stayaliveandthrive-blog

[stayaliveandthrive-blog]

When I read this I thought of how I felt without my family abroad and what i learned about communication. I wanted to share my views with all of you. Here it is:

Another fine line that all SA students need to learn how to walk is that of communication with friends and family back home while you’re abroad. I think it’s safe to say that it can be easy to miss family and friends when you don’t have the ability to see them at will. That being said, it’s not always the best idea to reach out to them every time you feel lonely or want their companionship. Sometimes, especially during the middle section of your SA experience, it is better to reach out to the people around you for that companionship. The people around you will be able to help you work through that feeling of loneliness a lot better than those people that are back at home. If you keep in constant communication with them it’s likely that you’ll just want to be home with them even more jeopardizing the success of your SA experience.

I watched one of my closest friends abroad fall into the trap of missing family and contacting them on a regular basis. While I was happy because that communication helped ease her sadness I also knew that it was contributing to it never really leaving. Her family even came to visit her at one point causing the whole process to boil over leaving her just wishing to go home sooner once they left. I then had the job for the last two months we were abroad of keeping her happy enough to not leave early. She was the person that had grounded me through my hard times, so it was only fair I did the same with her. However, my problems had been grounded in not clicking with my host family, not over communication with my family back home.

I would hate for anyone to go through what she did, so I advise again to evaluate how you’re communicating with home and potentially take a step back to let yourself enjoy your time abroad without your family. If you take that step I almost guarantee that after the little bit of struggle you will feel much more adjusted to your environment and be more successful in the long run.

To everyone studying abroad

Being Homesick is not a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of love. Allow yourself to be homesick. And forgive yourself for spontaneously buying an expensive plane ticket to see your friends, pets and family even, if its just for a view days. 

[stayaliveandthrive-blog]

Conquering Culture Shock

So, you’ve landed in the country of your choice. You’ve passed through customs and now await with your suitcase in hand for your ride to your new home. To say you’re nervous is an understatement, but it’s the best kind.

I remember the crap shoot that was me arriving in my new country. I had lost my luggage and almost missed my connecting flight due to my first flight taking off late. I had to go after my last flight to say I lost my bag without any way to get in touch with my new family which meant that they were waiting for me for about an hour while I butchered my way through the language barrier to explain what my bag looked like. When I finally got free to see my host family the reality of the situation finally set in. I was experiencing the nervous excitement that you get when you get on a ride you’ve been wanting to try but never had the guts to, or when you sit down to try a new food you’ve always been afraid of but decided to try it finally. I was finally where I had worked so hard to get to, and while it was looking to be a fun experience the journey was only the beginning.

Once you settle in, get your class schedule, and acquaint yourself with your new town of residence it will all start to feel more real, leading to varying degrees of culture shock. This can feel like a few things like butterflies, secluding yourself, being drained of energy, feeling skittish, or maybe the opposite like never wanting to be alone. All those things can be signs that you are experiencing culture shock, but don’t fret! You are not alone in this feeling.

According to gooverseas.com there are four stages to this: Initial Euphoria/ The Honeymoon Stage, Irritation and Hostility/ The Negotiation Stage, Gradual Understanding/ The Adjustment Stage, and Adaption or Biculturalism/ The Mastery Stage. Depending on how often you’ve traveled before, where you’ve traveled to, the structure of your program, and just yourself in general will all affect the levels to which you will experience those stages. Going into the experience with an understanding of those feelings will help you to conquer them when they show up hopefully decreasing the amount of time you have to spend adjusting to let you enjoy the experience more completely. Remember that you are studying abroad for your own reasons, but at the end of the day we all want the same things. Success for ourselves and success for those around us. If you see someone else having a hard day help them the way that you would want to be helped. Sometimes even just a smile in their direction can make all the difference in the world. Write down your feelings whenever you can to document what stage you could be at and figure out a way to help get you through that. That will help you navigate your feelings which in turn could help you get to the Mastery Stage even quicker.

BONUS- Culture Shock with Food

Going along with your feelings of trepidation about the new place that you’re living in the new food is probably adding an extra layer of stress to your life abroad. Your body is adjusting the best that it can to the new environment, but some of the new foods that you’re experiencing are not only scary but are just plain and simple different. I included some pictures here of some of the scariest food that was put in front of me while I was studying in Indonesia. 

Let me tell you that as someone who isn’t a huge fan of fish outside of sushi seeing these two huge fish just out on a plate was pretty intimidating. You just had to rip off pieces you wanted and pass the plate of fish down the table for others to do the same. I had to remind myself of my motto, “sometimes all you need in 20 seconds of courage, just 20 seconds of embarrassing bravery and I promise you something great will come of it.” I know that’s a quote from We Bought A Zoo, but it’s one that’s always stuck with me and in this case it helped me conquer my fear of weird foods which in turn helped me embrace the culture more and get over the weird culture shock of the food. 

Find a mantra that helps you get through the moments that push your limits because I promise that you’ll be better off for it. Remember that you’re not alone in your feelings and if you ever need more help I’m just a quick message away. As always, I hope I’ve helped you to stay alive and thrive abroad.

[stayaliveandthrive-blog]

The Battle Against Homesickness

You’ve been in your host country now for probably close to two or three months. While you’re happy to be there, and are hopefully making the most of your time, I’m sure you’re starting to experience some feelings of random sadness or get struck with memories of home that make you retreat into yourself. Homesickness is starting to set in for you, and that’s totally normal. I had some of the worst homesickness on my first trips abroad, so bad that at times it was debilitating. Just getting out of bed some days was enough to make me feel like I had accomplished something significant that day.

In the world of studying abroad it is almost impossible to miss the homesickness stage. Nadine Sykor of heynadine.com experienced her first real batch of homesickness when she visited Norway. She found that she was so homesick because she was visiting somewhere that was similar in atmosphere and landscape to her home of BC, Canada. Coming from a girl who travels for the entire year, making her career as a travel blogger and internet personality, it’s comforting to know that even people who travel “professionally” miss their homes every now and then. There are a few tricks to get through it that I used that will hopefully help you too.

First off, don’t call home more than once a week during this period. I know that goes against everything you want to hear, but it’s the best way that I found to not succumb to the sadness of being homesick. If you instead write down what happened during your day you could satisfy the feeling of needing to tell someone about your day as well as getting all that information off your mind. I know that when I was experiencing homesickness the most was around the holiday times and what I wanted more than anything was to Skype with my mom everyday. I found though that when I restrained from doing that I became more involved in the culture around me and felt less homesick.

Another trick would be keep going to classes even when getting out of bed is all you think you can do. I had days where I felt completely out of it all day, barely spoke a word to my cohorts, and walked home right after school just to crawl in bed and watch netflix until dinner. I want to let you know that you show up to class in your pajamas without having brushed your hair or teeth it’s still better than sitting at home alone feeling every emotion that’s associated with missing home. Even if you get nothing out of the classes that you go to and even if you crawl back into bed as soon as you get home, at least you made it out for that much.

The last thing that I’ll say is make sure you find a reasonable middle ground for you. Find the happy spot between going out to socialize and taking mental breaks on your own. I had a hard time going out on my first study abroad time due to rules associated with my study abroad program which I think contributed to the prolonged feelings of homesickness. If you’re not allowed to go out where you want to, like to a club, go find a nice park to walk around in or try a new coffee shop. You’d be surprised at how many different coffee shops there are in towns. I know it surprised me to pull up google maps and see that there were ones on almost every street corner.

All in all just enjoy yourself. Don’t let the feelings of sadness overshadow your feelings of excitement for being somewhere new. There’s that saying about not being able to get any rainbows without rain, and I think that fits perfectly with homesickness. To get to the happiness after you have to experience some feelings of sadness. I promise that they’ll go away though and before you know it you’ll be moving on, getting out there, and staying alive and thriving abroad.

Photo by Liam Simpson on Unsplash

[stayaliveandthrive-blog]

Finding a Program

If you’re want to go abroad but don’t know where to start look no further than this post. I remember the days of wanting to travel, but thinking that it was never possible. I was fortunate enough to have an opportunity dropped in my lap with the Rotary International emblem on it, but not everyone is that lucky. Some people wait to make studying abroad a gap year between high school graduation and starting college while others wait until they are in college and can go for something more program based. Whatever your situation is I want you to know this: traveling is worth the work you put into it, the struggles that you might encounter and easier to become a part of than you think.

As soon as you start thinking about studying abroad (SA) start looking for a program. It can take about a year to get applications finalized and turned in, applications accepted, visas processed, passports purchased or renewed, school check in’s to ensure you can get credit while abroad, flights finalized, and funding secured. That list can be daunting at first, but when you have a year to plan you can make a long term checklist from the first due date of the application to wheels up and off to the country of your choice. I personally used an old fashioned pen and paper planner that I took with me everywhere to do this. I highlighted important dates in it with reminders at weekly intervals when it was within a month of the due dates. That way even with the chaos that’s associated with being a student I was able to make sure nothing slipped through the cracks.

A key factor to keep in mind during this initial phase is finances. When you think about this most websites are great about letting you know how much your program will cost. Keep in mind too that different geographic areas of the world will cost different amounts for similar programs due to their currency exchange rates or just cost of living in general. Europe is one of the more expensive places to stay abroad having been there for SA going on two times now myself. You’ll also need to take a microscope of sorts to see what your program cost covers. Do you have room and board, classes, food, etc. taken care of within that cost or will you have to plan for those separately? There are always great opportunities for funding through your University, program that you’re studying through, or even outside funders. If you need help with that schedule a meeting with someone from your financial aid office. They are one of the best advocates for ensuring you will be able to study abroad.

Once you have finances and paperwork squared away you should be all set to go. Remember to check your passport expiration date because sometimes that creeps up on you or, if you don’t already have it, give yourself a couple months to make sure you’re not in a time crunch to receive it before you leave. Trust the people you’re working with because they want you to succeed as badly as you do. Most importantly though have fun because you are embarking on an incredible journey. Take the leap of faith that’s somehow become associated with traveling and get out there because I promise it will be worth it in the end. Stick with me and I promise that you’ll stay alive and thrive abroad.