A year I will never regret and I feel has changed me forever

It’s hard to imagine that this time last year I was beginning my gap year journey and now I am writing about it in hindsight! This past year has been fun, exciting, scary, hard, sometimes lonely but at the same time filled with so much love. I couldn’t have anticipated all the places this year would have taken me. Honestly, going into it I thought teaching English would be a breeze…how hard could it be, right? There were definitely many challenges that came with teaching that I had to take on as I went along, but so many rewarding moments. I loved all of my students and I couldn’t have asked for a better group. But standing in front of a bunch of teenagers waiting for you to teach them something was incredibly daunting at first and I doubted my ability to even do so. Then slowly, day after day, week after week, and after every funny, silly and endearing conversation with my students, what seemed impossible became second nature. On top of that, I was fortunate enough to make a group of amazing friends who I will never ever forget. There is something so special about the friendships you build during these types of experiences. We’re all so far away from home and in a weird and exciting place in our lives so they quickly become like your family. We travel together, experience things for the first time together, eat, laugh and cry together and make beautiful memories. This experience is something I will never regret and I feel has changed me forever. I learned new things about myself and did things that I never thought I would or even could do, that I will now carry with me into the future. I can’t wait to tell these stories to my family and friends in years to come.