What I'm Learning From All This...

Okay, so, I'm in the most beautiful city I've ever seen and have always dreamed of with a wonderful host family, surrounded by people who are very kind and considerate of me, regardless of how little we know of each other. I'm one of the lucky ones, and yet, culture shock and homesickness seem to enter my new life with great ease. The lack of comforts I know, in combination with all the abundance of unfamiliar details surrounding me, has absolutely overwhelmed me at times. The different bed , new schedule, language barrier, and all the minor changes in culture and lifestyle all add up in exciting and overwhelming ways I've never before experienced, somehow simultaneously more inspiring and more frustrating than everything else I can remember.
And you know what's been happening inside my mind while all this has been going on? I've over-thought, over-emoted, and over-reacted over the negative side of things, and let myself sit and cry and eat too much junk food, trying to sleep as late as possible every morning because sleep is comforting, and facing each day is exhausting. Oftentimes, it's also incredibly exhilarating, however, as a "morgenmuffel" (the German term for a person who is very grumpy in the mornings,) I am almost never positive about anything throughout the entire "waking up" part of my day, and stress makes me an even bigger morgenmuffel. Then, at the end of the day, I can't get myself to sleep and I end up spending too much time making online contact with my American life, eating chocolate on the laptop, and working myself up over the things I should have done after it's far too late at night to do anything about it!
And, you know what I should have done all this time? Sucked up the anxiety and perpetual hatred of my alarm clock, gotten out of the house, and gone out to accomplish something every day. Going to international places, such as the American Church in Paris and the University of Paris, and introducing myself to new places and attending workshops are things I should have started doing my first week here. It wasn't until yesterday that I went to the American Church, and there, I was welcomed and met a group of college students that I had a lot in common with, and really enjoyed being around. If I had done that three weeks ago, my weekends could have felt a lot less lonely. Then, this morning, while waiting to meet with some one about obtaining my residency permit, I read about weekend programs and meetings for college students to get together and work on art and poetry, and things like that. Why didn't I go to the university's international office and look for things like that in the beginning? Also, I read about how having a regular sleep schedule and nighttime and morning routines takes a lot of stress off your body and makes you feel more rested and energized every day. I'm sure I knew that, but why didn't I acknowledge this before?
Plus, I felt like a lost American that no one knows what to do with ALL MORNING. I spent many hours searching various offices in the city, all of which I was referred to by the previous office, until I ultimately ended up waiting in line to talk to a woman who told me that I need to get more papers, and go through a long application process. Lesson learned there? Patience, planning, allotting extra time, and drinking lattes are all very useful tools when it comes to handling official international affairs. I am incredibly appreciative of my visa not running up for a couple more months right now. Between this and the constant complications and extra things I had to go through before I got here with papers, forms, certificates, translations, my visa, registrations, etc., I think I should write a guide on how to do this, and begin by telling the world not to expect a cake walk and to allot themselves at least six months before their departure to gather all their papers and go through all the applications and registrations. If I ever do something like this again, I'm definitely going to be more efficient, and I'm going to try and get a long-stay visa a couple months before I leave America.
So, I guess there is a sort of moral to my estranged tale. When we go after something, we need to make preparations and use wise planning, and then use the power we hold within us to endure through all of the inevitable complications we encounter. And, ultimately, we need to realize the importance of truly making the best of our situations, which is not an easy task by any means. Sometimes, we literally need to force ourselves to and force ourselves to make the best of our situation no matter how many seemingly legitimate reasons and excuses we can think of to sit in bed and sulk.