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.
