Abroad Blog Madrid: FOMO

I bet you cannot wait to read another abroad blog.  A place where I can tell you all about the wonderful gelato I will have in Italy, all the beer I will drink at Oktoberfest, all the clubs I will go to in Paris, and all the amazing architecture I will see in Madrid. While I am not trying to knock any of the girls before me that reminisced about these novelties, I do want to make it clear that this blog is not going to be like all the others.

To begin this little misadventure, I’d like to share with you all the following bit of information. Currently, I am sitting in bed in Chicago. Yep, I am still home and suffering from a major case of FOMO while you all are at Orientation Week. If you do not know what that is, well, you are probably the kind of person that would have no problem going to their grandparents time share in Florida while their friends go to Cabo for spring break. But seriously, I am freaked out. I’ve been sitting at home the past few days looking at pictures of my friends arrive at Wake, seen #wfu17 trend on Twitter, gotten snapchats saying “where are you?” and I’ve even gotten the social list serve multiple times.

I know what you’re thinking. Who is this girl and why is she complaining about traveling through Europe with essentially no academic responsibility and why is she being such a brat? Well, I apologize and promise this will be more than just a scared rant.

To make my rant a little more constructive, I’ve made a list of all the top FOMO thoughts that have been going through my head and will go through yours as you prepare to leave the USA and how you can cope with them.

1. You will fear missing your friends.
People are going to be posting pictures ALL the time on Facebook of them going to an ABC party or a darty at Kappa Sig. You will see pictures of fuel and other cocktails. You’ll see the freshmen toilet papering the quad. And you will see people post filtered pictures of Wait Chapel. While these will be painful, the bright side is that you will not have to peal duck tape off your body, you will not have punch hangovers, and you will have way better and more original pictures.

2. You will fear missing football season.
You are going to miss seeing everyone in cowboy boots and bow ties. You won’t get to watch all the sig eps water board each other. And you won’t get to sing the fight song with all of your classmates (lol).
Unfortunately, there is no way to cope with this loss. It is simply one season you will never get back, and no matter how cool a bull fight seems in theory, it has nothing on college football… But who am I kidding? I mean tailgating.

3. You will fear missing mountain weekend.
You’re going to watch all of your friends document a journey they will never remember roaming around the most beautiful and seemingly dangerous parts of Kentucky or Tennessee. On the bright side, you will get to travel in the Swiss Alps or even participate in a much larger, more dangerous version of Mountain Weekend, Oktoberfest. 

4. You will fear missing American food.
Okay, maybe you won’t really miss the food at first because you will be munching on real sandwiches from Paris and real pizza from Rome, but you will eventually miss Subway and Papa Johns, IF YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR MIND! Let’s face it, you won’t miss them at all. You’re going to have the best food, wine cheaper than water, and desserts that make bin candy look like, well they are from the bin (look up the London definition).

I hope this blog gives you some peace of mind about going/deciding to go abroad, because I know it made me feel better while writing it. I also hope to get back at all you Twitter twatters, Snapchatters, and people that love to send tempting list serves. My goal: to make you all suffer from FOMO (Fear of Missing Overseas).