Someone once said, "All good things come to an end." This couldn't ring more true for those of us studying abroad.
Unfortunately, the euphoric high we get from living and studying in a foreign country has to fade away sometime. Though we are forever aware of the inevitability of the final moment, we often don't realize the finality of our experience until it's standing right at our doorstep, like a headhunter come to thrust us, and our memories, on a Boeing 747 headed toward America.
Now that I've completed my requisite 13 weeks of academic coursework in New Zealand and face the daunting task of saying goodbye to the friends I have made here, this saying is always on my mind. All good things come to an end. Or, as I prefer to word it: A good end comes to all great things.
What I mean by this is probably very obvious. Before I left on my five-month adventure to New Zealand, many people who had already been through this would bubble over with excitement as they told me that studying abroad was the best experience of their entire lives. I doubt that anybody ends the abroad experience on a sour note, as I've yet to hear someone recall his time spent in another country as simply fun.
We just can't help but love being abroad. Sure there's that sinusoidal wave of culture shock we feel in the beginning, and the fleeting moments of homesickness when we spend Thanksgiving trying to scavenge together some form of turkey and a sweet potato while our families feast without us, but it's nothing resilient students can't easily overcome. We don't really have the time to regret anything, as there's always a new place to see, person to meet or mountain to climb.
While I reflect on my own experience abroad in New Zealand, I can't help but sigh in disbelief as the sun quickly descends beneath the waters of the Pacific Ocean; the greatest thing that has ever happened to me is ending ever quicker. But I feel everything but sadness.
I remember the countless things I have done that I never thought I could do. I met one of New Zealand's foremost writers, Albert Wendt, in one of my English classes and completed a massive research assignment on nuclear testing in the Pacific Islands. I studied Maori culture and even picked up some of the language.
I drove on the left, jumped out of an airplane and went spelunking in underground caves. I forged lifelong friendships with people from around the world and made a real home for myself 9,000 miles away from where this newspaper is being printed.
But none of these experiences compare to the personal growth I've undergone over the past months. Certainly I can't speak for everyone, but I'd assume that this is an almost universal feeling among study abroaders — you start at the beginning of the journey as one person and finish as someone internally changed.
So does saying goodbye to our host countries mean saying goodbye to the people we have become? I certainly hope not. Bob Dylan wrote, "They say the darkest hour is right before the dawn." It's difficult to set the sun on a meaningful experience, but where we go from there is what's truly important.
All good things come to an end, but returning home from New Zealand will be a new day — an ending as well as a beginning.
But man, I sure will miss it.
