I.i. Self-Design

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page”
- St. Augustine

   From a very young age I had been yearning to read ahead. I had been lucky enough to travel a great deal as a child, though never for more than a few months at a time, so temporary changes are nothing new to me. The question of going for a year abroad had always been a given for me, and Italy, for a lifelong student of Art History, was a natural choice. Never mind the fact that I don’t, even to this day, really speak Italian. I had never settled for anything ordinary and spending another year at Trinity College in Toronto just wasn’t going to cut it. Difficult and complicated though it may be, I had to go away.
   One only gets as much as one puts in, anyway. All my life I had focussed on doing what I love and doing it best, and so this would be no exception. I was off to Italy for ten months, and I would return still Nick, but more so.
   And so I embarked on the greatest adventure of my life: spending an academic year in Bologna, at the oldest University in the world, learning Italian as I go, living on my own, and spending time with the things that have for so long swayed who I am.