In twelve hours, I will be on Air France flight 51, heading off to Rome, Italy, to participate in the architecture department’s program there for the next four months. It’s weird to realize that over the next day, I’ll be doing something that I’ve been thinking about, planning for and talking about for many months.

Many people have asked me about my expectations for the semester.

I’ve gotten in the habit of giving the stock answer that I don’t have any expectations.

I see that as a valuable truth; one of the first things that was recommended to me about studying abroad was to not develop expectations, and that way everything will go much easier.

However, I’ll confess that I do have some hidden expectations.

For example, I expect to be completely lost at some times, if not frequently.

I don’t mean “lost” just geographically, although that’s partially it, since Rome is a huge city.

I also mean lost in the sense that I have next-to no Italian language skills, which should make things very interesting for a while.

Despite my vagueness when it comes to expectations, I have developed solid goals for my semester in Rome.

I’m very goal-oriented, and I see goals as different because you have to work hard for them, unlike expectations that just happen.

I know I won’t have to work hard to get lost! A friend of mine phrases all of his goals with the word “will.”

He believes that you can do anything you want to, if you believe in it and never stop pursuing it.

So I’ve come up with three goals, and here’s how they go: First, I WILL do very well academically.

I’m taking 15 credits, all with ISU professors.

I’ve been frustrated in recent semesters by my academic performance.

I’ve always cared about classes, and I don’t think I have problems when it comes to time management or hard work.

But I’ve also always found other things that appear to be more relevant or pressing than my classwork, especially when it comes to helping organizations I believe in or people I care about succeed.

This may sound silly, but I honestly think I will have less distractions while I’m overseas — which hopefully will allow me to seriously focus on this goal.

Second, I WILL become a better dancer.

I’m a lame dancer, and I’m sure my friends can tell many horror stories from parties and formals in the past.

What better place to learn how to dance than Italy? I don’t know yet how exactly, but I will pursue this. I’m sure I’ll find a way.

Third and finally, I WILL meet a gorgeous, blond, 6-foot-2-inch, Italian woman who will take deep sympathy on me for my complete ignorance of the Italian language and culture, and as a result, will fall madly in love with me. ‘Nuff said.

Even before I leave, I can tell you that the process of preparing for study abroad has taught me a lot about this side of the ocean, especially Iowa State.

For example, it has taught me how hard it is to leave my friends, the inner workings of the financial aid office and what it’s like to be a new student going into a new situation again.

I’ve been part of the team working for the past nine months to put together the recent New Student Days program.

We’ve sat around for hours and hours analyzing, re-analyzing, over-analyzing and super-analyzing what the new student experience is like and how we can best help them.

But it didn’t hit me until this past week how personally relevant all those new student thoughts are.

One day, I was like, holy schnikes, that’s me!

I’m a new student, too, going into a new campus environment, with new people, a new culture, a new world around me.

That profound little thought has made me a lot more reflective about the plight our freshmen are going through right now as well.

I think the entire sense of the change I’m about to make really, really hit home when I was at Wal-Mart last night stocking up on contact solution.

I started looking around thinking, when’s the next time I’m going to be able to buy all this stuff?

I was particularly fixated by a box of cheese nibs in a display. Not that I really like cheese nibs — they can be nasty little things — but they do have a certain symbolism. Will I have a chance to buy cheese nibs in Italy?

I doubt it, which made me want to grab the box and scoff them all right there, as a last gesture of love for the land I’m leaving.

Good-bye cheese nibs and everyone else.

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Matt Ostanik is a senior in architecture from Washington, Ill.