So I realize that you thought that this blog was finished, and for good reason—I haven’t written in months. At first the time and effort involved in settling back in at home kept me away from the computer, and thus from the blog, but after I settled back in (and despite hearing horror stories to the contrary settling back in to the states has been surprisingly easy) I still didn’t write. There were practical things that kept me from writing: I was looking for a job, which took up most of my time, then I was busy re-connecting with my high school friends who were too lazy to read my blog and had to be brought up to speed on every little detail about the past six months. But I know I could have found time to write if I truly wanted to. The real reason I haven’t written is that I was frightened to.
Not frightened in the sense that I have developed an over night phobia of technology, or an unreasonable paranoia that this blog might be used by serial killers searching for their next victim, and not even frightened because a final blog would mean that my London adventure was finally and truly over. No, what frightened me was the knowledge that my final blog would have to contain some form of advice. I would need to share what I learned after living abroad, and then tell all the prospective traveling learners out there why studying abroad was a valuable experience. And, if indeed I do give advice, it implies that I have some form of wisdom, which I am not at all sure that I possess.
You see, I had a lot of fun studying abroad. It is exhilarating to meet new people and discover new places, (and of course by discover I mean visit for the first time places that have been there for hundreds in some cases thousands of years but didn’t actually exist until I stumbled upon them with my guidebook and compass), and it is impossible to do these things and return unchanged. And it is from this change that I am supposed to garner a font of knowledge that I can then share with my friends and readers. But such changes are not like dying your hair or growing a third arm. Their marks are imperceptible, and so subtle that I am not even sure what they are. I know for instance that the experience of reading E. M. Forster’s Maurice was made much more enjoyable because when Forster tells us that the hero and his lover meet at the British Museum I could picture them exactly in one of the rooms, knew which exhibits they were looking at, and understood what they had to walk through before they could take off their hats and shake each others’ hands. This is a concrete result of my time spent in London, and it is not the least reason to study abroad. Simply seeing the Mona Lisa on the canvas or standing in the desert in front of an actual pyramid are valuable experiences that enrich your day-to-day life immeasurably.
Such knowledge is knowledge that I feel lucky, even blessed to have gained, and it is the most palpable result of my time spent abroad; the closest to a third arm that I will ever get, but I know that this type of knowledge is the knowledge of the tourist. Though valuable in its kind, it does not require six months on foreign soil to obtain. And indeed, I spent little more than an extended weekend in Paris and about ten days in Egypt. I’m glad I went (and even more glad I got the chance to go) but the lessons learned there are not the lessons of study abroad; they are instead the generic lessons of travel.
So what are the lessons of study abroad? How has living on foreign soil changed me? Well, I’m not sure. In my first entry I wrote that I hoped studying abroad would help me obtain some sort of career goal, that it would stop me from being feckless and give me some sort of ambition. I can categorically state that it has done none of those things. I’m just as ambivalent about my future as I was in January. What it has done, however, has made me a little easier with my own ambivalence. Career plans are all well and good, but now I know that if I’m plunked down in the middle of an unknown city I can probably order lunch, find the bathroom and make it to the train station without knowing the language. You’d be amazed the amount of confidence that sort of ability can give you. But more than merely dazzling myself with my own competence, the knowledge that I can go somewhere I’ve never been before and make friends, learn the public transportation system and eke a pleasant day to day existence out of nothing is tremendously comforting. I may not know what I want to do, but I know that I will be able to make myself happy doing it. Studying abroad has taught me that my ability to make myself happy is not dependent on my surroundings, but on myself. And that, dear readers, is all anybody can ask for.
So after all of that, what advice can I give you?
Only this: Never eat chocolate and chew gum at the same time. The chocolate will make the gum fall apart, and then you’ve wasted a perfectly good piece of gum.
art
