LONDON... I mean, PROVIDENCE - Sad, isn't it? You wake up one morning and you can no longer see the river Thames flowing outside the windows of your flat; instead you see Grad Center outside of the dorm room in which you now live, a room that is not so much unlike a jail cell. For many of us coming back from abroad, the trauma of realizing that your days will no longer be spent gallivanting across the Champs-Elysee, perusing the markets of Dar Es Salaam or hopping a flight or two over to Vietnam for the weekend, can be nothing less than a bit disconcerting. Let's face it - we all love Brown. For some of us, however, that love is a little bit harder to reclaim once you've seen what life outside the bubble is really like.
Although I was hesitant to write it at first, I could not help but notice that no one within the student body has really addressed to me just how odd returning could be. Sure, the Office of International Programs sent me e-mails telling me to be prepared and even offered an orientation program to help me deal with life back at Brown, but none of that has helped me with what feels like an unending desire to hop the first flight back across the Atlantic just so I can assure myself that it wasn't all a dream.
I've talked to other students who were abroad - a few of whom shared my dread of coming back when we saw each other on my occasional visits to their respective countries or vice-versa - and all have felt the same way. For all of us, the returning process is bittersweet: we missed our friends terribly, but talking to them about all of our experiences, the people we met and the food we ate obviously becomes boring. Unless they've shared the experience of being abroad since September, no one really wants to hear over and over again about what the food you had in Berlin was like or about that great guy you met while tanning on the shores off of Sydney.
For juniors, who make up the majority of study-abroad students, the transition back is made even weirder by the fact that a number of their friends have already em-barked on their magical journey overseas. As someone coming back from abroad, this leaves you not only lamenting your friends' absence on campus, but also stewing in the same pool of jealousy that they probably felt when you were the one updating your Facebook.com photo albums with pictures of yourself in a number of exotic locales. Like I've said before, coming back is tough. But coming back and not seeing the people you missed while you were away? That's just cruel.
As it's already the third week of school, I imagine that the majority of you who stayed in Providence last semester probably think that us returnees have adjusted to being back. Maybe you're right, to some degree. As I write this, I know that I no longer forget to bring permission slips for professors to sign. I've re-learned to avoid the noon rush at the Ratty. And I'm even beginning to really appreciate this whole TV on my computer thing that I just discovered I had! But I still miss London, as I'm sure many of you whom I know have just come back miss Rome, Paris, South Africa, Delhi, Amsterdam and all of the other amazing places we were fortunate enough to have had the chance to study in.
Let this be a reminder to all of you that you're not alone. Studying abroad was great, but Brown is great too. If it were otherwise, we never would have returned. And, hey, if you ever feel really desperate because you miss being in a totally international environment, there's always Viva.
Adrian Muniz '07 can't admit that he pined for Jo's while he was abroad. He just can't.
