"Cosmopolitan"

Thanks to John Lynch, one of my Classics professors at UCSC, looking at a word prompts me to analyze its etymology so that I can figure out something of its meaning. I was thinking of the word 'cosmopolitan" today, which is comprised of the Greek words κοσμος ("cosmos" = world) and πολιτης ("polites"= citizen, from "polis," city). Together, it literally means, "citizen of the world" but in modern English it means something like " a person who enjoys travelling, can be at home in all different parts of the world, and is knowledgeable in many spheres of interest."

I was thinking today about the life that I'm living. I'm so lucky to have this opportunity to live abroad, travel freely, and experience new things. But then I realized how easy it is, anyone can do it, really. Travelling is easy and there are so many places to see and so little time to see them! The more I travel the more I realize that nothing is really too difficult or out of our reach. Also, the world simultaneously seems too big (too much to see and do) and not big at all (because everything is really quite accessible), if that makes any sense.

Anyway, I was thinking about this also because I realized how many of my friends are living or studying abroad. Thinking about this makes me heart soar, I'm so proud of all of them and it makes me wish I had enough money to go visit all of them, haha.

Here's a list, more for me than for anyone else, just because I like to make lists:

U.S.A.
Emerald - New York: Studying at NYU. Was in London studying abroad before that.
Julie, Rosa, Sean, Aldrich - New York: Working for City Year

*Addendum (refer to comments below)
Katie - Fresno: Grade School Teacher Extraordinaire (refer to comments below).

AFRICA
David - Cairo, Egypt: Studying at the Arabic Language Institute

AUSTRALIA
Lindsey - Melbourne, Australia: Looking for work through BUNAC. Was in England only a few months ago doing the same thing.

EUROPE
Robyn - Bologna, Italy: Studying abroad.
Paul - Germany: Studying abroad
Ben - Varna, Bulgaria: Married Anna and moved there, now working in imports and exports.

UNITED KINGDOM
Ehren - York, England: Graduate school in Medieval Studies
Lexie - Scotland: Studied abroad.
Rachel - Scotland: Studying abroad

ASIA
Diane - Jeju, Korea: Teaching English through EPIK.
Chiwide - Guangzhou, China: Teaching English.
Teddy - Seoul, Korea: Studied abroad.

I feel like I'm forgetting a bunch of people. And I have a lot of friends who have travelled or studied abroad in the past. But anyway, the point is, I'm really proud of my friends for being so adventurous and cosmopolitan. My friends are extraordinary. Even for the people who aren't living abroad but who are finishing up school or working, it's amazing to me that we're all grown up and living on our own and travelling and have jobs. When did we all grow up? I wasn't paying attention!!

Now I just need some friends to move to South America and Antarctica I think I have all the continents covered. Any takers?

P.S. Some of these people have cool blogs, which I have links to on the left side over there. --->