How does one start a pre-departure reflection paper when they are so busy pre-departing to even sit down for a moment! Since the end of finals 12 days ago I have moved out of my third story apartment (you can imagine how long that took me single handedly), moved half of my belongings home to Indiana, half to my home in western Kentucky, half to a friend’s house in Louisville and a little less than half into a suitcase and a carry on for Costa Rica! Man add that all up and I have a lot of stuff, let’s be honest most if it is shoes! Among moving, working and other errands all week I don’t feel like I have had much of a mental break! It is hard to believe that I don’t have to return to the class room on Monday morning! The last 6 years of my life have been in a college class room semester after semester and today I am thinking “Oh my! What do I do with myself?!”

My family and friends keep asking if I am nervous or worried.  My response from the beginning has been no. I was so excited and I love new places and new adventures! Today, after being asked multiple times, I am left thinking maybe I should be a little worried. I am going to a country that I have never been to, they speak a different language, I don’t know my way around and I can’t call my Dad to come to my rescue in an emergency! I am most nervous about not being able to communicate a lot with my host family since I will be around them the most. Over the last few months I have been practicing my Spanish with a free iPad app called Duolingo. I downloaded several apps including Rosetta Stone, but I think Duolingo was the most user friendly and great for on the go learning or if you have a few minutes at the end of the day. In other preparation I found some good pocket English-Spanish dictionaries. I bought both hoping it would make me feel more prepared for some reason! I think I expect to be pointing and saying simple phrases over and over again! Can you imagine someone who speaks very little of your language living in your home pointing and smiling all the time. I think that will be me. My goal for this trip is to understand the culture a little bit better, get an understanding of how the locals utilize their pharmacy/pharmacists and work on listening and understanding a native Spanish speaker. I am very happy to have this opportunity and I think I will enjoy my time there. I really want to maximize my immersion experience and so I am going to try to spend a lot of time with my host family talking and listening. This was one of the things Common Grounds suggested and while it may be awkward and hard, but let’s be honest if I can get through therapeutics, I can do this!

I have packed my favorite card game Dutch Blitz which is mostly a numbers game so hopefully I will get practice saying my numbers out loud! I hope my host family likes games like I do. Well it’s late and I have driven home to see my family one last time before the trip. We had a nice family dinner and now we are watching one of the World Cup games! Costa Rica is still in it and hopefully my host family members are avid soccer fans!