After the next few months are over, I'll be able to answer this question from experience.
This past Sunday, I ran the San Francisco Marathon.
In other words, I paid $150 to wake up at five in the morning, and subject my body to four hours and 26.2 miles of pounding against the paved streets of San Francisco with thousands of other equally insane and sweaty folks. Sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do... right?
Maybe not, but I'm starting to think that it's a little bit more reasonable, and a hell of a lot easier, than what I'm going to be doing two weeks from now... which is flying 5661 miles.
Some might argue that, although sitting in coach for eleven hours watching inevitably awful in-flight movies while being served little bags of stale airplane pretzels might not be the height of luxury and relaxation, it surely cannot be more difficult than the burning, aching, cramping, chaffing, and sweating that accompanies running a marathon, right? Well I'm not too sure about that.
In many ways, I think that studying abroad will be a lot like running a marathon.
True, (I'm hoping) there will be a lot less sweaty joggers around during by Parisian adventure, but figuratively speaking I see some parallels:
1. Running a Marathon, like Studying abroad, takes months and months of preparation.
That is unless you're like my brother, who can just say, "sure, I'll run 26 miles today even though I haven't run in a year." (Brad is a unique case.)
Anyway, planning to study abroad has taken preparation. I've spent hours at a time completing the paperwork, practicing the language, researching the culture, packing, unpacking, repacking, and all of the odds and ends of preparing to live on the other side of the world. Now, I wouldn't go so far as to say that it has taken up more energy than months of running about 50 miles a week to prepare for a marathon, but it has been hard work.
With the date of my departure coming up, it's just like standing at the starting line of a marathon—at this point I can only hope that I have prepared enough.
2. The race starts, and that's when it hits you.
I trained for the SFM for months, but it wasn't until I left the starting line behind me that I realized, "Oh, this is it. I'm ACTUALLY dong this..."
It seems like that's how studying in Paris is going to be as well. Here I am, with about a week left in the United States, and I still don't feel like I'm actually going. I'm not nervous, because in my mind, I have nothing to worry about. Every once and a while I'll feel a brief jolt of excitement or fear, but I smother that as soon as possible. I know once the plane leaves the runway, the reality is going to smack me in the face with the force of all the built-up excitement, nervousness, and apprehension that I have been suppressing all summer.
But then I'll get all those little jitters out, and can precede to have the time of my life. :)
3. A marathon is a difficult, filled with ups and downs, and rewarding in the end.
When I started running, I felt great. There was a cool cottony mist over San Francisco; the lively city had not yet begun to stir and it seemed the only sound was that of hundreds of rubber soles on the pavement, each with a corresponding pair of lungs taking deep rhythmic breaths. With the ocean to my right, and waves of eclectic shops and skinny pastel-colored homes to my left, all was well. Marathon Shmarathon. This was fun.
I imagine when I get to Paris, I'll feel that initial peace. Perhaps I'll picnic on the banks of the Seine with a baguette and a bottle of wine, or sit in a street side cafe and sip espresso. Cliche, yes, but still... exhilarating, poetic, beautiful—just like those first few miles of the marathon.
Living in Paris is not going to be like a movie or a vacation. The romance will no doubt wear off a bit, and the weight of constant, inescapable unfamiliarity will start to take it's toll on me, just as miles of running and breathing and sweating and pounding begins to wear at the body.
Even at mile 20 of the SFM, I was under the impression that marathons were a piece of cake... provided that during training you put in enough mileage and avoid as many actual pieces of cake as possible.
But ohoh those last 6 miles. Insurmountable. Daunting. Painful. The marine mist was no longer soft silk against my skin; it sent chills through my dehydrated skin and carried salt from the ocean that burned as it settled on my skin. My back ached dully, my legs shook, and my feet cramped up so that even a light touch against the asphalt felt like a strong blow from a hammer.
I started out too fast; I went to hard; and now I had nothing left. I felt like quitting with only a few miles left to go! It was one of the more painful things that I have ever experienced, no doubt.
I pray that I will never hit a low like that in my little metaphorical marathon abroad, but I do anticipate a point during which I will have exhausted all of my cross-cultural endurance, and might even wish, for a moment, that I could quit. I'll miss stupid things like Del Taco and peanut butter, and less stupid things like wide open skies and my friends and family.
But then I'll relish those last few steps as I cross the finish line. When times get hard and I'm feeling homesick, I'll remember that there will be a time in the near future in which I'll miss that stony gray city of love and lights where my eyes were first opened to a new and beautiful way to think and speak and live. I expect I'll get on the plane back to Los Angeles, a different, stronger, and better person, and wont regret a second of the experience.
This past Sunday, I ran the San Francisco Marathon.
In other words, I paid $150 to wake up at five in the morning, and subject my body to four hours and 26.2 miles of pounding against the paved streets of San Francisco with thousands of other equally insane and sweaty folks. Sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do... right?
Maybe not, but I'm starting to think that it's a little bit more reasonable, and a hell of a lot easier, than what I'm going to be doing two weeks from now... which is flying 5661 miles.
Some might argue that, although sitting in coach for eleven hours watching inevitably awful in-flight movies while being served little bags of stale airplane pretzels might not be the height of luxury and relaxation, it surely cannot be more difficult than the burning, aching, cramping, chaffing, and sweating that accompanies running a marathon, right? Well I'm not too sure about that.
In many ways, I think that studying abroad will be a lot like running a marathon.
True, (I'm hoping) there will be a lot less sweaty joggers around during by Parisian adventure, but figuratively speaking I see some parallels:
1. Running a Marathon, like Studying abroad, takes months and months of preparation.
That is unless you're like my brother, who can just say, "sure, I'll run 26 miles today even though I haven't run in a year." (Brad is a unique case.)
Anyway, planning to study abroad has taken preparation. I've spent hours at a time completing the paperwork, practicing the language, researching the culture, packing, unpacking, repacking, and all of the odds and ends of preparing to live on the other side of the world. Now, I wouldn't go so far as to say that it has taken up more energy than months of running about 50 miles a week to prepare for a marathon, but it has been hard work.
With the date of my departure coming up, it's just like standing at the starting line of a marathon—at this point I can only hope that I have prepared enough.
2. The race starts, and that's when it hits you.
I trained for the SFM for months, but it wasn't until I left the starting line behind me that I realized, "Oh, this is it. I'm ACTUALLY dong this..."
It seems like that's how studying in Paris is going to be as well. Here I am, with about a week left in the United States, and I still don't feel like I'm actually going. I'm not nervous, because in my mind, I have nothing to worry about. Every once and a while I'll feel a brief jolt of excitement or fear, but I smother that as soon as possible. I know once the plane leaves the runway, the reality is going to smack me in the face with the force of all the built-up excitement, nervousness, and apprehension that I have been suppressing all summer.
But then I'll get all those little jitters out, and can precede to have the time of my life. :)
3. A marathon is a difficult, filled with ups and downs, and rewarding in the end.
When I started running, I felt great. There was a cool cottony mist over San Francisco; the lively city had not yet begun to stir and it seemed the only sound was that of hundreds of rubber soles on the pavement, each with a corresponding pair of lungs taking deep rhythmic breaths. With the ocean to my right, and waves of eclectic shops and skinny pastel-colored homes to my left, all was well. Marathon Shmarathon. This was fun.
I imagine when I get to Paris, I'll feel that initial peace. Perhaps I'll picnic on the banks of the Seine with a baguette and a bottle of wine, or sit in a street side cafe and sip espresso. Cliche, yes, but still... exhilarating, poetic, beautiful—just like those first few miles of the marathon.
Living in Paris is not going to be like a movie or a vacation. The romance will no doubt wear off a bit, and the weight of constant, inescapable unfamiliarity will start to take it's toll on me, just as miles of running and breathing and sweating and pounding begins to wear at the body.
Even at mile 20 of the SFM, I was under the impression that marathons were a piece of cake... provided that during training you put in enough mileage and avoid as many actual pieces of cake as possible.
But ohoh those last 6 miles. Insurmountable. Daunting. Painful. The marine mist was no longer soft silk against my skin; it sent chills through my dehydrated skin and carried salt from the ocean that burned as it settled on my skin. My back ached dully, my legs shook, and my feet cramped up so that even a light touch against the asphalt felt like a strong blow from a hammer.
I started out too fast; I went to hard; and now I had nothing left. I felt like quitting with only a few miles left to go! It was one of the more painful things that I have ever experienced, no doubt.
I pray that I will never hit a low like that in my little metaphorical marathon abroad, but I do anticipate a point during which I will have exhausted all of my cross-cultural endurance, and might even wish, for a moment, that I could quit. I'll miss stupid things like Del Taco and peanut butter, and less stupid things like wide open skies and my friends and family.
But then I'll relish those last few steps as I cross the finish line. When times get hard and I'm feeling homesick, I'll remember that there will be a time in the near future in which I'll miss that stony gray city of love and lights where my eyes were first opened to a new and beautiful way to think and speak and live. I expect I'll get on the plane back to Los Angeles, a different, stronger, and better person, and wont regret a second of the experience.
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