May 3, 2017
Over the next month, Vanderbilt soccer will be following rising junior Gabrielle Rademaker. The Tampa, Fla. natives will be journaling her experiences this summer as she explores New Zealand.
What was it like to complete finals early?
Well, since I had to push my finals up I ended up having three exams and two papers in the span of five days. I was pretty stressed and slightly freaking out to say the least, but knowing I was going to New Zealand made it all worth it. I definitely learned some new time management skills I didn’t think I had in me. My friends a.k.a girls on the soccer team (haha) helped me out a bunch, honestly if it wasn’t for Kaitlyn (Fahrner), my roommate, I do not think I could have gotten everything done in time to make my flight.
What is the purpose of this trip?
The purpose of this trip is to bring clean water solutions to the indigenous tribes of New Zealand. Clean water is something we take for granted in the western world. The lack of clean water causes these tribes to suffer from serious diseases and death. My dad actually has been on quite a few humanitarian trips as well as medical mission trips so I asked him for some guidance or any connections he already had with people and he set me up with this trip.
How long is the flight?
I have never been this far from home so I thought I was just taking one flight and I’d be there in no time… like my flight from Nashville to Tampa just longer.
I was so wrong… the total travel time counting both in the airport and air is 35 hours. I flew from Tampa to Dallas this morning, wrote my last final paper then flew to LA, where I currently am writing this. My lay over is seven hours then I am on an 11-hour flight to Fiji, then yay another layover, but only four hours this time. Then finally a four-hour flight to New Zealand and one more two-hour flight to the final destination Queenstown, New Zealand! I had no idea we lived so far away it really makes you re-think just how big this world is.
What do you hope to learn from this experience?
Mainly to just ingest as much as I can from the people I meet, the places I see, and the food! I hope to be able to inspire others as well and make some sort of impact while I am there. Also, there are a lot of successful/intelligent people on this trip who are giving workshops on leadership/attitude so I hope to be able to learn from them and gain more knowledge on how to help others and become a better leader.
