Study Abroad: Paris

I studied in Paris Winter and Spring quarters, so I’m supposed to write a little somethin' somethin' on my experiences studying abroad. Unfortunately, in my understanding, the only people who are interested in hearing study abroad adventures are individuals who have also studied abroad. So I fear that I will be preaching to the choir if I wax poetic about the architectural beauty of Europe, the exhilaration of successfully communicating in a second language or the self exploration that comes from having an entire new friend group, as those who care enough to read this will already know all those feelings and epiphanies.

I also considered using this post as a soapbox from which to tell everyone how necessary the study abroad experience is, how it changes the way you think so subtly that you only realize your thought process has changed when you return to the United States and are shocked by the plethora of sweatpants being worn in public. I thought I could go on about the identity crisis that springs from realizing the main reasons you believe what you believe and speak the way you speak are due to your society and environment, and that the nose ring you thought was an alternative choice is also just more proof that you are a cog in your culture's machine. I thought I could promote the study abroad experience by telling you all how you will no longer have to beat yourself up about not being interested in world news, because living in another part of the world instantly pushes you into the identity of world citizen and with that comes a thirst for updates on global issues.

I even thought of ignoring the entire study abroad experience, and going straight to describing the reverse culture shock crisis that every study abroad-er simultaneously dreads and anticipates. I thought I could use the reverse culture shock description as a way to encourage you to be kind to your friends when they first return from abroad. To warn you that they might be in what Glee refers to as a "funk", that they might feel displaced and uprooted from a world that they had put so much energy into creating for themselves. You might judge their inappropriate uses of the second language you (wrongly) assume they are now fluent in, forgetting that they are out of habit when it comes to saying "thank you" and "hello" in English.

I also wanted to warn you about your first reunion with your wanderlust companion. You may anticipate their return with so much gusto that you don't realize that your gain is in direct correlation to their loss. Where you are getting your friend back, they are losing their new home, lifestyle, and friends and have to recover over the course of two flights and a culture shock ridden layover. Conversely, they may be thrilled to be back, but be at a place of stillness and content within themselves that you have not seen evolve before you, and so cannot access or understand.

I have thought about expounding endlessly on the weekend trips, the ways I found to save money and the foods I ate daily. I also considered making this entire post a list of Things I Will Not Miss Smelling, with disturbingly detailed descriptions of the urine drenched Paris metro stench. I thought of so many different avenues from which to present my Parisian life, but found that I could not paint any pictures accurately. The study abroad experience is different for everyone. My reverse culture shock from France is nothing like the type of culture shock I experienced upon coming home from Ghana the year before. I don’t want to predict how it will be for your friends, or assume how it was for you. At the same time, I don’t know how to shrink four months of my life into a succinct three paragraph entry on the food, people, clothes, classes, cities, traditions, inside jokes and words of the French people in relation to myself.

The shortest, most general way I can describe the experience is this: every day you change a little just by living, so imagine yourself in a situation in which your entire environment changes and picture the extent to which your own change would go into hyper drive.