Thursday, April 26, 2012

A Re-Introduction.

Hello.

I almost don't know where to start.  It's been such a long time since I wrote this blog, originally meant only to document my one year adventure as an exchange student in Belgium and Luxembourg.  Maybe I'll start there, then, with an explanation.

This blog was originally intended to be temporary, a window into my life for the year that I was away from my home country.  It served to give friends and family at home an idea of what I got up to while across the Atlantic, and then,briefly, to be a way for me to express the challenges of coming back to the States.  The thing is, since I came back, there seemed to be no point in writing about my life for the people at home.  I was home.

Or, at least, I was back where I started.

But that's not quite the same thing.  For many who go abroad, there is a culture shock upon returning.  But most students eventually get used to being home, because they've always considered where they are home and continue to.  For some, though, the culture shock never really ends.  We get used to living somewhere, but we no longer quite feel like we fit.  It no longer feels like home, as it did before.  As for me, it's taken two semesters of emotions ranging from wild happiness and satisfaction to intense depression and hurt, two semesters of confusion and wondering, two semesters to realize that I simply don't know where home is anymore.

And so, this blog will change with my ideas.  Rather than just being a place to stay in touch with people "back home," as it was before, it becomes a place to document exploration, adventure, rants, emotions.  The idea is no longer to document outings, though there will be documentations of outings.  It is no longer temporary, though certainly not everything will be permanent.  It is not a place where I mean to be followed, though some following may happen.

No, as I come to the close of my first year at university and throw myself yet again into the arms of the unknown, this blog is given new purpose.

It becomes a place to document my search for home.