Wisdom and Wishing

One of the greatest challenges in life is to discover who you truly are, especially at the young ages where life is the most impressionable. Trying to make the monumental decisions like, "what am I doing with my life" force you to look into yourself and discover what you are made of. Even more than what you are made of, it's looking at what you believe and what you are about. I remember writing my "This I believe" paper for my senior Quest For Meaning class... one of the first explorations of who I truly am and what I believe and make out of this life and these experiences. I've learned even more this year as I settle into a year abroad, a new start and a new direction. So as I try to remake myself I begin to figure out who I am a bit more every day. I now know that I am truly a people person, that being around others is a great energy I feed off of and want to find the direction that keeps me around great company. But I also know that as much as I love the United States, living abroad has become a definition of myself. It is something that I have come to love, because every experience is new and gives you a fresh perspective on why I do things the way I do-- forcing me to look and understand "my way." And the new perspective, well, it's like a kid in a candy shop, wide eyed and ever excited, so for a kid who doesn't want to grow up, this is a great feeling!

I couldn't help but think today back onto my Eckerd experiences and how they have brought me to where I am today. At the same time I wish that I could go back taking all this "grownup" wisdom and begin Autumn Term and freshman year again. Funny how such a fulfilling experience can also leave you knowing there were things you missed, things to change, but hey, I guess that's a part of growing up. So it's what I like to call the wisdom of wishing, wishing you could take today's wisdom back to the yesterdays, but that's the beauty of life; you can take the experiences you've had and build on them to make the next ones even better! So that's the wisdom of wishing... we all grow, it's just a question of what we enjoy in the meantime.

Do you believe in ghosts? That was the question I was asked as I got an invitation to stay at a haunted castle over the past weekend. However, sad as it may be and my opinion hidden, we didn't see any ghosts over our night at the castle. Now, as for the trip. Wake up at 8am and try to function-- it simply doesn't happen very well for a university student. Of course I forget my camera, yet again. So back to bumming off friends, but hey what's Facebook for? Oh not to mention, we set out on a picturesque hike around a true Scottish loch, and I forget my rain jacket, a true necessity in these parts. But thankful for flatmates who like to travel with me, I was able to borrow an army pullover that helped breat the freezing wind. I have to admit though, it was an amazing hike watching the fog roll off the mountains covering the heater fields on our every side and the shimmering blue water being fed by a small stream. The specks of snow still on the far peaks made it postcard perfect. Blunders aside I made it a trip worthwhile. The we finally managed our way to the haunted castle, which by the number of times we got lost seemed to be more of a disappearing castle. Funny though how we get spoiled over here, when we find out how "new" this castle is being built in the late 1800s; but it really looked much older than it actually was. We then settled into our rooms for a haunting experience as we told ghost stories in the dark. We stayed up as late as we could trying to find that good story we could bring back but after hours of watching and listening, I got nothing. So it was a little disappointing we didn't get to see that ghost, but hey how many nights do you get to say "I slept in a castle"? A good time, that's the storyline here!