By Gigi Lin, Simon Fraser University, winner of the 2017 Stories from Abroad Scholarship.
I have finished the majority of my exams now. I have about two weeks left until I return to Canada to start my co-op term. Reflecting back on the past month and a half, I’ve realized how time really flies on exchange.
By Peter Mate, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Vancouver Campus, winner of the 2017 Stories from Abroad Scholarship.
Vancouver is not the same as I remembered. I romanticized the city during the past year; like everything idealized, it won’t meet your personal standard.
By Janna Wale, Thompson Rivers University, winner of the 2017 Stories from Abroad Scholarship.
By Peter Mate, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Vancouver Campus, winner of the 2017 Stories from Abroad Scholarship.
I’m nervous – my hands tremble. I fly home bearing more questions than I can answer.
My semester, academically, is a success – I have a basic grasp of refugee law and contemporary citizenship; I’ve walked along the Danube, Siene and Thames; I’ve marched to Hungary’s parliament and climbed the Buda Hills; I’ve sat in wonderment at the Big Ben and the Eiffel tower. Yet, I’m restless.
By Janna Wale, Thompson Rivers University, winner of the 2017 Stories from Abroad Scholarship.
It’s another quiet evening in the house that has become my home over the months of my exchange in Inverness, Scotland. My host mother is probably downstairs obsessively cleaning something or spoiling her ‘wee dog’ Millie, while my host father watches the documentary channel while taking trips to the kitchen for chocolate. Even though I am so far away from my family, studying abroad has taught me that ‘home’ is more than the house you are living in.
By Gigi Lin, Simon Fraser University, winner of the 2017 Stories from Abroad Scholarship.
By Peter Mate, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Vancouver Campus, winner of the 2017 Stories from Abroad Scholarship.
Living away from home reorients outward perspectives: friendships blossom, the world changes colour, and ideas change. By reorienting perspectives the world shrinks: dialects between regions are now recognizable; cultures between cities become evident; you recognize ideologies that engulf countries. These differences create a tapestry of beliefs and cultures that you – the explorer – observe.
By Janna Wale, Thompson Rivers University, winner of the 2017 Stories from Abroad Scholarship.
Have you ever had something you really wanted to do on your bucket list for such a long amount of time, that when you are actually accomplishing it you keep having moments of “Am I really here right now?” This is the kind of surrealism that overwhelmed me when I made it to the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland.
It felt wonderful.
By Janna Wale, Thompson Rivers University, winner of the 2017 Stories from Abroad Scholarship.
By Janna Wale, Thompson Rivers University, winner of the 2017 Stories from Abroad Scholarship.
Another day coming to a close. I’ll try and keep from letting the sound of rain hitting the roof distract me. That’s one thing that I’ve been loving since I moved to Inverness, Scotland. I just really like the calm feeling that rain brings when the sun has gone down and you can just sit with a hot tea and listen, maybe reading another chapter or two of that book. Or finishing that essay that needs to be started…hmm..
