Aloha everyone. This entry is a bit of a departure from my previous endeavors into the blogging world so if you're only curious as to my day to day activities then feel free to skip over this entry and wait for my next update on my New Zealand adventures. For everyone else I offer a break from routine and a grounded entry into the workings of my mind (I know, I know, sooo fascinating).
I've come to realize, through various nights out on with friends sharing conversations of no great importance as well as spending late nights/early mornings out on the balcony with nothing but myself, my iPod, and a carefully crafted playlist that there is so much of the study abroad experience that goes unspoken about. Aspects that people don't bother to question or look into. The personal growth and expansion that happens from being more alone and separated from home than ever before. I don't mean home in the purely physical sense either, I refer to home in the abstract sense of more than a building/town/location/etc. I mean the home where you feel comfortable with yourself and who you've established yourself to be. where everyone that surrounds you knows you for all your past experiences, achievements, and mistakes. These months away allow a person to reinvent themselves however they choose, to act in ways outside of the personal characteristics and habits that home has established. This time is not just a break from American culture to see a new place in a foreign land, it's a time to break away from yourself in a sense (that may sound "deep" and esoteric, but it's not meant to be and I think that most people get the general gist of what I'm talking about if not the whole thing).
I've been over here for over a month and i can honestly say that I'm not the same person I was when I left. I suppose that type of change is to be expected, but until you actually experience it for yourself, it seems relatively abstract and unattainable. Going off to college initially offered a similar sense of space and separation, but not like this (not to this degree anyway). Being away has given me an increased amount of perspective. I can look back on home and realize the things that I cannot go without, the things that I truly value in life, and the aspects that truly matter to me most. On the other hand it's also allowed me to view the aspects of life i feel I'd be better off without. Being so far away (approximately halfway around the world) physically and mentally allows for this in a way that I really hadn't anticipated. This includes things both external and internal to my life. I've seen aspects of myself and others that are both admirable and shameful (which is a harsher word than i would like to use, but it's late over here and I'd rather not bust out my thesaurus to find a more appropriate word). I think this has really set in over the past few weeks and honestly it's an odd feeling, but also a very liberating sense of self.
To be able to completely reinvent myself if I so choose is a very odd place to find myself in (although I wouldn't go to that extreme because I happen to quite enjoy the person I've come to be over the past 21 years). Again i think the reason that you don't really hear about these aspects of study abroad is that it's so hard to convey (I hope I'm doing a somewhat suitable job in this blog entry, but this may or may not be the case in actuality). Upon talking with people back home the questions asked are largely the obvious ones that I would ask to someone else who was studying abroad like what I've been up to, how do I like classes, what's the culture like, how am I adjusting, etc. (and I suspect that the questions asked upon my return will be largely be the same). Thus, I'm taking this blog entry as a place to delve a bit deeper into the personal growth of my time halfway around the world.
After growing up in a small town and having a very close, tight-knit group of friends in Boston it's a very foreign experience to be surrounded people that know so very little about me. I suppose that's part of the appeal of this journey too though. a lot of people get a bit caught up in their college experience a few years in and desperately need a breath of fresh air. While this is not the exact case for me i can definitely see how people come back from their time abroad with an altered outlook than when they departed. again, I don't think I've drastically changed or anything, so for those of you who liked me the way i was there should be no worries and for those who disliked me i guess you're just out of luck :-).
that's pretty much all I've got to say as of now. I didn't have a whole lot in the way of updates on classes, travel, and whatnot so I pretty much just wrote this entry about what was on my mind in one fell swoop. Thus, I apologize if it's a bit repetitive or incoherent at times (it's also a bit late so my stream of conscious thought is not as sharp as it might have been at an earlier hour). Hope all is well with everyone reading this!
I've come to realize, through various nights out on with friends sharing conversations of no great importance as well as spending late nights/early mornings out on the balcony with nothing but myself, my iPod, and a carefully crafted playlist that there is so much of the study abroad experience that goes unspoken about. Aspects that people don't bother to question or look into. The personal growth and expansion that happens from being more alone and separated from home than ever before. I don't mean home in the purely physical sense either, I refer to home in the abstract sense of more than a building/town/location/etc. I mean the home where you feel comfortable with yourself and who you've established yourself to be. where everyone that surrounds you knows you for all your past experiences, achievements, and mistakes. These months away allow a person to reinvent themselves however they choose, to act in ways outside of the personal characteristics and habits that home has established. This time is not just a break from American culture to see a new place in a foreign land, it's a time to break away from yourself in a sense (that may sound "deep" and esoteric, but it's not meant to be and I think that most people get the general gist of what I'm talking about if not the whole thing).
I've been over here for over a month and i can honestly say that I'm not the same person I was when I left. I suppose that type of change is to be expected, but until you actually experience it for yourself, it seems relatively abstract and unattainable. Going off to college initially offered a similar sense of space and separation, but not like this (not to this degree anyway). Being away has given me an increased amount of perspective. I can look back on home and realize the things that I cannot go without, the things that I truly value in life, and the aspects that truly matter to me most. On the other hand it's also allowed me to view the aspects of life i feel I'd be better off without. Being so far away (approximately halfway around the world) physically and mentally allows for this in a way that I really hadn't anticipated. This includes things both external and internal to my life. I've seen aspects of myself and others that are both admirable and shameful (which is a harsher word than i would like to use, but it's late over here and I'd rather not bust out my thesaurus to find a more appropriate word). I think this has really set in over the past few weeks and honestly it's an odd feeling, but also a very liberating sense of self.
To be able to completely reinvent myself if I so choose is a very odd place to find myself in (although I wouldn't go to that extreme because I happen to quite enjoy the person I've come to be over the past 21 years). Again i think the reason that you don't really hear about these aspects of study abroad is that it's so hard to convey (I hope I'm doing a somewhat suitable job in this blog entry, but this may or may not be the case in actuality). Upon talking with people back home the questions asked are largely the obvious ones that I would ask to someone else who was studying abroad like what I've been up to, how do I like classes, what's the culture like, how am I adjusting, etc. (and I suspect that the questions asked upon my return will be largely be the same). Thus, I'm taking this blog entry as a place to delve a bit deeper into the personal growth of my time halfway around the world.
After growing up in a small town and having a very close, tight-knit group of friends in Boston it's a very foreign experience to be surrounded people that know so very little about me. I suppose that's part of the appeal of this journey too though. a lot of people get a bit caught up in their college experience a few years in and desperately need a breath of fresh air. While this is not the exact case for me i can definitely see how people come back from their time abroad with an altered outlook than when they departed. again, I don't think I've drastically changed or anything, so for those of you who liked me the way i was there should be no worries and for those who disliked me i guess you're just out of luck :-).
that's pretty much all I've got to say as of now. I didn't have a whole lot in the way of updates on classes, travel, and whatnot so I pretty much just wrote this entry about what was on my mind in one fell swoop. Thus, I apologize if it's a bit repetitive or incoherent at times (it's also a bit late so my stream of conscious thought is not as sharp as it might have been at an earlier hour). Hope all is well with everyone reading this!
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