I'm Running My First Half-Marathon as a Charity Run!

2 month placement abroad, followed by a month long family vacation and I can truthfully say that I need to get back to the "world of the living". The amount of relaxing this summer was much appreciated, and I am now ready to find a new sense of direction. Those who know me well will know that I always like to be working towards a goal of some form. I can't stand to be unoccupied! Without classes (bye bye student life!) and still on the hunt for a job means that I'm in a limbo. My brain has needed the past month to recuperate and readjust to this new state of affairs, since it's something I've never experienced. Now I'm slowly regaining the motivation to move onto starting the next chapter of my life, starting with tackling some personal goals.

Before flying off on vacation, I buckled down and registered to run my first half-marathon. I did this so that I would not give myself any excuses to not do it and because I like signing up for things early so that I get to feel all the anticipation that comes with racing (oh, and because of early bird fees!). In fact, this half-marathon was on my mind for much of my vacation. As my running shoes walked around the other side of the world/country with me, my mind was gearing up for this new long distance that I've challenged myself with.

1 Thing I Learned from My International Placement Experience

My placement has long been over but I've been away for much of the summer so I have yet to wrap up my international placement experience. While I've been away, I've been reminded of how writing is an outlet for expressing my thoughts and feelings, but motivation can be so hard to find. Now that I'm settling back into being at home, I've got no real excuses about why I'm not writing. This piece is so long over due and probably one of the hardest (and longest!) posts I've written so far because it's taken a lot of self-reflection and hard thinking. It's kind of a mix between what I wanted to write in a "Who Am I Out of Context? Part 2" post and as a summary reflection. I hope that you can understand the thoughts that I'm about to share with you. 

I consider my international placement experience a valuable mix between education/work and self-discovery. I initially started by naming this post "5 Things I Learned..." because I thought that it would be nice to be able to get a list of things down that I've learned in those 2 months. (Also because I love lists!) Between travelling alone, living in a new country and working/having an educational experience in a culturally different setting --5 things should be easy, right? I had some ideas for sure (which I've incorporated into this post), but I just couldn't get it down to 5 distinct things.