In my planner there is a mushy quote that reads "the grass is greener where you water it", and for once instead of rolling my eyes I found myself nodding in agreement. Going away to study for just a year is particularly hard because I have moved country, university and life but only temporarily. I have to keep up with life back home, stay in contact with friends and family, know all the gossip and drama, as well as fully investing in my new life in Pennsylvania.
Making friends hasn't come as easily as I had hoped as I come into contact with very few people that I get to talk to beyond surface level. I haven't fallen into a social group like I did at Kent, so when I do meet people I have to try extra hard to connect with them and make the effort to keep contact and be proactive. Knowing that I'm only here for ten months before I return to my "normal" life in England, it would be so easy to fall back on the friends I have back home, spending every spare minute on skype and facebook chat. But if I did that I would be missing out on life in the states, suspended in a temporary bubble, just waiting to fly home.
I need to water the grass here, however silly that sounds.
This year is going to be different to the last two that I spent in Kent, and that's okay.
Here, I haven't really been drinking, my social life has consisted of events put on by the university, I go to bed at 11, I spend a lot of time on my own. It is a stark contrast to my life in Canterbury. But that's because it isn't Canterbury, I'm not at Kent and I'm not even in England.
Back in Kent I was restricted to studying English and American literature, whereas here I have the opportunity to study creative writing, gender studies and religion. My creative writing class, for example, is taught in a tiny little American house complete with porch and swinging bench. There are ten of us and its taught by an amazing teacher and I am really excited to take it this semester.
Some things here are "better" than Kent, whilst other things are "worse", but really it all comes under the banner of "different". In these first unknown weeks, it is easy to look back on my life at Kent with rose-tinted glasses and think how easy and fun and amazing it was, but I spent just as much time there in my room on my laptop, I spent just as much time wondering why I was there.
I need to water the grass here, pour myself into Lehigh, get stuck into clubs and classes, go out of my way to travel at the weekends to amazing cities. There is so much I can get out of this year if only I apply myself.
Lehigh is beautiful, Bethlehem already feels like home; I need to invest in my life out here. Kent will be waiting for me when I get back.
Investing in this year
