The First Three Months
Story and photos by Lichen Forster
Representing UH Hilo's geology club at Mount Ngauruhoe (Mt Doom)
If you spend any time on the self-care/mindfulness side of the Internet, you might’ve heard the expression: “if you don’t schedule a break, your body will take one for you-and it probably won’t be at a convenient time.” Originally tweeted (or do you say ‘x-ed’ now?) by Sara Schonfeld (@SaraSchon), it’s made the rounds on social media, used as a reminder to take breaks when you need them. Beyond the good-enough reason of ‘you deserve a break,’ it’s supposed to remind you that even if you don’t choose to stop, you will have to at some point, so you might as well do it when it makes the most sense for you.
This has rung most true to me in the past couple of weeks, as I’ve been battling cold symptoms from the discomfort of my dorm bed. This may seem a little much, but I think I should begin my story back at the end of June. I was packing up to leave my parents’ house in Mountain View and my entire life on the Big Island, to spend four months in New Zealand’s capital, Wellington.
I had applied to complete an exchange semester at Victoria University of Wellington the previous October, and while I had been excited about this adventure all of sophomore year (and a lot of freshman year, too), in the days leading up to my flight I started to get worried. Why the hell had I signed up to do this? I couldn’t just move almost 5,000 miles away from home and live in a foreign country for months, without any friends or family close by.
I knew that just two weeks earlier I had been feeling so stuck, a feeling I’ve had since graduating high school (buildings you might recognize as UH Hilo’s neighbors—Waiākea High.) I spent my senior year at Waiākea doing classes online from my bedroom. Then I started college, a whole crosswalk away. Except for my first semester at UH Hilo, my classes were online too, so I was still in my bedroom. But even though I knew I was so sick of being stuck in the same place, so excited to see what more I could do, I suddenly lost the confidence that I could do it.
View from the Escarpment Track, a day hike my friends took located just a dollar train ride away from Wellington
My mom flew over with me, and we did a little road trip on the South Island for a week before she set me up at my dorm (adorably called ‘halls’ here.) I started to get some of my courage back once I was able to look out at the scenery, see the birds, taste the food, hear the accents. I remembered why I had committed to trying something new, and remembered how excited and inspired it made me.
It’s always a gamble traveling with other people, and my mom and I hadn’t traveled together outside of seeing family since I was a pretty little kid, so I wasn’t sure how it would go down. But it all worked really well—we had a lot of the same goals with sightseeing, eating, and pacing our days. It was hard to say goodbye to her in Wellington, but an hour after waving her off at the bus stop I was on my way to international orientation week.
That first day, I met four of the people who remain some of my closest friends, and by the end of the week, the rest of our core group was made. It was really difficult for me to be so social the first few weeks—it felt like I had to put in a lot of facetime with people during these crucial early stages of bonding in order to make friends that would stick. It wasn’t that I wasn’t enjoying their company enough to want to hang out with them—they’re great people, and it was so fascinating to hear the life stories of new friends who’ve come from all over. But I’m not extroverted enough to enjoy being with new people for hours every day, especially when you have a lot of the same conversations over and over—name, hometown, major, why did you come to NZ?
Even when you get past that stage, it’s a little tiring to be constantly surrounded with people that you know virtually nothing about. It may not sound like it, but I actually love making new friends—it’s hard, though, when everyone in your life is a new friend. I prefer having a lot of friends I know and am secure with, and adding new friends to the mix one or two at a time. It was during these early stages with my friends here I worried about things lots of anxiety-ridden people worry about—do these people even like me? Am I just foisting myself on them and they’re too polite to tell me to go away? I am happy to report, three months into our friendship, that they adore me. But that first couple of weeks was a little stressful as I tried to figure it out.
My friends at a redwood forest in Rotorua, New Zealand
Aside from those initial growing pains, I had virtually no complaints about my life for a solid month. Living on my own was a piece of cake! I didn’t know why I had ever doubted myself. Of course I was capable of doing all of the things I do at home—laundry, cleaning, eating, blah blah. Wellington is a beautiful (walkable!) city. My hall is the farthest from campus/town—an hour uphill walk, which is frustrating sometimes, but I don’t think I would’ve chosen differently. For one thing, the public transportation here is incredible (at least compared to Hilo), and between 6am and midnight daily there are buses that go by our street every 10 minutes. Also, unlike the halls in the city which are mostly somewhat depressing skyscrapers, our hall is made up of charming little houses. In between them grow flowers and herbs, and I’ve had my first run-ins with a lot of my favorite native NZ birds right outside my door. I along with my group of friends here - mostly other international exchange students - amuse ourselves on weekends with a healthy mix of hiking local areas by day and going out at night. I was worried that I was going to have too much fun playing tourist to really get invested in my classes (and I’m taking one that’s especially important for my geology degree), but in my first class of the term we spent four hours identifying rocks and minerals. It reminded me of everything I love about my degree and I realized investing myself in my learning wouldn’t be too hard.
The Botanic Garden, one of my favorite places in Wellington
The art centre in Christchurch, one of the destinations my mom and I had before Wellington
Around the month-anniversary of my moving here, some minor setbacks crept up. For one thing, I cut my heart out of my chest and laid it on the floor for all to see (I told a friend I liked them) and it was stomped on, crushed, and defiled (they said they didn’t feel the same, but earnestly said they wanted to maintain our friendship and actually followed through with that.) The other was that assignments actually started to come in for my classes. I’m not sure if it’s just my degree, or the classes I’m specifically taking, but for some reason I probably have less than 10 things to do for all of my courses this entire term. That includes assignments, essays, graded labs, exams, and finals. This makes most of the semester really easy, but tricky when it comes time to actually sit an exam.
After those tiny hiccups (I cried a lot,) life again was without problem until about two weeks ago. School continued, life continued, and then we had a two week break from classes. Lots of my friends went away for the break, and me and four others rented a car and did a little North Island road trip. This was amazing, and again, nothing to complain about. Even though there were four of us jammed into a tiny Toyota hatchback for six days, we never really got angry at each other. We cooked for each other, shared music, navigated—it was all wonderful.
The view from my dorm room
This was starting to bother me, because I was having a serious writer’s block and the time left to write my first article for Ke Kalahea was fast approaching. I was always planning on doing a story kind of like this one to start off with, where I recount all of my adventures, but plan to get into specific stories in future issues. But I was feeling uncomplicated joy about everything happening to me. “I feel really happy with my life, everyone should go on exchange!” doesn’t create very interesting copy.
The weekend after classes started again, I had two great nights—Friday night was Taylor Swift themed at one club, Saturday night was Blondie/new wave music at another. I felt a hint of a sore throat Saturday afternoon, but thought nothing of it and pushed through it for Blondie. Sunday, however, I woke up with a bad cold. I spent most of the week in bed, except for going to a review session for an exam, and then the exam itself. That Friday night, I went to one of the first real concerts I can ever say I’ve been to (Rex Orange County, my fifteen-year-old self would be really proud) and that was fine. I was not 100% but went home right after, and got a good night’s sleep. The next day, I forced myself to get up early (9am) and shopped around town for a friend who would be turning 22 the next day. I went out that night with everyone to celebrate, and even though I was still only at 90% I stayed out…late (we had to dance to 22, obviously!) Sunday morning, I was so grateful that I wasn’t feeling horrible again, but that night I didn’t get a lot of sleep, so Monday night my cold was back, in fuller force than before.
Earlier in the term, I’d had a few days of cold symptoms—cough, sore throat—but feeling fully awful wasn’t something I’d really prepared for. It was horrible feeling so low and having to drag myself out of bed, get the bus into the city to go to the cheapest pharmacy and walk to the grocery store to get myself fluids and soup and tea. It was the first time I felt actually alone here, with no mom and dad to do these supply runs for me, to sit with me as I felt awful and remind me that things would be okay. I feel like I’m starting to sound a little dramatic, but it’s day 16 of this on again off again illness. Yesterday I finally got myself to urgent care, and now I have some antibiotics. Somehow, I think I woke up today with pink eye?
It’s hard to know how to wrap this up because I clearly haven’t finished this saga yet. From my sick bay, however, I have had a lot of time to think about my life here and what I hope it will be once I get better. I think I can officially call an end to the rose-colored glasses era that persisted for a surprisingly long time. Now it’s time to buckle down for finals, and start really chipping away at the bucket list of hikes and activities I want to do before I leave. I will also probably be taking things much slower, because my body has proved that it will put me in my place if I don’t listen to its cues earlier.