Skip to main content

Moving Back into Soka

The view from my new dorm room's window. There are three tall, groomed cypress trees placed at intervals along the photo. In the background, there are tan residence halls with prominent windows. It is a bright, sunny day.

Hello!

I am writing this blog post from my very cluttered new dorm room. My plan for September is to blog at least 3 times/week, but any consistent post schedule I had planned has been foiled by the chaos of moving back into Soka. I think we'll try Wednesday/Friday/Sunday, and then regroup if that plan is unsuccessful.

This is a video of all of the boxes, clutter, and genuine chaos that made up my room yesterday afternoon. Since then, I have made some progress on cleaning/unpacking, but much of that progress has been a result of shoving most of my stuff in my shelving unit.

Despite the stress of returning to school/setting up my room again/unpacking all of my stuff, I am so glad to be back! On study abroad, I often found myself wishing that I had my old life back. When I returned, it was a little weird to be gone for the summer rather than going back to Soka and seeing all of my friends.

Going to a university where study abroad is required for all students is a bit strange. Here is a timeline of my Soka experience:

  • First year: Make a few friends. Feel a little displaced and uncomfortable.
  • Second year: Make many friends! Become more confident and secure in friendships.
  • Third year, first semester: Some of your friends have graduated, and others are on study abroad. Strengthen friendships with the people that remain. Try to restructure your social circles to fill the spaces your old friends have left.
  • Third year, second semester: Go on study abroad. Most of your friends are at Soka, without you. Spend time with people in your study abroad program, and try to keep in touch with old friends.
  • Fourth year, first 24 hours: Congratulations! You have returned to Soka! Your graduating class is all together! Also, remember those people that you bonded with last year to fill the abyss left by friends who are gone? A lot of them are on study abroad now. And, remember, you have only one year left before you have to start making friends all over again.
Anyway, it feels so good to be back to my old life. I was talking to one of my friends yesterday about how study abroad is such a transformative experience in many ways, and how strange it feels to return to the same life that I had pre-study-abroad. Like, I have gone from figuring out how to communicate in a different language and having access to the independence that public transportation provides to living in the young-person equivalent of a retirement home* and only having access to businesses within a 5-mile radius of the university.

Hopefully, my productivity and work ethic will conspire to make it possible for me to post again on Friday. Until then, I wish you all the best.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Grouchiest Blog Post

Hello! This post is literally just Grumpy Lydia complaining. If that sounds miserable, congratulations! You have my full permission to click away now. If that sounds like something you wouldn't mind reading, please enjoy and/or suffer through this list of Lydia's Miseries. I was on vacation in Italy all last week, which means that there are many lingering tasks that have not been completed. My flight was delayed on Monday, which means that I missed class, which has led to me being even more behind.  Housing selection was yesterday, and I am trying to force myself to come to terms with the fact that I'm pretty much definitely going to be living alone next year, which will contribute to my depression next year and makes me feel lonely in the present. There are just, like, a lot of lingering thoughts that I cannot find the words to write about.  It is cold and wet and sad outside, which means that a Self-Imposed Walk to Help With Lingering Sadness would probably jus...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reviewing My August 2019 Goals

This is an image of my desk during Fall Semester 2018. On the right side of the photo, there is a vintage Singer sewing machine which, unfortunately, does not work. To the left of the sewing machine, there is a crate books inside. On top of the crate, there is a stack of Rookie Yearbooks with a crocheted jellyfish (wearing glasses) on top of it, and a picture frame containing a print that reads "all the time". To the left of the crate, there are a few more books. In lieu of a proper bookend, I have placed a tarot deck (stored in a black makeup bag) and a book-themed Halloween decoration (featuring book spines with the words "Potions", "Hexes", and "Spells") to keep my books from toppling over. I chose this photograph because, unlike my current desk, this desk looks like it belongs to someone who creates monthly goals. Hello! At the start of this month, I made a list of goals. As September 1 draws near, I am l...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hourly Comics Day: 2018 and 2019

If you were to read through each of my old blog posts in order, you might notice a continuity error. In this blog post , I mentioned that I was participating in Hourly Comics Day, and that "my next blog post will be my completed comic". However, my next blog post was not, in fact, my completed comic; instead, it was my announcement that I had safely made it to Paris. This was the case for two main reasons: I vastly underestimated how busy I would be during my last day before traveling to Paris. I spent most of my last day before traveling for Paris frantically dealing with the disappearance of my debit card, only to discover that my debit card had been in my pocket all along. Today, I remembered this continuity error. I also recalled the Hourly Comics Day comic I did on February 1, 2018. I thought it might be interesting to post both comics, so that you can see how my life on February 1, 2018 compared to my life on February 1, 2019.  Since this post is very relia...
Post a Comment
Read more