A few weeks ago, I found myself standing at the edge of the Motoyasu River in Hiroshima, where I stood two summers ago on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the A-bomb. I leaned against the railing, watching the sunset rays glimmer across the metal skeleton of the A-bomb dome, unable lift the heavy feeling trapped in my ribcage.

Time to do this again. I had written this first, and then the site had glitched out on me when I pressed publish, and it deleted this entire post. Sometimes, life just likes to make me suffer.

The day that the world has been anticipating for many weeks now has finally passed. After an unexpected turn of events, this election has brought many firsts. My first time voting in a presidential election. My first time voting in a presidential election abroad. The first president without a political background.

           I’m currently in the third module of classes in a climate change course with a great group of classmates and a really engaging professor. Tom has been teaching us realistic, interesting perspectives concerning climate change, international policy, and information exchange to the public so far in the class. We were fortunate enough to take another 360° boat field trip around the entire island of San Cristóbal!

So, you decided to take the leap and study abroad in a foreign country. Congrats! Maybe in your semester abroad you want to become fluent at another language, broaden your taste pallet with a new world of culinary delicacies, or maybe you want to fully and completely immerse yourself in a new culture.

Breakfast

Well y'all, it happened. We have elected our 45th president, and the winner is not at all who I thought it would be. When I decided to go abroad in the fall of 2016, I thought about how odd it would be to be out of the country during the election, but it didn't dawn on me until last night how truly strange, and slightly unnerving of an experience it would be.