and the countdown begins (sort of)

In less than a month now, I will be getting on a plane. I will be leaving the country for the first time in my 20 years of life. I will be heading to France completely alone. Not knowing a single person I will be living with or studying with. Once I get on that plane I won't be coming back to the comforts of my California home for three and a half months.

And the craziest part of all of this, I haven't spent more than an hour thinking about it all.

I think I am the only student heading off to study abroad that isn't thinking about how excited and nervous they are for their abroad experience every waking moment of every day leading up to this momentous trip. Up till a few days ago, it has been in the back of my mind and the bottom of my todo list. Doing minimal preparation by filling out my forms and paperwork on time. But now we are hitting the last few weeks and it's time for me to get my life together and start the countdown to Paris. 

Since I don't have any packing done or have any lists of things I want to do I'm just going to start this off with a little introduction to who I am and why I've been so crazy this summer not thinking about Paris. 

My name is Julia Carrington Ehler. I have a habit of using my middle name more often than my last name. I am a junior at the University of Redlands in Redlands, California. I am studying business management and media and visual culture studies.

I hope to end up in a career in either fashion merchandising or film costuming someday. I am very passionate about vintage fashion and the idea that clothing tells the story of who you are just by one glance. This is a big reason why I am choosing to study in Paris, France, one of the fashion capitals of the world. 

I was born and raised in sunny southern California. I believe there is no better place to live, partially because I've never really left so I don't know any better. My extent of traveling outside of the golden state would be a few little trips to the edge of Arizona, two Vegas trips, a weekend in Texas and two weekends in Tennesse. A total of three plane flights in my lifetime. So as you can see my travel history is very very limited so this is going to be an interesting adventure. 

I truly think Orange County California is the happiest place on earth due to the fact that it is the home of the actual Happiest Place on Earth. I grew up on all things Disney, watching the movies and going to the parks. Disneyland is my home away from home so much so that I have been there every day this summer as a cast member. This summer I got a job at Disneyland and that is mainly the reason why I haven't been thinking about abroad because I have been loving a summer at my dream job. (so I guess I lied about not having a list of things I want to do in Paris, I want to go to Disneyland Paris so badly)

So that's an extremely quick and scattered introduction to who I am. I would give you a list of what to expect from this abroad blog, but I don't want to fail out on any promises. This is a blog about a journey so that's what this blog is going to be too, a journey. We are going to have to wait and see how it all plays out as we go along.

Until the next post, Julia Carrington