Travelers from overseas like myself expect flavorful journeys, captive adventures, memorable experiences and an abundance of knowledge and learning. I think we would all agree that booking that hotel room or that Airbnb would be a first step before traveling, it is hard enough to leave everything that smells, tastes and feels familiar and fly to the unknown, we always try to take some of that ambiguity, don’t we? But that is not exactly the case for all Atlas fellows, some are not quite lucky like myself, some of us have to travel to the unknown, stay in a very unholy hostel for some time and search them Craigslist’s all the time, I spent my orientation distracted and confused, and about 90% of my first Global Leadership Lab also spaced out and disturbed, I may have even cried during a session or two, not exactly what you’d expect from a strong, independent 25 years old lady, right? Well, this has taught me the hard way, that I need to be nimble, it wasn’t just housing that I had to be nimble about during my experience, there were many things personally and professionally that I had to be nimble about, I really have grown to appreciate nimbleness, it has helped me be less anxious, and be far more flexible and capable of doing more, it might be scary and uncomfortable at first but sometimes the treasures of our experiences can only be found in our toughest situations, hence, I made many friends when I was on the house hunt spree, on my second GLL there were many people that I can’t even recall checking on my housing situation! And if you are a soon to be fellow, my advice would be; enjoy your experience from the minute you receive that ‘’Congratulations you are now a fellow Email’’, no matter what, you will not end up homeless roaming the streets of DC.
By Rana Abu Nemeh
February 6, 2020
