Pre-departure Thoughts

Several people have asked me to keep in touch with them/keep them updated on what's going on in my life while I am in Costa Rica. I am far from being under any delusions that I could possibly email every single one of those people - and then have time leftover to go out and explore and live and discover things in Costa Rica that would be worth emailing them about. Needless to say, this is why I decided to create a blog. An easy way to send out news to all of those who want to keep up with me! Well, here is my first post. A few preliminary, pre-trip paragraphs if you will.


Whenever my semester abroad in Costa Rica comes up people keep asking me the same question: "Are you excited?"
This is such a hard question for me to answer. I mean, I think I'm excited. But really if you were to ask me in general how I felt I would have to answer that the overriding emotion right now is nervousness. I am really nervous about this whole thing. I mean consider the list: I am going to live in a country that I have never been to before for 3 months. I can't leave no matter what. I will know no one. I am going to be living with a family that I do not know. They don't speak my native language. I will be attending a new university where I have no friends, I know none of the professors, and I am completely unfamiliar with their routines of classes (classes last for about 2-3 hours a day there. And they're all in Spanish). I only speak enough spanish to have a really simplistic conversation with someone, and just to make things hard, I have vowed not to speak a lick of English while I am in Costa Rica.


Now this may sound like an incredibly pessimistic and depressing list of 'cons' in regards to my semester abroad, but don't think that I sit around brewing over how bad things could be. I don't. I'm just a super-practical person and I prefer not to go into situations with any delusions of how wonderful and perfect it is going to be. It is not going to be perfect. I'm not being pessimistic, I'm just being realistic. And now that I have owned up to all of the scary new things that I am going to have to face at the beginning of January, I feel much better about facing them.


That last item on my list of 'hardships' - that I have promised myself that I will absolutely only speak Spanish while I am on Costa Rican soil - some people might say it is an obstacle I am placing in my own path, that I'm just making things harder than they have to be; To that I would say EXACTLY! This is the essence of my personality. I was thinking about Costa Rica today as I was taking a shower and listing in my head all of the uncomfortable, new and scary situations that I might potentially find myself in. I suddenly wondered "why on earth am I doing this?" The answer came even faster than the question - I am achieving one of my childhood dreams. (If you've read 'The Last Lecture' by Randy Pausch, you know where I'm coming from). Becoming fluent in another language has been a dream of mine for a while. Getting to live in another country and submerge myself completely in a different culture is another dream that has been building in the last few years. Since these dreams are right up there at the very top of my bucket list I will do a lot, if not anything, to realize them. You see for me the desire to master a goal, to triumph over a challenge, is a consuming desire. It trumps most other feelings that reside in my body once I really get into it. When I was training for my half marathon people would ask me how on earth could I go out and run 10 miles... and how could I KEEP going when at mile 8 my leg muscles felt like they were deteriorating? The answer is, no matter how much I want to quit at something my desire to conquer it is 10 times stronger. I love challenges. I create small challenges for myself every day just for the fun of it. Really.


So I guess my answer for those people who ask me if I'm excited about Costa Rica is "yes".... in a round about way. I know that it will be hard to adjust to living in a new culture with people I don't know, speaking a language that I'm still very much in the process of learning. But I have this goal in front of me and I am going to smash it to pieces. That excites me. I also know that once I make it through those first few hard weeks, I am going to LOVE being in Central America, speaking Spanish like no body's business! I look forward to soaking myself in a new culture and exploring this beautiful country that I have heard so many wonderful things about. It is my greatest wish that these 3 months abroad will be a life defining time and that I will come back home with a new dimension added to my character, whatever that may be. I am excited to see what new ideas and experiences God will bring into my world and I pray that this trip will serve as a way for Him to continue opening my heart to the needs of people everywhere - of every culture and every language.

Thank you all for your prayers while I am away. I promise to keep this blog fairly updated during the 14 weeks that I am in Costa Rica and I'm sure I'll have a lot more to tell once I get back!

Much love,
-MeganCreed