Waiting for things to happen

So there have been a lot of things going on lately that have made me forget about the fact that I am headed off to study abroad in Stirling, Scotland, at the beginning of next month. This isn't to say that I'm not excited, because I definitely am whenever people ask me about it and remind me that I am indeed going, but with Christmas and New Year's and vacations and family stuff, I haven't been able to focus on preparing for my trip. Right now, I'm just waiting for it all to finally hit me so I can fully realize, YES THIS IS HAPPENING!

I've been to the UK once before, when I visited my aunt, uncle, and cousins while they were living in Surrey during the summer of 2010. But this is the first time I will have been to Scotland. I'm not afraid of flying internationally, having done a lot of flying on my own before, and I'm not even that worried about finding my way around and looking for things to do. What I'm most concerned about is making good friends, finding a good church, and most of all, taking my classes, because I know there are going to be differences between Denison and Stirling. For one thing, Stirling is a bigger school with about 5,000 more undergrads, plus 2,000 postgrads, and classes will probably be taught more general lecture style than my largely discussion-based classes at Denison. I've heard that many people do better abroad though, and my grades won't count towards my GPA anyway, so I should become less nervous once I get into the swing of things.

I chose to go to a Scottish University, as opposed to an American one based in the UK, because I wanted to get that different experience and to meet, not just other Americans studying abroad, but people who are actually from the UK and Europe. And it's probably good that I'm a little nervous because that means I'm stepping out of my comfort zone and exposing myself to new experiences.

I've wanted to go to Scotland since I was 14, so I've compiled all of my aspirations in a comprehensive list of everything (in no particular order) that I want to do while I'm in Scotland. I'll probably come back to this post later and add more things as I think of them.

1) Visit my friend Zee in London and bring her some plain M&M's and graham crackers (which apparently they don't have in the UK, for shame!)
2) Make a friend at Stirling who knows their way around and will show me all the cool stuff
3) Attend an Elite hockey league game, preferably an Edinburgh Capitals game so I can say I saw the Caps in Scotland and confuse Washington fans
4) Buy some kind of apparel with an Elite league team's logo on it
5) See a rugby game, hopefully a pro one
6) Find and photograph all of the Braveheart related things that Stirling/Scotland has to offer
7) Visit as many castles as I can
8) Go to an event that involves traditional Scottish music and dancing
9) Go hiking in the highlands
10) Find a cool record store
11) Locate a Scottish Highland cow and pet it
12) Locate a Scottish deerhound and pet it
13) Visit Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen

My main goal is to make friends, and I really hope I meet some cool people whom I can at least remain good Facebook buddies with when I go back home.

Also, in case you're wondering about the meaning of the title of my blog, it's a relatively obscure 80s music reference. Of course.