Greetings from Poland

- "Czy znasz polski?" 
- (lets out a nervous laugh) "Oh yeah yeah I eat there all the time!"

Even though I am utterly and completely terrified that I'll find myself nodding with a stupid grin on my face to every Polish sentence I hear (like said example), there is something magically wonderful about just being thrown into a new country without knowing a single word of its language. Also, applying class concepts and ideas about tourist vs. traveler to the real world and practicing what I have been so fervently preaching in the classroom will be an experience by itself. Hopefully, one I will be forever fond of. 

I had been planning on traveling soon and at this specific time in my life I felt compelled to take a leap of faith and just do it. As part of a new member of a global community outreach program, I sent out applications to various countries hoping that they would find my résumé appealing enough to allow me to fly halfway across the world to intern for them. I applied to Australia, Poland, and Bulgaria for Summer internships related to psychology. After narrowing my options to these three, I dared to hit the send button on the applications. 

The first to respond was Poland, thus the Polish introduction above, that for all of those who are curious translates into English as a simple "Do you speak Polish?". This specific internship was working with children and teenagers in schools, camps and orphanages to further develop their English skills all the while learning about each of the intern's culture. There are interns applying from all around the world, something beneficial to the children and to the interns as well. I am terribly excited and completely ecstatic to potentially fly out to Poland to have this experience this Summer that will hopefully broaden my worldly knowledge, all the while contributing my grain of sand towards helping the good in the world to peek through all the negative things that have been happening lately.