Nanjing 2018-2019, Blog Post 2
Since I’ve returned home, life’s kept me moving. I came back to an untouched bedroom, an ever-busy and hectic schedule with my dad, a similar lifestyle at my mom’s, and the same high school friends doing the same exact things around town. However, over the last few days, I’ve felt like I need to recapture my experience abroad: to reflect, to think, and to improve from my experiences. So my first real blog post here is about my Month 1: September.
The first month really felt like a blur. There was, of course, an adjustment period: to the strange foreigners-living-abroad culture, my new Italian roommate, and living by myself for the first time ever. I needed to learn how to walk around my new campus at Nanjing Normal University without getting lost, where to get food, and how to cope with only having myself as a reliable source of help. It was hard to eat dinner alone, to look on social media, and feel lonely while my friends from home had already settled into their college lifestyles.
Yet, I grew by myself. I realized a lot about home, both good and bad. I came to understand that high school was a bubble: nobody in the big picture cares about what you wear, where you live, or how many connections to school programs you have past those four years. Honestly, I’ve only kept a few strong relationships this past year from all people I spent four years with; mostly, I have memories. In the meantime, I began meeting other foreigners around campus and during touristy outings arranged in our group chat. Some were also on the same scholarship as I, others were friends with my roommate. An important person in my first month was another student on a gap year from a similar region as I in North Carolina (the Triangle); we were able to connect because of similar backgrounds and the same feeling of being lost. I also began forming a special relationship with my roommate that would be unparalleled with anyone else throughout the rest of the year.
As I made it through registration, venturing to the canteen without walking the opposite direction, and prepping for the placement exam in the school library, classes soon started. I began taking full immersion Chinese classes from 8 to 11:50 in the morning, with mostly Italians in my class that had come with my roommate from the same university in Italy. My classes felt strange: not because they were taught in a different language, but because there was hardly any REAL homework and the amount of effort I had to put in was significantly less than high school.
I soon got in a schedule, though, and I felt content. I knew the people in my class, I began friendships with other scholarship students, and my roommate and I ventured around the giant city taking the subway to shop, dine, or visit Nanjing landmarks. Life was good, life was settling.