Lesson Learned 1: I don't think that girls should put up such a fuss about guys leaving the toilet seat up. I mean, if they can take the extra .0001 seconds to lift it up and save the females from having to see the result of their unpredictable aim, then we women should have the ability to use a simple wrist-flicking motion, a "swat" if you will, to flop the piece of porcelain back down. It simply isn't that hard ladies. And honestly, I don't think any guy has ever thought of leaving the seat up as some sort of crude commentary on what he thinks of the women who may use the bathroom after him. Leaving the seat up is not tantamount to giving the finger or fondling himself in public. It is just a toilet seat. It's like girls leaving their big, fluffy, pink loofas in the shower that he has to touch in order to get to the heat control. They are like big, dangling, puffy Christmas tree ornaments swaying back and forth right there on the faucet while he tries to scrub like a man with his Lever 2000 soap bar. So, let's call it even, shall we guys and gals?

Lesson Learned 2: Fodor's travel guides truly are the abroad-student's best friend. Now, let me explain that I never opened the darn thing the whole time I was in Paris or Scotland or any other part of Europe for that matter. However, when a little Room Six horseplay resulted in two unnamed parties (one being fireman carried by the other) collapsing on my archaic twin bed, it of course splintered into about ten pieces on the right side foot of the bed. There are now three thick Fodor's guides holding up my bed frame. Those, along with my big bag of dirty laundry, are stuffed quite effectively up under there. So never underestimate the many uses of a good, hearty paperback book. Even if reading them is the last thing you would ever do.

Lesson Learned 3: I thought I was bad at math when I was in the United States But then you throw in kilograms, kilo calories, energy joules, centigrade, pence and quid and pounds and stones, and clothing sizes that are about six numbers off from what they are in the states, and European shoe sizes which effectively mandate that I wear a size 39 and a five-hour time difference and a different longitudinal location and some accents É and I might as well just drool from the right corner of my mouth and wear a sign that says "Do not frighten this child with any sort of mathematical information. She is ill equipped mentally to handle it." Honestly. I think part of the reason that the International Studies office gets away with totally lying about how much money we are going to need in order to survive in London is because they know that once we get here we will have no clue what is going on anyway whenever there are numbers involved. Or maybe that is just me. Like I said, I was bad at math when I was in the United States So maybe this isn't really a lesson learned; it is just a sad commentary on my math skills.

Lesson Learned 4: Some consumable food and beverage items appear to come alive at night and walk around on legs that they procure only during this magical time and that are hidden during the day. You say you bought seven bananas and now you only have one? Where is that third Cadbury bar that was in here? I spent my life savings on three Diet Cokes and two of them are inexplicably missing. Yes, it's the legs at night. It's magic I tell ya. But, I have observed that only unconsumed items grow legs. The partially masticated bits of whatever, the half-eaten cereal bowls, the almost empty juice cups, the packaging from frozen pizzas all of these items are the grocery equivalent of coral. They are rooted, never to move even the three feet it would take to bring them to the oasis of cleanliness and hygiene otherwise known as "the kitchen sink." Stuck in their resting place on the table and counter for eternity. The Worrell House kitchen is both the Bermuda Triangle of food items and the Great Barrier Reef of dirty dishes. It is the eighth wonder of the world.

So, somewhere along the way I may have learned something about who I am, where my life is headed, what true friendship is and how not to take life and people for granted or some junk like that. But these are the true golden nuggets of knowledge that I acquired on my life changing experience abroad. I share them with you in the hopes that you too will feel as if you have had such an enlightening experience. Now if you will excuse me, I am off to research one final lesson: Why I allowed myself to be duped into believing that because it was a Wake program "in London" that there wouldn't be any actual work to do.