Quitting

It was a fantastic weekend. Really feel as though I lived it fully… a great feeling.

Sunday I was up before 8am and met up with the crew at 9:30 at the bus stop on Grenfell Street. We took a (packed) bus up to Mount Lofty and did some hiking. We went up to the point and were able to see all of Adelaide! It was gorgeous!

After that we hiked some more over to Cleland National Park, also a wildlife park. We saw lots of animals and some beautiful scenery. It was a long and tiring, but amazing day full of beautiful sights and fantastic company.

I had seminar this morning at 11am for my philosophy course. We had to read, analyze, and summarize Kant’s writings on The Critique of Judgment. It was extremely complex and many of the sentences were paragraphs long! It seemed one had to read one sentence a dozen times to understand what he was saying, and I tried my best but ended up feeling really confused and overwhelmed. Next week I have to do a presentation on a section of Kant’s writing, and at this point I’m having trouble just understanding the main idea. Luckily the professor explained the main ideas to us and gave us some websites to find more info on it. I spent most of the afternoon in the library getting my stuff together for my Adaptation seminar tomorrow and gathering all possible info I could on Kant’s essay.

When seminar ended at 1pm I went to meet up with Rene and Jeff to go to the German Club meeting where they were making “gluhwein”, a spiced, warm wine that they drink in Germany during the winter months and especially over Christmas. I paid $5 and was able to join the club, which all my German friends are already in, and we spent the first part of the afternoon talking about how the Germans celebrate Christmas and what some of their typical traditions are for the holidays. It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed the mulled wine!

As I said, I spent the whole afternoon at the library with Nina and Rene. At 6pm we met up with Caroline and the 4 of us went to the Pancake House for dinner. Straight home after to get to sleep early.

Being abroad is a great time to get a whole new perspective on yourself, your country, and your life in general. You are put in a position where you know no one and are in a completely new, strange place… its scary, but exciting, and a great opportunity to learn from all different kinds of people. I feel it is a requirement to go into experiences like this with a completely open mind… willing to soak in everything and open yourself up to new ideas and new ways of looking at things. You can learn SO much.

There’s a lot about myself I would like to change. And what better time to change than now? There are a lot of things I have trouble with… a lot of things I need to work on. The list isn’t small. I suppose the main thing I am trying to work on is my stability… more specifically, my independence. That was one of the main reasons I decided to even look into studying abroad in the first place. I was aware I needed to work on this, and believed removing myself completely from my comfort and safety zone and going to spend 5 months in Australia would help me grow.

Over the weekend I decided to quit smoking.

Pretty unexpected for me… I’ve really never tried quitting… never really wanted to quit. Here in Australia, most of the people I hang out with don’t smoke, and those who did are now mostly quitting, mainly because of the high costs of cigarettes. I didn’t expect to, like I said, but after giving my support to those who quit and watching them go days and then weeks without having a cigarette, I guess I started thinking. There’s really no reason to smoke… It hurts your health and your wallet, and can be a real turn off to a lot of people. I cut back for the past week and ran out of the last pack I bought yesterday. I’m not going to buy another one.

I started smoking 5 years ago when I was 17. I was going through a transition phase in my life… at that point a lot of teenagers go through when they have to push every limit they can… challenge everything they know in order to follow that road to self-discovery. I’d always been a good kid… good grades, went to church, healthy lifestyle, great family and friends… it was a lot of things I’d say that ended up piling up on me throughout high school… insecurities… self-doubt… questioning EVERYthing. One day I just dropped the life I lived. I rebelled against all expectations of me… I changed into someone I thought was stronger, surer, and more independent. I dropped the friends I had, and picked up new ones… that’s when I picked up my first cigarette.

5 years later, thousands of cigarettes later, and thousands of dollars later… I believe I’m ready to be done. I’ve come a long way… I’ve made a lot of progress, and what better way to celebrate than quit the worst habit I have.

We’ll see how it goes… Like I said, I’ve never tried quitting before… but I’ve never WANTED to before. I want to be better… I want to be a better person. This is the beginning.

Wish me luck!

Anyhow, school tomorrow… dinner date with Nina and afterwards some Caroline time! Should be a good week!