I have been procrastinating (what else is new)...

(Look, a picture. Finally. Guys, this is Hamburg. This beautiful city is where I live.)

Last week a student told me that American English sounded sexier than British English.

I didn't have the heart to tell him how very wrong he was.

Speaking of British English, I am off to the U.K. next week for my October break, and I am unbelievably excited. I may or may not have made a gigantic list of bookstores that I want to visit (I really, really miss English bookstores. There is apparently only one in Hamburg and I went there this week and it looks like a hobo with a hoarding problem lives there in the store, and it made my soul hurt, so I am definitely not going back).

But time for serious talks now. I’ve been writing and re-writing this for about a week, because I want to talk about changing, but I’ve been having a really hard time clearly articulating what I want to say, so I’m just going for it.

Some things never change. Coming back to Europe has reminded me that here, my wallet always weighs about ten pounds because of all of the one and two euro coins (but this also means I can pay for things entirely with coins, and that is awesome). Here, you always have to either bring your own bags to the grocery store, or you have to buy them (no free plastic bags). Here, I still break things as much as I do back home (I’m pretty sure I still owe my roommate a cutting board and a mug or two. Or three). Here, I still have the worst sense of direction ever, and am forever heading in the exact opposite direction of where I am supposed to be going.

But sometimes things do change. Graduating and moving to Germany has reminded me of this. People always talk about how they changed in college, or how they changed when they studied abroad, but it can be really hard to pinpoint the specifics of these changes and explain them in a way that makes sense to other people, but I am going to try.

When you are placed in a strange and new environment (i.e. college or a new country), you suddenly become hyper aware of the individual parts that make up who you are. Suddenly some parts aren't as important any more. Suddenly it isn't as important whether you grew up in a big city or a small town, or what you did in high school. Suddenly your friends and family members back home are no longer the absolute center of your focus, because you are making new friends and building a new “family”. 

Suddenly the past doesn't matter as much, because what people are interested in is who you are now, what you are doing now, and what you are planning on doing in the future.

And this is always proves to be problematic, because I’ve never been good with those subjects: the present and the future. The present has always been somewhat unsatisfactory for me, I have always been too easily distracted to stay in the moment and appreciate what is going on in my life right now. Instead I spend my time either remembering the good times that happened in the past, or making outlandish and unrealistic plans for the future. But the future has always been complicated for me too, for while I love making plans, inevitably I either change my mind, or I jump recklessly into something else without making any plans at all, or reality sets in, and I have to remind myself that yes, your school would notice if you simply didn't return from your weekend trip and instead decided to go live in Morocco.

But now, here in Hamburg and outside of my comfort zone, I am being forced to re-examine these things. I am being forced to stop and really look at who I am, here, now. And I am being forced to carefully re-think what it is I want to do with my life and my future.

Every time I have studied abroad (or started another year of college) this kind of re-examination has changed me. Sometimes it caused me to have the courage to stop hiding and being shy. Sometimes it allowed me to be myself more and not be afraid of what others think about me. Even now, having only been here a month, I just keep changing my mind about myself and who I am and who I want to be. Do I really want to get my masters and then work at a college? Do I want to teach English instead? Do I want to go on some trip and simply never come back? Other questions keep popping up too, like why does everyone keep badgering me about getting married? How will I ever be able to pay off my student loans if I keep spending all of my money on travel? What would happen if I just up and decided to move to London or Paris or Cairo after my work contract ends in June?

It seems like every day I change my mind and rethink my choices. Am I ever going to really figure out what I want to do and who I want to be? Maybe. Am I going to continue dreaming up impossible scenarios in the meantime? Absolutely. Am I going to buy a ridiculous amount of books in Scotland and Ireland next week? Most definitely.