very eyeopening for me. Having lived in Korea for such a long time, where you very rarely see homeless people — then submerging myself into countries where the poverty levels are high. Having to see people sleeping on the streets at night…it really made me think and really made me want to DO something for these people. Something that I hope in college I’ll be able to pursue.
In all fairness, I don’t think my expectations for college have changed much. Only because, I didn’t meet too many Americans whilst traveling. Everyone I met was usually from Europe, and a lot of people I met never even went to University. I never compared what my college experience could be to the experiences of the people I met because I felt like there were too many differing factors that were in play.
My goals for whilst I’m attending FSU are to obviously graduate, be active in clubs and the community, and to use my voice to speak up for people who I know can’t speak up for themselves. It’s very important to me that I do everything I can to try and raise awareness about the poverty in other countries, as well as our own. I want to raise awareness about the cruelty that animals face, and raise awareness on the problems I see with in our current political state. Of course, the ultimate goal is to graduate Florida State, and then join the military. If I can accomplish these things, I think I’d be able to say that I will be very happy.
