Trading Sea Legs for Land Life

Oh summer. The days you thought about as you sat in your fourth grade classroom daydreaming about the lake, popsicles, firefly catching, fireworks, hot dogs, baseball games, sleepover marathons and popcorn-filled late late nights.

Too bad I'm still not in fourth grade....

Traveling abroad with Semester at Sea from January 2011 to April 2011 was the first time in my life where I didn't want summer to come so fast. I knew that this summer was going to be all about growing up and well....maybe even putting my "big girl pants on" and figuring things out for myself. Come April 23 (a day before I got off the M.V Explorer with Semester at Sea) I was so NOT ready to turn in my sea-legs for land life. It just seemed like it would be so....boring compared to the past four months. Don't get me wrong. Everyone who knows me well heard me say that I was ready to be back in the U.S. and I definitely was...I'm still very much enjoying being able to see all of my friends and family without having to come up with major, multi-step, processes for getting in touch with them for a mere 15 minute phone convo. But that was somewhat of a thrill for those weeks at sea. Now phone conversations, texting and skype don't feel as rewarding. That's land life I guess.

Between April 24th and now, I've gone from debarking a ship in San Diego that went around the world, to squeezing the life out of Chris who met me at the gate in SD and who has really helped me acclimate back into this crazy world, to sitting at a makeshift desk in an office building in the middle of Chicago and living on my own-ish in the suburbs.

Even though I'm not in fourth grade anymore....and summer days aren't spent tromping around outside for hours on end....I can still daydream about what I'm going to squeeze into every minute of my coveted summer weekends.

Life comes at ya fast.