I’ve started looking for flights back to Boston. It feels like every week I take a step back to the States and back to Wellesley, and I feel conflicted. I am excited to go back and see my friends, both from Wellesley and the States in general. I am excited for the traditions of my last year at Wellesley. I am excited for the opportunities. I am, however, dreading the culture shock.
People talk a lot about the culture shock you get when you move away from the States, but I didn’t feel that out of place or homesick when I arrived. The only time that I sort of felt what people were talking about was after my friends from last semester left and I struggled to find a new social life in Belfast, but I am happy with the way it has worked out and I feel like I have finally made a tight group of friends. The previous times I have studied abroad (China for a semester in my senior year of high school and Taiwan for a summer after my first year of college) I felt ready to go back home by the end of the trip. I do not feel like that this time. There is time still, of course. Right around two months to be exact. But I will be traveling all of April, and even the idea of spending one month away makes me feel homesick for Belfast. All of May will be spent on schoolwork, so I can fairly say I probably won’t get more time to explore Ireland and the UK, or experience Northern Irish life and culture. And my friends. They will be spread around the world, and I can only hope the States is enticing enough to get them to come visit.
So instead of focusing on my return to the States, I have been focusing on school work and travelling. I’ve started bullet journaling, which for me has become a sort of scrapbook/to-do list combination. It’s been really helpful so far. As I’ve mentioned before, I have a lot of assignments coming up (I just turned one in yesterday. Success!) and I am trusting the bullet journal to hold my life together, and hopefully help me figure out a study plan for when I am travelling. My next two deadlines are an assignment for my Criminal Law module and the self-imposed deadline of finishing my final essay for the Northern Ireland: A Case Study class by the end of the month. This should be interesting.