I packed my things and left for the airport to begin my 28 hour travel journey from Florida to New Zealand where I would start my new temporary life. I believe I have been brave on my gap year with the choice I made to travel across the world alone to connect with people I had never met before and live with them for 3 months. This choice to leave everything I have ever known in Florida took immense bravery as I had never done anything like this before and did not know what the future held for me.
I have been kind on my gap year when dealing with my new found friends. It was stressful living off the grid and spending all day and night with people you had just met but we were all learning to be kind and tolerate one another even in times of stress. I was kind when I went on a 3 hour walk with one of the people I had just met because they were having a rough time adjusting and wanted somebody to talk to.
Lastly, I have failed and bounced back in a variety of ways during my gap year, however the strongest incident of failure was leading the group to the wrong hostel from the campground. My navigational skills failed and I brought us to an entirely different city, 2 hours away, from where we were supposed to be. I bounced back from this by taking responsibility for this failure and rerouting us to the correct hostel. My morale was hurt as I felt I had let down the group however they assured me that my failure was not a representation of my skills and I bounced back to fix the mistake.
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