Lee vs. Adaptation and Homesickness

Last week's class really eased my mind with how I'll deal with homesickness and culture shock while I'm abroad (for an entire year!!!). Maryville is 17 hours away by car from where I call home, so I sometimes deal with homesickness while I'm still in the United States. And I've been known to call my mom two or three times a day if I'm feeling particularly homesick. However, that won't exactly be possible when I'm on the other side of the world.

I'll have to find other ways to combat homesickness then.

I really liked Rose's idea of writing a letter to yourself to open whenever you're feeling down and wondering why you thought going abroad would be a good idea and wanting to go home. Like, that's a really fantastic idea. I'm doing it. I'll probably write multiple so I'll be able to remind myself my purpose more than once.

Reading a letter will only take up a few minutes of my time, though. After that, what do I do? I've come up with a small list of possibilities:

• Take a nice, long walk. Stockholm is beautiful!
• Talk it out with someone. I'll undoubtedly have friends who are also exchange students, so I'm sure they'll understand where I'm coming from.
• Cross off a few things on my "study abroad bucket list" or at least make plans to!
• Head out to my favourite local cafe and scope out hotties (okay maybe not scope out hotties but definitely visit my favourite local spot)
• Write postcards to friends back home. I love postcards; I have a wall full of them from all over the world. I love sending and receiving them, and I'm sure I'll love sharing Sweden's beauty with my friends back home!

I've been reading a lot of blogs about what it's like to travel/live/study abroad. Every blog I've encountered has mentioned homesickness at at least one point in time, so knowing that everyone gets homesick will comfort me quite a bit.

Recently, I was reading a blog on homesickness, and I thought it was a good read! For anyone else that wants to read it, the link is right here!

I'm sure I'll think of a few more things to do as time goes by, but that's just a small starter list!