Today marks the first week of semester two complete.

Me llamo Eunice. Soy americano, soy de California. Vivo en Nueva Zelanda.

For my general ed class I decided to take Spanish 104G which is beginners Spanish. Or so I thought. The textbook and workbook are entirely in Spanish and my teacher speaks almost all in Spanish. Talk about throwing me into the deep end. I definitely understand the whole immersion thing but I’m lowkey stressed about how I’m going to keep up. Nevertheless I’m finally learning Spanish after years of not understanding the music I listen to aka Selena and Joan Sebastian.

I’m very happy with all my lecturers and courses I’m taking this semester. But to be quite honest I wasn’t feeling this good before the semester started.

Winter strolls on the beach

For the past 3 1/2 weeks of holidays I’ve been really doubting whether or not I could continue living and studying in New Zealand. I started feeling really frustrated and upset with my situation and I wasn’t sure why.

I spent all of my holidays working 6 days a week and although I enjoy my jobs I still dreaded waking up in the morning. I kept feeling sorry for myself. I started thinking about how everyone had gone home to see their families and I was stuck in my hall. I thought about how I won’t be seeing my family for another year and a half.

I was also angry at myself because my reason for moving back to New Zealand was to travel more, but somehow I got stuck into the routine of life. I stopped taking care of myself. I stopped feeding my passion and drive. Because of that I lost motivation to continue. It got to the point where I searched for a plane ticket home, I even called my mom and told her I wanted to come back. The thing is even though at that moment I wanted so badly to come home, I knew I couldn’t. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing that I just gave up. You may or may not relate to this, but I really believe that the universe wants me here, now. There were and are so many obstacle in my way to getting to be where I am now but somehow everything has miraculously worked out. I am also one of the most stubborn people you’ll ever meet.

Winter bones

It wasn’t until the day before semester two started when I realised why I was so frustrated about my situation. I kept looking at everyone else’s experiences and comparing it to mine. I was recently reminded by someone that my situation is different and so is everybody else’s, but so what? That’s what is so beautiful about people and life is that we’re all just figuring it out and walking the path we’re supposed to be on. That’s okay. I keep trying to have the same experiences as everyone else but the thing is I can’t. I can’t go out and party because I work early in the mornings. I can’t go home and visit my family during the holidays because I don’t have money (#studentlife), and I’m really bad at making friends because of my hectic schedule (and let’s be honest my awkward conversation skills). But that’s okay. I’m done trying to have a ‘normal uni life’ because I will probably never have one. I realised that the more I tried to have one, the more I saw myself falling short of my expectations. I was swimming in a pool of my self pity and it definitely wasn’t a party.

The sun was shining for about three hours that day

I decided that I need to take care of myself. I hadn’t gone to the ocean in two months so I took a ferry to Devonport and swam in ice cold sea water. It felt so incredibly good. I felt renewed and awake. I’m gonna try and take care of myself better. I know I’ll probably stuff up and drown myself in work and school, but I’m gonna try.

Today marks the first week of semester two complete. I can already tell that the next few months are going to fly.