20 Life Lessons I've Learned Here, in no particular order:(1) Always keep your umbrella with you. Weather changes, you know, and it is a far far better thing to have a spare umbrella than to be wet down to your socks. Don't be that sad dripping person.
(2) Be careful what you wish for, you might get it. And then you are here with this New Thing you have never had before, and invariably operational problems will arise, and you will be up a Creek Without a Paddle, because you have no procedures for handling the operational problems. Advantage: very good for you, learn to problem-solve, grow older. Disadvantage: messy, mind-racking, other people think you are an idiot.
(3) Everyone comes with Some Assembly Required.
(4) You meet interesting people everywhere, you just have to keep a weather eye out for them and ask, ask, ask, ask questions. "I met a lot of interesting people over here. Hell, I even encountered myself." --James Baldwin
(5) Dr. Kutchen's saying "If it wasn't hard, it wouldn't be worth doing" to our newly-challenged freshman Humanities course has much value in it and bears repeating. Hard things are hard for a reason. They're also very rewarding. If you want something, don't let anything stop you.
(6) I've stretched my boundaries, in many senses. This doesn't mean abandoning your boundaries, just stretching them, in a way that is beneficial for your collection of the Human Experience or, What are We Doing Here Anyway?
(7) I love the people who keep up with me from Texas. Knowing that some of my relationships back home are actually going to be stronger, not weaker, when I get back to Never-Never Land, because of people who always checked in on me and listened to me whine, is really comforting and makes me less nervous to leave. If anyone has friends out there who are studying abroad, I encourage you to try to keep in contact with them, even if they are "out of sight, out of mind." It makes a difference to them--believe me.
(8) Three musicians I love more since coming over here: Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan, and Linkin Park. Bob Dylan is the musician for loners, which, hah, part of study abroad really is about.
(9) New things are only scary for a short period of time. Humans consistently overestimate how long it will take them to adapt to change. Repetition is the mother of integrating change into normality.
(10) Living alone in foreign country? Means = being nervous and afraid, and having to do it anyway, because ain't nobody gonna help you, you alone, and This Problem Needs Solving. And You are the only one who will solve it. hahahaha, I can't believe I thought some stuff in the U.S. was hard.
(12) I'll definitely seek out more challenges in the U.S. now, I feel much less afraid and more aware of what challenges can do for me as a person. Kinda like lifting weights. I'm bolder and a little more fearless.
(13) You think you are studying abroad (cue! fun! streamers! party hats!) , and you wake up one day to realize you sent yourself to Mars and actually wanted this.
(14) America's a weird place. As one German (who had traveled in America due to American girlfriend) said, "America's like a theme park. Everything's really nice but there's not much meaning behind it." I adore my countrymen, but this is true. Europeans read philosophy and think about the meaningless of life. Americans read self-help and think about how to Make Tomorrow Better, Lose Weight, Quit Smoking, Improve Their Relationship with their Parents, Children, and Small Animals! They are much more positive, though, and I'm just too attached to Happy Endings to buy the European scheme.
(15) The saddest thing about living in another culture is finding things you like about it and realizing those things are almost inherently incompatible with the things you like about your home culture.
(16) You can cross continents, but the sea won't shake off your ghosts. Only you can do that.
(17) It's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. It's better to have formed those meaningful friendships, fleeting as they may seem, because you just never know. I will always, always remember the people I have met here. And I believe that I'll carry the memories and a part of them with me wherever I go, nestled right under my ribcage in my heart.
(18) Don't panic.
(19) Wherever you go, there you are. It's just you at the end of the day.
(20) Home is where you want it to be, and you can have a home with "rooms" all over the planet.
"But to me Air sounds modern and childless and single, compared to say, Dylan, who sounds old and married and burdened--who sounds like home. If Air are Conan, then Dylan is the greengrocers. Mushrooms, lettuce, and tomato, home to cook bolognese and prepare a salad--and how does it feeeeeeeeeel? To be on your oowwwn? Except I never am whenever Bob is singing." --How to be Good, Nick Hornby
Photo: The author posing with How to be Good by Nick Hornby. (Author suggests proceeding with caution, too much Nick Hornby in excess / at the wrong time can be dangerous for your health.) Photo by Amy Dyer, fasttalker, brilliant self-confessed nerd with a weakness for the adorable, your computer-fixer, excellent photographer, and engineering student at Olin College. Just one of the many amazing people I've met.
Finale B Clip from "Rent"
There is no future, there is no past
Thank God this moment's not the last
There's only us, there's only this
Forget regret, or life is yours to miss
No other road, no other way
No day but today
Sorry, I had to do the Teen Girl Geek-Out on Rent. Life is weirder than you'd think.
No comments:
Post a Comment