3000 miles and Counting…
I moved! To Scotland! And it’s fucking far from home!
Hey everyone, it’s been a while hasn’t it? Last time we spoke I’m pretty sure I was having some existential crisis about my life being in limbo since it was the summer between undergrad and Veterinary School. Unfortunately, I think I’m just in a permanent state of existential crisis but fortunately I am a vet student now!
Not only am I a vet student, I’m a vet student in Scotland so, Toto I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore (not that I’ve ever been to Kansas but you know what I mean). Leaving the US was honestly such an easy decision for me to make. For starters, school in the U.K. is a lot cheaper than in the states and honestly, I just wanted to experience something new. I left for Penn State because I wanted to try small town living. Over it, please don’t think I ever want to do that again. So I left NYC for Europe living. Not sure how I’ll feel in five years, but right now I’m kind of loving it.
So while it was an easy decision hypothetically, in practice moving to a new country is kind of stressful.
First, I had to get a visa. Which prompts the following questions:
Why it gotta be expensive like that?
Why the government gotta make me question if I can speak English like that?
These applications make you feel like one wrong word will send you to jail or keep you from leaving the country ever. If you can get over the stress of possible imprisonment (which is probably dramatic), there is now the fact that the questions are so confusing. Then, after you get through pages upon pages of the most oddly worded questions, they slap you with a RIDICULOUS fee that you really have no choice but to pay because you decided leaving the country was a good idea and you didn’t think it’d be this much work (again, I’m dramatic).
Then, and this is what really stressed me out was how I was going to bring all of my stuff across a pond within a 50 lb luggage limit. Here’s the thing, I have a lot of stuff. I am by no means a minimalist and I also put value to little trinkets. How was I supposed to part with my mug collection or my favorite tapestry that read “shit could be worse”? The answer was, I just would. When I did finally move, I packed a carry on to the BRIM and then had two suitcases (which was only terrible when I was alone in an airport with three bags trying to go anywhere and then again having to bring said three bags up three flights of stairs). Basically, imagine a hobbit carrying Gandalf and that’s what I looked like with my bags.
The week which led up to me leaving was probably a mixture of the most stressful and least stressful week of my life. It was like, I was excited because I’m finally going to vet school and I was going to be living in Scotland (which was 13 year old me’s dream). On the other hand, I was leaving all my friends, family and my babies, to go to a strange land where if anyone spoke too fast to me I was almost sure they were speaking a different language.
Again–
And I genuinely was fine. I got to the airport, I cried leaving my mom (which I have done every single year since I was like 5 years old because I love my mom), I checked in my bags, I went through security and I sat down on a plane next to an older gentleman who breathed VERY heavily and I was okay. It’s hard to explain the emotions I was feeling six months ago because a lot of it was masked with a feeling of over confidence in just leaving. When you come from an immigrant family, leaving is so unheard of but it is also seen as a pursuit of something and this was my something. I was getting on a plane, moving, going to school and becoming my something.
Then I arrived. And here I am more than six months later genuinely loving every minute of it. Sure, I still get confused where to look when I cross the street, but this experience is amazing. I’ve made friends, am working with animals I never thought to work with, and still getting to talk to my family and friends daily (thank you, FaceTime). And while I’m still facing this existential crisis of who I am and what I’m supposed to do, I’m enjoying the process of maybe figuring out what my something is? What I’m saying is the stress was well worth it, and probably super unnecessary. Then again, we’ll see what I have to say about it in five years! Anyways, that’s my life right now. Next week I’ll be living on a farm, so make sure to follow me on instagram to see how I deal with a very new environment and probably a lot of pictures of sheep. See ya soon!
