jillianec516

I feel awful not writing my final blog post sooner. Coming back to the United States has been overwhelmingly stressful and depressing. I’ve been in the process of catching up on things I have missed and got caught in the wave of sickness going around. The turnaround between my semesters was super fast and I had 13 days of break, instead of 6 weeks, before the quarter started. In all honesty, I feel like I have been facing a bigger culture shock coming back, compared to when I got to Brno. The pace of life has picked back up again, and the price of living slapped me in the face.

I’m glad I got my holiday fill-in at the Christmas markets and city center activities in Brno. My Christmas Eve was spent in my apartment eating Chinese food with a friend, and Christmas Day alone and asleep most of the day, still jet lagged from my flight on the 23rd. Leaving in the morning of the 23rd, having a 17-hour travel day, and still making it home before 8pm confused and exhausted me.

I’m completing my internship at the children’s hospice at the beginning of February and then will be resigning, but I will say that it was harder to keep up remotely with the time difference than I imagined. I still hope to be in touch with my supervisors after I close out this experience with them completely. Dum Pro Julii, the first Children’s Hospice is a wonderful organization and service to their community and I am glad that I can continue to see their accomplishments through Instagram.

I miss it so much — The last picture I got with my friends Majo and Elsie as they put me in an Uber to the bus station at 3 am.

I’ve kept in contact so far with my abroad friends, getting to give them apartment tours and talk on the phone for a couple of hours. They all have now left Brno, but they did get to spend a couple of weeks in January together. I spent a lot of that time missing them and being jealous that they still have the opportunity to hang out with each other on a day-to-day basis. Those are some of the best people I’ve met in my life and only having a digital friendship for a while is going to be tough. But, we are planning on care packages and future visits.

It’s been fun to talk to other people who have studied abroad now that I’ve had the experience. I’ve been to more places and have seen more of the world now, and it’s cool to be able to compare stories, because before I really couldn’t.

I think so often now about how much I needed to experience Brno, and how amazing it was living somewhere else. It was healing by getting away from the US, and a growing experience living in another country alone. I think about how much I’d rather be walking the streets of Brno than downtown Denver. I’d rather be experiencing the softness that Brno treated me with rather than the stress I’m currently buried in. I think I did the whole “study abroad” thing right for a first-gen. On top of completing my courses and finals; I traveled, was able to have my mom visit me, made amazing international friendships, interned at a place that is meaningful to me, explored Brno, and had great meals and drinks. My biggest regret is not doing study abroad sooner and not being able to stay longer. I think I needed to come home to check on things, but my love for the experience I had makes me want to go back. I miss the Czech culture, the city of Brno, and the wonderful people I met there.

Cheers,

Jill

*Gun violence warning

It’s absolutely insane that it’s just two days before my flight and I received texts from family in the US asking if I was okay because there was a school shooting today at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague. I am so in disbelief, and my heart is extremely heavy.

The Czech Republic has honestly felt like one of the safest places in the world while I’ve been here. I can’t imagine how much this is going to affect the families, friends, and colleagues of the victims. And even just the general Czech public. A shooting like that just does not happen here.

It’s four days before Christmas. The holiday season for a lot of people was just crushed, in this country where school shootings are not a topic of conversation. This is the deadliest school shooting Europe has seen in the past 15 years.

with a heavy heart — I took this photo this morning around 10 am because I wanted a picture of the Czech Flag. I didn’t notice it was in front of a school. I didn’t realize that this photo would probably be more significant to me than I thought.

I have so many words to say that I’m now at a loss for words.

Even right now sitting in my dorm room in Brno, just over 100 miles away, I’m hearing some bangs that are honestly making me scared to leave for the night, even though those bangs might have been happening every other night. I sound paranoid in my head, but it’s terrifying that even in the safest feeling of places this can just randomly occur. I hear police sirens every day, but today they feel like they mean something different. Czech media already said the shooter was eliminated, by suicide, and that the public is not in danger.

In 2019, when there was the Walmart shooting in El Paso, my heart was frozen for the whole day. I am absolutely feeling that feeling again. My community did not deserve that, and neither did this one. I hate sitting with this feeling.

Tonight I’m praying. This country has been home for the past few months and it’s a devastating note to feel like I’m ending on. This happens in America, even though it shouldn’t, and the fact that it happened here- it’s f*cking heartbreaking. It’s a devastating routine in the U.S. that I pray doesn’t ever repeat here.

There is a lot of violence happening this Christmas season, all around the world, and my prayers are with every person affected by the hatred of others. Even though the Christmas decorations are beautiful, God, this season has been so ugly.

Author: jillianec516

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