A journey

"A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles."
- Tim Cahill

Since coming back to Singapore from Vietnam and Cambodia, I couldn't help but think "It's the final countdown."

And now I find myself at the end of that countdown and I can't believe the semester is over.

Holy crap.

Well, I think most of us are looking forward to going home - looking forward to the cold, to friends and family, In-N-Out, and not having to do any school work for a couple of weeks.

Still, I do have my qualms about leaving. This place and this program have been my life for the past four months. Being almost completely and very far removed from home, I feel like instead of this experience being a new chapter of my life, it was an entirely different book. A new country. A new school. A new group of friends.

Speaking of which it's going to be hard to leave them. A lot of my friends are staying a whole year. Some of them don't even live in the U.S. Almost all of them do not go to Irvine. These are the people that I lived with and ate lunch with and traveled to other countries with and saw practically every day these four months. There are a few that I feel like I know better than my friends in Irvine or Pleasanton/Bay.

I feel like there might be some adjusting to do when I go back home.


But even though I'll soon be saying my goodbyes and even though I missed out on a lot back at Irvine, all the inside jokes, the parties, and tournaments... I don't regret anything.

I learned so much, and I don't mean from classes, because fuck if I ever went to them. I learned about myself, about other people, and cultures. I saw the world's beauty and its ugliness. And I changed I think. I'm different. Being abroad for a couple months changes you in ways that only leaving everything can change you. Now I'm not exactly sure what those ways are but I think I'll find that out when I'm at home.


And there is SO MUCH MORE I haven't seen. My passport's got too many empty pages. I've barely scratched the surface. I look forward to the next series of adventures far from home.


"Not all those who wander are lost."
- J. R. R. Tolkien