This isn't easy.

The past few days have been really up and down. It's been unbelievable. I'm more up than down now (probably somewhere in the middle), but I'm still not great- this is going to be a tough week. I have two papers due tomorrow, one due Wednesday, and two due Thursday. But then, I'm practically done. Woah. That'll be crazy. I'm mostly better health-wise, but my stomach is still pretty unsteady. No more fever or headache, now it's just more of an annoyance. One more thing to be pissed off about.

When I'm feeling low- which has been more often than not, lately- I keep reminding myself that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. This is an incredible experience, and I've already learned a lot. Most of my friends who are abroad this semester are in Paris, Scotland, Australia. I didn't choose an easy study abroad experience. I chose a really, really hard one. Hopefully it will be worth it. I think it will be, but it's difficult to see it sometimes. I'm going to need a couple of weeks to just relax and try to process everything once I get home (so it's probably good that I didn't get a job). I plan on hanging out with my friends, reading, and going to the gym. Nothing taxing. And Zuxin (one of the Chinese students on my program) is coming to visit for a few days while she tours the US, so I'll have a good time showing her around DC and Annapolis. And I'm trying to get my friend Anna from New York to come for a visit. She's great.

I've been talking to people from home and I think it's made me a little homesick (namely my parents, Matt, Kyle, and Andrew). Well, not homesick per se, but it's fueled my desire to get this program over and done with. I need to take a step back and realize that today is November 30th and I only have 12 more days left of this program (23 days until I come home)! There's no rush! Maybe I'll miss it after it's over. I won't miss the stress, but honestly, I'm pretty much always stressed. I just need to suck it up. Of course, sucking it up doesn't always work. I realized that when I burst into tears while I was giving a presentation on Friday (yup, I did. bad news bears.). I just lost it. It was terrible. But, it's ok now and at least I let it out (though at the worst possible time). I'm not going to worry about it though. Not even going to think about it.

And if I'm going to be living in the present, I should probably be writing my papers right now. One of them is almost finished, the other I haven't started. I don't want to be up all night. Laura is at a soccer game right now and she'll want her computer when she gets back, so I should get on it. Pronto.

So here we go. Deep breaths.

Shout outs to my parents and James! I love you guys and I can't wait to see you!