The days are dwindling, there are only 6 weeks left and just 3 weeks of travel time. Oh my god, I can’t go home for more than a month and a half? It’s a very conflicting feeling, the way time moves while abroad, and it switches daily if not from minute to minute. The feeling is worse since my roommate is currently going through a severe bout of homesickness.
I guess I will attempt to write my only little Maximizing Study abroad lesson here: Coping with Homesickness. It’s a tough thing, because when you’re in such a foreign place for so long you are bound to miss home, everything about it really. Besides friends and family, you may miss stupid shit that you would never even notice at home (for me this includes wooden floors, the smell of stir fry, ticking old clocks).
Yet this is your study abroad experience. You’ve been looking forward to this for years. Why waste it missing home? Then you get mad at yourself and are determined to suck it up and enjoy yourself. Why are you being weak?
My one bit of advice to myself and others is to avoid feeling the necessity of ‘getting over it.’ Acknowledge that you are homesick, that its not a particularly pleasant feeling. Also acknowledge that you’re not going to be getting home anytime soon. You might as well keep trying having a good time. This doesn’t necessary mean shaking off the homesickness, only working around it, despite it.
In any case, I do continue to enjoy the experience. Tomorrow I’m going to be completely uncharacteristic and get all excited about clothes…gonna spend a lot of money on clothes! That’s right. I’m getting a dress made for myself to my own design and I’m super excited about it. The reason of course can go back to our old globalization lessons. Labor here is just ridiculously cheap. The cost here is the cost of the cloth, the cost of the labor is last minute addition of a small percentage of the price. Go figure. In this case, literally what might cost rp. 100 would cost $100. It’s astounding really.
Sunita bought us skirts as going away presents, and boy was it unexpected! We bought another thank you gift of teacups but never thought she might be buying us something at the same time. Its one of those moments that I’m convinced she’s just a crabby old woman actually lonely and in need of company. If I were Anne of Green Gables she would be completely transformed by now.

written by  Drie on March 1, 2008 from Jaipur, India
from the travel blog: Adventures in Hindustan
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LOL- Eric and I just watched Anne of Green Gables! Can you believe he'd NEVER seen it???

written by  Della on March 3, 2008

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