Dear 2018

Thank you.

It has been a wonderful year. Obviously I encountered many many new experiences this year. The major thing happened to me were about me moving abroad, returned to school, made friend with the kitchen and all the utensils (that's unbelievable!). But I experienced so much more and it's amazing!

Let's talk about school first. I spent about four months studying. Days and nights, weekdays and weekends. Well I did refresh myself once in a while but I never been this studious before. It's all paid off, I got satisfying grades. I remember I was struggling. Working on one homework for hours stressed me out, writing assignment frightened me, and the literature review that I was afraid won't finish on time or fulfill the requirements... I passed them all. I felt relieved and grateful at the end of the semester, knowing I did a great job.

Moving here was not that hard. Florida has similar weather with Indonesia and everything is within walking distance so I could get what I need easily. I moved here with my Indonesian friend, she studied abroad before so that also helped me with the adaptation. I even met some other Indonesians living here. Language was a problem when it came to talking to English-speaking people though. I thought my language skill was enough but turned out talking to native was not that easy. I couldn't catch the words they said, I couldn't properly deliver the message I wanted to say, and couldn't say "can't" properly (I said "cannot" instead lol). However thanks to my friends at my campus I am getting better in that and feel more comfortable to speak even though I created mistake here and there. I have a few good friends. I'm glad that I can make friends with people outside of my country, that makes me enjoy Florida even more :)

Now let's get to the fun part: traveling! I didn't go too far this year, still in Florida. I went to Miami and Orlando. I went to Miami with my Indonesian friends who study at USF as well. We spent 5 days there and went to a lot of places. How did we get to those places? By renting a car and I drove them there. Yeaa I am proud of myself to be able to drive in the US lol. It's not a big thing but still I'm proud of it.  We went to Key West, the southernmost point of the US. I thought it would be an area with just beaches and that's it. I was wrong. It was wonderful. I'm glad we went there and explored the area. And we went to Miami beach and had a picnic there. My friends cooked Indonesian foods and they tasted sooooo gooood I am so thankful my vacation was complete lol.

After Miami, I went to Orlando. This time I went there and had a veeeeery good time with my Fulbright friends (plus one friend from my undergrad)! Funny thing was I didn't know half of them very well before but at the end we laughed and enjoyed the time together as if we were friends for years. Well I guess the Disney World and Universal Studio helped making us closer in a few days lol. AND I WENT TO WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER AND EVERYTHING THERE MADE ME AS IF I AM LIVING IN THE HARRY POTTER WORLD :" everything else was super fun because I spent my time there with these guys :)

Oh well. Too many stories to tell. My last post was in early 2018 and now it's 2019. Time passes. I'm grateful for what happened to me in 2018. I'm looking forward to all the great experiences waiting for me this year. Hopefully everyone enjoyed their 2018 and excited for 2019!!! Happy new year everybody!!