Change doesn’t happen all at once
Print Edition
One of the first things an international student learns is leave-taking.
With classmates and counselors arriving halfway through the semester or departing at the end of each school year, we start to get the hang of goodbyes from countless APAC trips or forensics conferences, through changing schools and airport farewells. We’ve mastered the art of staying in touch with Skype and e-mail, figured out how to contrive vacations so that we’ll conveniently cross paths on the same continent.
Even so, I still find it hard to believe that I’ll be leaving SAS soon.
“Are you ready for college?” ask friends, teachers, and anyone who knows I’m a senior.
“Nope.” The reply is instinctive. Or: “Wait, what do you mean I’m graduating already?”
In fact, most of me is still in shock from graduating fourth grade and becoming one of the biggest kids in elementary school. Likewise, I was unprepared to face sixth grade. The move to middle school. Turning 10 (double digits). Freshman year. Moving across an ocean. Tell sophomore-me, fresh off that one-way flight from California, who she would become in three years, and she wouldn’t believe you.
Though in some ways, life has been partitioned neatly into chapters where one segment ends and another begins, I’ve found that change often comes much more subtly. Change sneaks up and tucks itself into a corner of the mind, where it works its slow magic undetected until I catch a glimpse of an old photo, or crack open poetry from years past (and cringe at the writing); only then does change pop up its ugly mug and laugh, haha, betcha never saw this coming.
How was I to point at that lecture in European history or that task in calculus, and say that’s exactly where I learned culture and diligence? With every dance performance and every track meet, I’ve come closer to understanding beauty and excellence; with every Socratic seminar and every crosswalk conversation, I’ve come closer to fellow students and teachers. My time spent internationally has changed me in a myriad of little ways — how I dress, how I think, how I act, how I learn, how I laugh, how I speak, how I dream. Was I prepared for this change? No. Will I be ready for college? No.
You’ll never be ready for anything.
Let’s do it anyway.
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