The Bridge to Bliss

As another week abroad comes to an end, my mind is on beginnngs. On fresh starts and ignited futures. The impending New Moon ushers in a spirit of detoxing the bad, multiplying the good, and ultimately walking forward as the best you possible. The Chinese New Year (shout out to the Rooster!) gives us another chance from another angle to contemplate on who we are and what areas there are for growth. In many ways, this trip symbolizes my shedding of old skin(s) and walking into the destinies of a life I deserve. If you had asked me freshman year if I planned on studying abroad, the idea would have been faint, and only faint. I came into school with a very strict path that included overworking myself to the bone, all to the benefit of having some dream journalistic reality. Even if you had asked me last year, my response would've been "maybe, but it's too late now." This trip exists as death to the "it's too late not," mentality that I've been so pr...

"Cling to those you love. Be dedicated to the future you deserve. And, chile, enjoy some chicken & waffles along the way." Right now, I sit almost 6,000 miles away from my various "homes" as the U.S. inaugurates its newest President. Despite Twitter's oh so alluring opportunity to watch Live...ya girl is opting for a swift no. My timelines are filled with a nuance - some folks are in all Black, referring today as one of 'mourning' the 'loss' of Obama, while others are critically reflecting on the Obama presidency and his actions within the larger nationalistic state. And me? Perched on a sofa, with the same worries I had yesterday, and the same tenacity to plan and resist for tomorrow. And the tomorrow after that, too. This week has been embodied by any video you've seen with someone slipping on a banana peel. But it's also been embodied by shimmering gold sunlight. Some news: I'm going to Uruguay (with the rest of my coh...

Study abroad, when it only existed as a thing I could live vicariously through others, seemed to be this utopian approach to only enjoying the best parts of college, surrounded by wonderful people and wonderful situations and wonderfullness all around. The reality is, study abroad isn't some effervescent always-sunny period of time to be euphemised. Don't get me wrong, this isn't to say that I hate everything here and it's all terrible, either. This is to say that, as with any experience, there is nuance. There is a nuance that I wish more people were transparent to showing, as to help the next group of folks to walk through. And though I can't control how others communicate their time abroad, it's a goal of mine to do just that. This week has been...interesting. It started off with quite a bang -- I sprained my ankle on Sunday. We went to a ranch (or 'estancia') in the countryside of Argentina, to ride horses and enjoy other various delicious meats ...

Today marks the end of 2017's first full week! I hope the year is off to a rejuvinating start for everyone. Oh, and today also marks the end of my first week in Buenos Aires, Argentina! For those of you who don't know, I'll be interning here until the end of March. As any journalist would, I definitely did my homework on Argentina before getting here. The food, the music, the culture at large - and how I would fit in with it. As with any place, there's a variety of experiences people had. Here are some of mine, as well as thoughts and some photos I took along the way. Being in Argentina has already showed me the beauty in slowing down. In the U.S., and ESPECIALLY at universities like Northwestern, it is extremely normalized to stay busy and moving at 300000 mph. If we're idle, we're being inefficient. If there's too much time to relax, we're being lazy. That can grow to be exhausting and toxic as all get out.  But here? On the contrary. Here it...