{"id":185,"date":"2014-07-14T16:35:12","date_gmt":"2014-07-14T16:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/?p=185"},"modified":"2016-01-25T13:11:42","modified_gmt":"2016-01-25T13:11:42","slug":"a-distant-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/2014\/07\/14\/a-distant-dream\/","title":{"rendered":"A Distant Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once Upon A Time\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

I believe that some <\/em>things are meant to happen!\u00a0I know that it sounds pretty clich\u00e9 and I\u2019m not superstitious at all, although I do nose at my horoscope occasionally and get scared when I walk under ladders! However, I base this belief on the fact that I was completely lost and floating around in this bubble of uncertainty a couple of years ago. But now I have aspirations for the future and an action plan!!!<\/p>\n

A couple of years ago I started to do my AS exams. Everyone in my Sixth Form was applying to University through UCAS, so I went along with the flow and entered my details\u00a0much to\u00a0my dismay into the system! All these thoughts started exploding in my head:-<\/p>\n

Was University for me?<\/p>\n

Was I making a mistake?<\/p>\n

What course did I even want to do?<\/p>\n

Do I want to live off baked beans for 3 years???<\/p>\n

QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS!<\/p>\n

As we know this is a difficult time for all. Anyway (I must stay on track), I found myself in a pub (what a surprise) <\/em>and my Mum introduced me to the Nephew of her friend. He was tall, had mousey brown hair and eyes that flickered with life and excitement. Then he began talking\u2026 He was Canadian! (Woohoo)<\/p>\n

He had come over to the UK to visit his Uncle and other family members. I remember sharing a steak and cheese cob with him in the pub and him enthusing about the wonders of his nation, a distant country called Canada.<\/p>\n

Of course I was young, na\u00efve and had a fierce passion to travel! Stupidly I began obsessing about going to Canada for myself and experiencing the things that this\u00a0guy had\u00a0told me about!<\/p>\n

Skiing!<\/p>\n

Cheese fondue!<\/p>\n

Ice hockey!<\/p>\n

Snow!<\/p>\n

Niagara Falls!<\/p>\n

Bears! (Eeeeek)<\/p>\n

\u2026So of course\u00a0I went for myself!<\/p>\n

On my 18th Birthday my Mum and Stepdad took me to Eastern Canada for 2 weeks (I should\u2019ve gone to the West and seen the bears and whales, I know). However, we still had a fantastic time! \ud83d\ude00<\/span><\/p>\n

We went to Toronto, Quebec, Ottawa, Niagara Falls and Montreal to name a few!<\/p>\n

However, the 2 weeks wasn\u2019t long enough so I came up with an action plan in order to return!<\/p>\n

It went something like this:-<\/p>\n

1. Research University Study Abroad courses<\/p>\n

2. Apply to a university that offered year abroad course (which turned out to be Lancaster University)<\/p>\n

3. Ace my A-Levels<\/p>\n

4. Pass first year at Lancaster University and not die of fresher\u2019s flu!<\/p>\n

SIMPLE! (Or so I thought)<\/p>\n

\u2026So after all of that hair pulling, chocolate consumption and litres of red bull downed, it was all worth it in the end! I got into the University of Calgary, passing my first year at Lancaster with a high 2:1\u00a0and now my future awaits!<\/p>\n

As my good friend from Canada told me, \u201cLive to Dream\u201d<\/p>\n

So my journey has only just begun!<\/p>\n

Here is an image of a snowboard he made and sent me.<\/p>\n

\"image<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once Upon A Time\u2026 I believe that some things are meant to happen!\u00a0I know that it sounds pretty clich\u00e9 and I\u2019m not superstitious at all, although I do nose at my horoscope occasionally and get scared when I walk under ladders! However, I base this belief on the fact that I was completely lost and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":431,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[35],"tags":[71,68,69,70,12],"class_list":["post-185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canada-calgary","tag-anything-is-possible","tag-dreams","tag-future","tag-inspiration","tag-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6SVJb-2Z","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/431"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions\/213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}