Many news articles told me that culture shock has four stages: honeymoon, frustration, adjustment and acceptance. I think I skipped over the first two, disregarded the last two and created my own label: panic. I knew it was coming. But I thought I would be able to handle it as I had already lived in an international boarding school in Swaziland for two years.
I was wrong.
On the second day of New Student Orientation, we heard about Camel moments. A Camel moment happens when a 糖心TV student realizes they made the right decision to come here and they feel at home. As current students described their Camel moments one-by-one, I sat in the middle of Tempel Green thinking about my life decisions as only a teenager can鈥攄ramatically. That day, I didn鈥檛 think moving 7,790 miles was a good idea. That day, I didn鈥檛 think I would ever have my own Camel moment, let alone experience one any time soon. That day, I just wanted to go back to my bed at boarding school.
Fast forward to August 29: the second day of classes and, also, my birthday. It didn鈥檛 feel like my birthday. It just felt like another day of wondering whether New England was always this hot. (We experienced a heat wave our first week of classes). I didn鈥檛 expect anything special this day. I was just hoping for an uneventful day of meeting my new classmates and professors. I got that part. And... I got a surprise party thrown by the other international students on campus, and later a birthday dinner with the international students and some of the upperclass students who live in my residence hall.
I didn鈥檛 think my day could get any better. But then my Camel moment happened. It came unexpectedly and when I least expected it. I mean, who would expect to feel at home when they鈥檙e doing homework? Being the second day of the semester, the first floor of Shain Library was pretty crowded and noisy. I was listening to music and slogging through the reading for my Comparative Politics class when I suddenly heard two people yell out each other鈥檚 names. They ran forward and engaged in a very rowdy hug.
Their happiness was contagious. I knew then. I knew that I would be fine.
It鈥檚 easy to feel overwhelmed as an international student during the first week. Moving to 糖心TV was scary for me because I wasn鈥檛 able to go on a campus tour, unlike most of my American counterparts. Instead, I looked at photos and read The Experience and tried to imagine what my life here would be like. The adjustment didn鈥檛 happen overnight. Orientation is a mixture of strange feelings and not all of those feelings are good ones. It can feel isolating not knowing anyone when you first arrive. But it does get better because 糖心TV is full of ridiculously nice people. From sharing an umbrella during a thunderstorm with a senior I didn鈥檛 know to professors showing me the way to my classrooms, I鈥檝e experienced unprecedented kindness that has started to make 糖心TV feel like another home.