Wordy and Dramatic

Being away from home is a completely obvious factor in the study abroad experience. It’s so obvious that it seems almost unnecessary to even think about, however it can be a very overwhelming a prominent thought, especially in my mind. Before I left I didn’t think of the distance or the time away as a problem. Ever. Really it seemed like that would only a benefit of studying abroad- that I would get to leave. And I also thought that the distance wouldn’t really matter because I could still communicate with people via post, phone, and the Internet. Funnily enough I have decided that sometimes these other forms of communication can make me feel even more far away from home. It’s a bummer when no one is online to talk, or I find myself waiting around for a response on fb or email, or I call and there is no answer. And it’s even worse when I get a response that has bad news or something painful or hurtful entailed. But then again, there’s always the other side when I get an unexpected message or someone just being a fantastic friend. So it’s important to take the good with the bad, because together they create a balance, but when I’m in an exaggerated state of being –example in a foreign country- it’s harder to keep that importance of balance in mind.
I have decided that the best way to correct this negative effect of communication is to put a stronger emphasis on the now and the here, especially in my relationships with other people, which maybe until now I didn’t care too much about, since I had this extreme mentality that I was here really just for myself, which I am, but in order to help myself I have to be able to communicate effectively with people here both with people in France and with other exchange students. However, even now it is hard to communicate with people here because people are often on their computers, ipods, or cell phones quite often. Or the case is sometimes that people here are more preoccupied with what is going on at their respective homes or past events. Granted we’ve been here only a little more than a week, and routines and people are still settling down and working themselves out.
So my point is after this very wordy and overly dramatic that it is important to live, act, and think in the present, here, and now.