Esse intercâmbio na California realmente tem sido bem proveitoso. É impressionante o que uma boa estrutura de ensino pode proporcionar e a quantidade de portas que podem ser abertas quando se está num ambiente como esse. Soma-se a isso a quantidade de coisas interessantes que chegam a você quase por acaso, apenas pela simples razão de você estar inserido nesse meio.
Acabo de receber um e-mail de uma lista de distribuição da Trojan - Entrepreneur que me levou a um blog de uma colega da USC que me levou a um site onde eu encontrei esse ensaio dela própria que resume bem o que é essa experiência de estudar no exterior.
Learning, from a Distance
By Dallas Woodburn
Tears burned my eyes and blurred my vision as I waved goodbye to my family at Los Angeles International Airport. “Call us when you get in!” Mom said. “We love you!” Dad added. I made my way through security and into The Unknown, jumbled nerves squeezing my chest. Studying abroad was, to use Neil Armstrong’s words, “one giant leap” out of my comfort zone. I was beyond nervous at the prospect of spending six months an ocean away from everything familiar. Though I had previously moved away from home to attend the University of Southern California, in many ways my semester studying Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia in England was my true test of independence.
It is rare, at least in my experience, to be able to fully appreciate a time in your life while you are in the midst of it, in the same way you need a bit of distance and perspective to fully see a Monet painting. As much as I try to enjoy the present, past regrets and future commitments too often nag at me, fraying the pure pleasure of today. By putting 5,000 miles between my life abroad and all I had known before, I was finally able to leave behind the stresses and worries that had weighed down my daily life back home and instead bask in each day as it unfolded. I felt what I can best describe as bliss, soaking up the springtime sunshine in the square, enjoying a pint with new friends at the Union pub, blasting the Fratellis and dancing with my flatmates in the hall. I learned to savor every day as a treasure, because every day I was cognizant of the return ticket tucked inside a pocket of my suitcase: LONDON HEATHROW to LAX, JUNE 26.
I knew June 26 would arrive much too quickly, and I knew I would miss this new life when it was in my rearview mirror. So I lived with a permanent mental camera clicking pictures, memorizing details and moments to look back on months, years and decades later.
One day in particular remains focused in my mind – not because anything out of the ordinary happened, but in fact because it was such a typical day of my life in England. It was early February, so I had been there a month. After my Intermediate Fiction class, I decided to go for a walk around the campus lake before heading back to my dorm room. It was my favorite time of day, when the first inklings of sunset touched the tips of the sky with burnished gold. The water on the lake rippled pleasantly and the trees around me were shadowy silhouettes. I found a wooden bench and sat down, breathing in the crisp winter air, absorbing my surroundings. I remember my fingers were nearly numb because I left my gloves inside, but even freezing fingers seemed like a blessing – a reminder of how different this place was from my life in sunny Southern California. While I missed home, certainly, sitting on that bench beside the lake I recognized with clear eyes and an open heart what a true gift this experience was for me.
Part of what makes studying abroad so magical is that it is so ephemeral – you know your days in this dream-life are limited, so each day is a wondrous morsel. Even on that cold February evening, warmth flooded my being when I considered how much I loved my life in England. I loved eating lunch with my flatmates in the bright warm kitchen with the panoramic view of the wild bunnies hopping around the surrounding fields. I loved listening to my neighbor Rob play his guitar next door, singing along to everything from Green Day to Phantom of the Opera. I loved riding the bus into town with my new friends Janet and Lauren, walking the centuries-old cobblestone streets, peering inside the solemn churches, exploring the open-air market stalls selling fruit and yarn and used books. I loved my cozy little dorm-room that was easy to keep clean because I only had two suitcases of worldly possessions with me – I had left so much clutter and messiness behind, so many material possessions I realized now I didn’t need.
As a writer, few things are more valuable to me than new experiences – places, people, foods, cultures – to soak up and use in my writing. I spent the three weeks of my Spring Break from classes backpacking through Europe, traveling through Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Ireland – I have now truly seen the color green – Scotland, the Netherlands and Belgium. I cried both in front of Anne Frank’s childhood home in Frankfurt and the Secret Annex in Amsterdam where she wrote her diary; I touched the remnants of the Berlin Wall and stood at Checkpoint Charlie; I visited the “London Bar” in Barcelona that Hemingway and Picasso used to frequent. I gained confidence in my ability to navigate foreign places, solve problems, and communicate across language and cultural barriers.
The decision to study abroad at the University of East Anglia was one of the most rewarding I have made in my twenty-one years, and one that has greatly nurtured and solidified my sense of self. I made new dear friends, learned to successfully navigate the Tube and other public transportation, and now know how to make a compliment-inducing Indian curry dish! The morning I said goodbye to the university, I took one final walk around the lake by myself. As excited as I was to see my family and friends back home, leaving my new “home” felt unbearable. However, I promised the lake and the trees – and myself – that I would one day return.
Tears burned my eyes and blurred my vision as I waved goodbye to my new “family” at the campus bus stop. “Facebook us when you get home!” my friend Jill said. “We love you!” my flatmates exclaimed. I boarded the bus to begin my journey back across The Pond, into my unknown future. But this time, I was not afraid. Indeed, my semester abroad taught me one final lesson: once you have grown to love a place, it never leaves you. Just as my memories from
home were with me during my stay in England, so now will England be with me at USC and beyond, wherever my life’s adventures next take me.
Dallas Woodburn is the author of two collections of short stories and an upcoming novel, as well as numerous articles for magazines and newspapers including Family Circle, Writer's Digest and The Los Angeles Times. She also is the founder of a nonprofit literacy foundation called Write On! that has donated more than 9,000 new books to underprivileged kids the past seven years. Contact Dallas through her blog:
http://dallaswoodburn.blogspot.com/
