New to travel

Being in a new country is terrifying. Especially if you're new to international travel.

I can relate. Three years ago I took a ten day trip to Italy. That was my first experience travelling internationally. Before that my travelling experience consisted of summer trips to grandma's house in Texas, and let me tell you travelling to another country is a whole other experience. So, if this is your first trip internationally I would like to lend some helpful tips based on my first experience.

1) Pack light.

If you're a worry wart like me this may sound easier than it actually is. I tend to over pack just because I don't know what's going to happen. Maybe suddenly the weather will plummet 40 degrees in mid summer  Chances are these hypothetical situations are never going to happen, at least they never did to me.

If you pack light you will thank yourself. You'll have less decisions about what to wear that day, be able to keep your luggage somewhat organized,  more room for souveniers, and you won't have to be lugging around a huge suitcase everywhere. Plus, if your travelling on a bus, like I did, the busdriver will thank you because he/she's the one unloading 60 suitcases twice a day.

2) Know some key phrases.

When I was in Italy most everyone spoke some sort of English so communicating wasn't a huge issue, however, there were a few people that were difficult to understand. Knowing a few words like "thank you," "hello," or "how much?" is extremely helpful. In the end, knowing a few words or phrases helps you to enjoy the experience more. For me, I felt more connected with the people.

3) Hide your valuables.

Protect your passport with your life. One person in my tour group had an attempted pick-pocketing incident. Think of your belongings as your life-line. I constantly had my money, ID, and passport on me and hidden. Get a small bag to keep under your clothes or a small purse that goes across your body and would be difficult to open discretely.

If you're interested in some more tips for international travel, check out this article.



These are the three main helpful things I discovered during my first international trip. Packing light, learning some key phrases, and hiding your valuables will hopefully make your trip more enjoyable. Don't forget to just relax and enjoy the experience!

I see me

What do I look like to others? This question popped into my head the other day. I couldn't tell you when or how I just know it did. When I look into the mirror I see myself in a certain way. My brain seemingly automatically just looks somewhere and focuses. Maybe one day I'll be looking at my hair or how many freckles I've gained since the beginning of summer. My point being that in my mind I look a certain way, but do I actually look the way I think I look? Do any of us actually look or act like the perceptions we have of ourselves?

Since no one has constant out of body experiences (at least not to my knowledge) there really is no way to see how we actually act or look 100 percent of the time. Unless you walk around all the time with a full 360 degree barrage mirrors, but even then the image is skewed. If only there was a way to transplant your occipital lobe into another person to see what they see. Get a chance actually notice the differences between their perception and yours. If I sound crazy that's just me.

So, me being me, I decided to use trusty Google and do some searching. I found this article talking about how we perceive others reflects on our self. How I think of another person may say something about my personality. My question for you is do you see others, even complete strangers, in a positive or negative light? Is that consistent to what type of person you are? How do you perceive others or even yourself?

To start off

Hello fellow bloggers!

I'm pretty much a newbie at this. I had one other blog I started for Eric Young's visual comm class last semester. I think at the end I had a total of five posts, and trust me none of them were particularly entertaining. So, for this one I decided to do something a little different. A blog all about me! Well, at least more personal than the last one I had. My plan is to write about things I observe as I go about my daily life. Hopefully, the posts will be a lot more interesting than the description.

My motivation for creating a more personal blog is to start some sort of record of anything. I am terrible at keeping a journal. I always forget to write in one, or I'm just too plain lazy to do it.  Not this time though. I'm bound and determined to post regularly. Secondly, I have this really bad disconnect when it comes to writing anything other than academic style writing. If someone asked me to whip out a ten page report on analyzing a phenomenon using a theory as a basis I could do that without any problems. Ask me to write a two page short story or about what happened yesterday and make it interesting to read and it's like a flower just wilted. I can't do it very well, period. I'm hoping this blog will help with that. Challenge accepted.

Until next time.