4 AM.......Really?

I have delayed writing anything for this entry until the very last second. You may assume this was done merely out of procrastination, which, I admit, would not be too uncharacteristic of me. However, the real reason is because I simply struggled over what I could say. Then I found myself feeling guilty, because I was forced to admit that I considered the week to be simply mediocre or even inconvenient. When asked “what did you get out of Corsica?” My response would be the automated “Well, Napoleon was a fraud and everyone hates him.” I was sorely pessimistic before we even left. When Monday came around, I was scrambling to unpack from my previous trip. Moreover I realized I had procrastinated on doing laundry, which resulted in a great struggle to get it washed and dried before we left. This lasted until circa 1:00 in the morning. And, as any resident of La Croisee knows, actually ending up with dry clothes is always a tremendous challenge. So I crammed some damp clothes into my suitcase and settled down for a grand total of two and half hours of sleep. The morning, not surprisingly, was not so good. Granted, I am usually not the happiest person before I have access to coffee. However I had several negative thoughts running through my head, including our looming humanities paper, the timing of this trip is not the greatest, I wish I could be going somewhere I hadn’t already been, and I am so very bitter that I am even awake right now. Although this state of distress continued into our trip, it was eventually improved. It is funny, now that I think back, that every time I tried to be productive my plans were somehow frustrated. Firstly, the internet connection in our room was not ideal and thus took about 20 minutes to load each page. I accomplished basically nothing before my computer died on me. So I thought I’d plug in my charger. Bad move. Next thing I know, I’m sitting in the dark. I had heard rumors concerning the infamous reputation of the European electric system, and this was my first encounter of which they were proven true. And unfortunately, the receptionist spoke minimal English. When I tried to explain that there was no electricity due to a blown fuse, she simply thought I was a stupid American that didn’t know I was supposed to use my room key to access the lights. By the time I was able to ask Mary to translate for me, it was time to leave on another one of our group outings.
After that dramatic experience, I basically decided not to stress about school work anymore. As the week went on, my attitude improved quite a lot. I think we can all agree that the “educational” aspect of the EFT was pretty marginal. It really was more of a vacation. And even the museum visits, tours, boat ride, etc., I viewed more as a time to just be in community with each other. Let’s be honest, the Corsica Museum was probably the most monotonous thing we have experienced since our arrival in Europe. But we really did bond together by all being so incredibly bored together [excuse my sounding cliché]. We joked about the experience. We laughed at the ridiculous KKK costumes. And even though I have been living with the same people for the last few months, it was in times such as these that I got to know other students in the Lausanne program even better than before.
So no, nothing spectacular happened to me on this trip. Neither did anything incredibly dramatic take place [the blown fuse catastrophe wasn’t really so bad]. It was, as I said before, simply mediocre. But I believe that at the time, this was exactly what I needed - to just stop, relax, experience life with the people around me - be it in boring museum tours, lounging on the beach, eating dinner, or attempting not to get seasick while being tossed around on a three and a half hour boat ride. I also found time on the trip to stop and read my Bible, which had been previously disregarded for quite awhile. Moreover, I think this reflection of the trip has served as an important lesson to me. My life is exceedingly blessed. I’m well aware of this, and yet I so often get caught up in my own worry and forget to be grateful. So in inclusion, this is what I have taken away from our trip to Corsica – always remember to stop and thank God for the incredible things he does every does for us every single day.