Oh, France...

I just finished filling out the online evaluation for my study abroad semester in France (apparently that was the reason they weren't releasing my transcript to Messiah). I thought it would feel good to get everything off my chest - many times during the semester I had thought with glee "I can't wait to write about this on my evaluation!" But during the 2 months since my return (has it really only been that long?) I've been trying to forget many of the struggles and difficulties I experienced in France and immerse myself in life here. Now this evaluation has brought all of that crap up again.

I thought that when you look back on an experience you're supposed to mainly remember the good parts and kind of forget about the bad. It's been the opposite for me. There certainly were good parts - people, places, experiences that I really value from that semester - but it's always the bad parts that come to my mind first - the struggles, the frustrations, the loneliness. Maybe it's still too fresh...

Someone asked me last week if I would do it over again if I had the choice. I don't know. Without experiencing it I could never have anticipated the difficulties, so if I hadn't gone I probably would've always wondered "what if?" If I could keep the things I've learned without going through all that again, I think I would - but I know that's not how life works :) Would I have been happier and learned more from a semester in Philly or DC or the Middle East? Maybe. We'll never know...

One of the evaluation questions asked what was the most important thing I gained from the semester. That was easy - I learned so much about international politics through various documentaries and conversations with another student there. Without question the highlight of my semester. But as I was answering that question, I realized for the first time the longer-term impact of that. All the unanswered questions from those conversations were what motivated me to take the US Foreign Policy class this summer. That class, the hardest but most valuable I have ever taken, helped me understand the complexities of foreign policy so much better - seeing it not as impossible anymore, but an incredibly complicated yet comprehensible process. And now, as I am in International Politics, I have been seriously considering whether my calling might be related to foreign policy rather than domestic policy as I had always thought. Or maybe both? I don't know... But I guess I never would have realized all of that if I hadn't gone to France and had those conversations.

They say "no experience is ever lost" (whoever "they" are) and perhaps it's true. Perhaps God really did have a greater purpose in mind for that semester even as I struggled through it. Perhaps I need to trust more...