Fall Semester Abroad is Over

Like Allie said yesterday, I am leaving on a jet plane this morning and I’m heading for AMERICA! Finals ended yesterday. (My hand actually has a bruise from handwriting a total of 16 pages for two tests. Not including the two other ones but those weren’t too much writing. Have any of you seen the episode of Friends about the claw?? That’s how I’m feeling right now. Still recovering.) It hadn’t hit me that I was coming home until…well I don’t know if it has even really hit me yet. On Sunday when I was studying, it just felt like I was going into another school week. Yesterday, when I was packing like a crazy person and cleaning up our rooms for room checks it still didn’t hit me. We had a banquet last night celebrating the end of the semester and also celebrating all of our friends who aren’t coming back next semester.

^^We shared stories, honored our faculty and staff, and told each person leaving how much we loved them!

^^We had amazing performances including this one by Jane and Emily, who sang “I’ll be home for Christmas.” Fitting right? They were beautiful.

^^And then our very own boy band gave a stellar performance.

^^And then we popped bottles of champagne to celebrate!

I choked up saying goodbye to everyone. But, a part of me doesn’t really believe they are going to leave. We have become such a family here and Lausanne truly won’t be the same without them. I miss them already.

But, on a much happier note…I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE MY FAMILY! And America too! My bags are packed and I’ve got the Holiday ready to watch on my computer on the plane and Ross Matthews’ (Ross the Intern) book, Man Up, which is hilarious, in my bag. I started the book on the way to Lausanne and I haven’t even picked it up since the day I arrived because I have been so crazy busy. Speaking of crazy busy, I am so excited to have no papers, no studying, no tests for a whole month! Because my brain is complete mush at this point…I’m brain dead. I’m not even sure how I’m forming sentences. I’d just like to state for the record, in case I’ve led you to believe something different, it wasn’t all fun and games here. School here is actually 5x harder than school was back in Malibu. And Malibu wasn’t easy to begin with. There was stressful times and scary times. Times when I was so exhausted I didn’t think I would be able to finish everything I needed to (I was not prepared for or warned about how exhausting it can be traveling and trying to do school work). Times when all I wanted to do was see my family. But, I made it through. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world because the good times I had seeing and experiencing the world and building new friendships with the all people here outweighed the hard times by far.

So, to the traveling part of the semester…I love you and I am excited for more exploring and discovering next semester!

And to you no-good, dirty rotten, brain-boggling academic part of the semester…SO LONG!

I’m going to go breathe now.