Two weeks ago, I went for a weekend trip to Prague. I’m not usually a fan of weekend trips as I have to come back to work and it is quite a journey to go to the airport and back. It definitely added to the exhaustion of traveling and the long duration, especially arriving early to the airport. Yet, this weekend was exceptional. I’ve heard wonderful things about Prague and I happen to know another assistant who was going, so why not?
School has been quite amazing with giving me a flexible schedule and teachers whom I get along fairly well. I don’t work on Fridays so I decided to go solo to Prague a day earlier than my friend. It was my first time staying at a hostel by myself and I was quite nervous entering a city by myself. Just like anything else in life, it is really about luck and who you encounter on your journey. Needless to say, the decision to be by myself and living at a hostel resulted me in meeting the most amazing people.
The first night when I arrived, I met a Japanese girl in my shared dorm. It was her first time to travel alone and to Europe but she was taking a 2-week trip country-hopping across the continent. Her English was exceptional good as she has spent her middle years in the United States and because she arrived a day before me, she knew how to get around the city. We spent the night together having dinner and walking around the town, had some amazing bread and hot wine, and a little bit souvenir shopping. The next morning, she had to leave, but it was great to be welcomed on my first night.
The same night, we met our roommates - two American girls teaching in Bulgaria. One girl studied linguistics, knowing a few languages and even studied the roots of how language comes to be. She calls her interest as the “biology of languages.” Traveling with her was great - she would explain to you the history of how different words came to be and what they meant in different languages. The second girl I met has traveled and taught English for the last 3 years - from Spain to Italy to now Bulgaria. She loves history also and would even write down and keep notes of what the tour guide was explaining so she would remember for the future. What I learned from her was that it is okay to teach for a couple years - because even though it was the same job of teaching - every country and the environment she taught makes the experience so different. I was really lucky to have had explored a day tour with these two girls who have really inspired me to continue to travel and to not be afraid to keep country hopping.
I came back to France super inspired, energized and excited for the future. I became fearless because I feel like I found my passion. I want a career in International Education, where I can not only travel and experience different cultures myself, but provide other people the same opportunities. Even though I am a little exhausted from traveling and moving every year, I feel I want to fly to another continent, to another country next year to teach, so that I can witness and play a role in how students learn. By doing so, I would be able to understand different educational systems and hopefully, one day, can find a role as an academic counselor, program coordinator or even an international recruiter for a non-profit or a university.
Over one weekend, I feel like I figured my lifelong puzzle and suddenly, my years of experiences made sense. Without even realizing it, I’m already halfway there, becoming more international and global-minded, being a nomad and living in different parts of the world, jumping into a sea of unknown adventures.
I’m remapping my life, my career plans and tackling one thing at a time. I’m staying focused and going to remember that there are bigger and better things waiting. I’m currently hunting for my next big adventure, and I’m excited of what the future will bring.
Everyone has a story.
This is mine
