This year has been a big one for me in the realisation that
just because everyone else says something and does something it doesn't mean it
has to be the same for you too. There
were so many things that people said before I left Lancaster and whilst I was
making my plans for this year that I felt so strongly that in order to make the
most of this year I had to stick to them.
It has taken until now for me to realise how wrong I was.
Everyone says that the year abroad is going to be the most
amazing year of your life, you’ll make loads of new friends, your language will
come on leaps and bounds and that you’ll never want to go back to the UK. Well, that just isn’t always true. Yes, for some people it is a great year, they
have a fantastic time and the thought of going home fills them with dread ,but
for others of us it isn’t the case, we get homesick and just spend the year
wishing away the weeks. I’m not going to
tell you that I’ve not enjoyed this year, because I have, I appreciate the
opportunities it has given me, and have had fun seeing new things and
travelling to new places. But I cannot
and will not tell you that it has been the best year of my life, because it
quite plainly hasn’t. Don’t get me
wrong, I am by no means complaining about the year abroad and the opportunities
it has given me, I am just saying that it hasn’t lived up to the hype that
surrounded it.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing isn’t it? With it I’d have gone to a place where I knew
more people, or not worried so much about living with native speakers or all
those other pressures that get placed on us.
I’d have done as many of those things that we were told not to as I
wanted, knowing that it might not be the best for my language or my “experience”,
but that I’d have felt a hell of a lot better for it. In October I decided to go to Lancaster for a
weekend, but that decision came after a lot of umming and ahhing about whether
it was the “right” thing to do. I should
probably have made more decisions like this one, that were for my happiness not
what I felt I should be doing according to everyone else.
I have not found this year, so far, easy. In fact, I have probably found it harder than
I have let on to many of you whilst I have been hiding behind the part of me
that thinks that I am on my year abroad and so I have to have a fantastic time.
I guess that all I’m trying to say is, to all those people
that are planning their year abroad, or are on it and sharing my
experience. It doesn’t matter. We all have hugely different experiences on
the year abroad. Some love it, some hate
it and some just have an “ok” time. It
doesn’t matter.
Please don’t try to put a label on the year abroad, it can’t
be done.
