As I was preparing to go abroad to Sorrento, Italy, I thought that it would be extremely important for me to keep a journal of my time abroad. I thought I would use the journal daily to write down my activities for the day, but also to express my thoughts and emotions as I experienced life in this brand new place. In my first few days abroad, that was exactly what I did. As we had our orientation at the Sant’Anna School and I met the roughly 200 other American students in my program, I wrote in the journal about the excitement, possibility and overwhelmed feelings I was having. I wrote about my fears of missing out on doing things in town and concerns about making good connections with the other students abroad. The journal was extremely helpful in organizing myself and visualizing what I wanted most out of my study abroad experience.
However, as the first few weeks went on, I started to use the journal less and less. Everyone in Sorrento turned out to be very friendly and eager to hang out in the town. We played basketball and soccer with local kids, had daily dinners in one of the many pizza restaurants in town, and planned hikes to the Path of the Gods nearby. When I did find time to write in my journal, it would be a recap of my week, noting the most important, exciting and world-changing thoughts that I had while enjoying abroad. I found that I was almost doing too many things and living in the moment to really feel the need to journal — and that was okay. A large part of why I wanted to journal my experience abroad was to create something by which to remember my time and adventures abroad. While the journal was great for settling in abroad, I came to find out that just the experiences abroad were also a great way to remember my time. Making connections, adventuring and taking a million photos has helped me make memories of studying abroad that I couldn’t forget if I tried.
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