What am I doing with my life? A little update

Student

August 22, 2020

You may remember me writing a post back in May about the new chapter of my expat life. In that post I shared that I had chosen to attend Georgetown University and I would be moving to Washington DC this fall. Well, needless to say that with everything going on at the moment my plans have changed a bit!

I wanted to write this post to update you with what’s happening with my life so you have some context for my upcoming posts and projects. This blog has always been about my life as an expat, and even though my expat plans have changed, I’ll still be sharing what’s happening in my life especially during this crazy time!

So what happened to the old plans?

My original plan was to leave Dubai attend Georgetown University in Washington DC in the fall. I honestly thought that the pandemic would have settled down by now and my fall semester of college would make up for the disappointing ending to my high school senior year! However… it’s August now and things are still bad… and expected to get worse.

My university, like many others, took the decision to make classes online for the first semester. At first I was disappointed, but I am grateful that we’re all going to be safe and healthy rather than living on a college campus that could close at any point.

This means that I’ll be taking all my college classes online at home in Dubai until December… which will be a struggle, but I’m excited about these classes so I’ll do my best!

Where am I going?

Since my classes will be online during the Eastern Time Zone, that means that at home in Dubai I’m 8 hours ahead of everyone else. My school day basically starts at 6pm and finishes at 11pm.

I am definitely a morning person, so at first this new living schedule of having classes until 11pm and waking up late didn’t seem that great for me. However, it’s really the only option I have if I want to take the classes I registered for, so I’m going to make the best of it.

Will it be any different to High School?

Since I’m staying at home in my old room, one of the biggest things for me was that I didn’t want my first semester of college to just feel like a continuation of High School. A lot of that college experience of meeting new people and joining lots of extracurriculars will look different this semester.

Since I’m now 18 (yay) I’ll learn to drive, so I’ll be able to go out and kind of do my own thing a lot more. A lot of my High School friends are also still in Dubai doing online university so I’ll still have a great support system of my friends and family.

As for classes, I’ll be doing most of them from home but I’m also looking into a coworking space so that I’m not just sitting at my desk at home everyday for months on end! Hopefully this will give me a space where I can go and study so I can change up the scenery a bit.

I’m also going to redecorate my living space a bit so that it kind of feels like I’ve changed things up again, just as I would have done in my college dorm room. So stay tuned for that!

Since I’ll be in Dubai I’ll also be able to continue working on my store, Wildflower Studios, a lot more than I would have been able to at college. Definitely take a look at my site or follow me @_wildflowerstudios_ on Instagram to keep updated.

Plans for the blog

Now that I’ve had some time to think about being at home for the next semester (and possibly whole school year) there are some really great positives! I’m excited to have a lot more time and freedom to work more on my blog. If I was on campus I would be juggling trying to take photos in a shared space and travelling around DC by myself to explore new places (which is just not safe at the moment).

Now that I’m at home I’m excited to share some posts about what it’s like to be an international student online, my room renovation, my store, and how I’m staying motivated and studying.

To sum it all up

To conclude everything, I’m still taking all the classes I would have taken in-person and hopefully I’ll still be joining the same clubs and organizations, I’ll just be doing it from my home in Dubai. Even though it’s going to be a challenge, I am really excited for my first semester of college and I’ll be taking you along on the journey with me.

Be sure to follow me on Instagram @little.miss.expat so that you get all my daily updates there!

See you next week,

  1. […] this post I’m going to take you through a productive week in my life. Incase you’re new here, I’m a freshman at Georgetown University, but because of the pandemic I’m spending my […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *