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Home Sweet Home
By Jing-Jing Hu (University of British Columbia Okanagan, Canada) After another two weeks of travelling in Canada and the US, I eventually made my way back home – first to Germany and then to Manchester (at last). In Germany, I spent the majority of my time with friends and family, exchanging stories on all the things that had happened in the last few months (and there were a lot), celebrating my sister’s highschool graduation and visiting friends in different cities in the area. It took me a while to realise that I am not in Canada anymore (it is summer, but where is the snow?!), but I eventually got used to the fact that…
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Auckland pre-departure
By Megan Turner (The University of Auckland, New Zealand) I have one day to go before I fly to New Zealand, a journey that will take twenty-six hours and include two planes, one layover and no comfortable sleeping positions. My suitcase is almost full, but I have only packed half of my things and it still feels like there are a million things left for me to sort out. It’s tricky to condense a year’s worth of stuff into 30kg of hold luggage, especially when I have to cover all seasons and I’m trying to think of everything that I could possibly need in a country that I have never…
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Returning to Manchester
By Annabel Savage (Stony Brook, The State University of New York, USA) It’s strange to think that I’ve been back in the UK for as long as I was in America and the time has gone so quickly since my return. In a way my whole semester abroad feels like a distant memory, but sometimes it feels like just yesterday. The adjustment back into Manchester life took a little longer than I had expected, although socially I felt like I slipped straight back in, the workload and teaching style I had been so used to here in first year came as a shock to the system. I feel I have…
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Reflections on Study Abroad on my return to Manchester
By Hamish Russell (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA) It’s been six months since I landed back at Heathrow, and almost four since I started back at the University of Manchester after my semester abroad. Getting back into everyday life with family and friends was easy, but adjusting back to the university work in Manchester was actually quite difficult. Having been working at a very different pace while in the US, the workload that I’ve been hit with so far in third (and final) year has been tricky to adapt to. As well as that, it’s been almost strange not always planning a trip to somewhere new, as if that’s the…
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Nobody said it was easy, nobody said it would be so hard.
By Isobel Cecil (University of California, San Diego, USA). (I wrote this a month ago, and thought I’d posted it a month ago to. I’ve only just realised that my technical capabilities have failed me again and that it didn’t post. Hey, just another setback!) Here I am just a few days away from my long flight to California, and I’m finding it very hard to describe how I feel. Everybody keeps asking me: “Are you excited??!?!?” , to acquaintances I enthusiastically reply “Yeah! 100%! Woohoo!” and make some lighthearted joke about tanning/Mexican food/ surfer boys. However to those closer to me I tell the truth; I don’t have any…
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¡Hola España!
By Hannah Langan (Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain). 2 days to go! So, I’m going on my year abroad. I speak un pocito Español and I certainly don’t speak Catalan. I don’t know anyone there and I’ve never been to Barcelona before, actually I haven’t spent much time in Spain at all as it goes. This is all completely unchartered waters for me and I couldn’t be more excited. My flight is in two days. I have been waiting to go for so long but, strangely, it doesn’t feel any closer now than it did a couple of months ago, I don’t think it’s really going to sink in until…
A study abroad journal by students, for students.
