This post is an extension of an
earlier post, in which I talked about where "home" is for me, and how it's changing. I think I wrote it a little after spring break, when I went "home" to Needham and was realizing the ways in which my Needham home and my Haverford home are or aren't really "home."
So now it's HCA Summer, meaning everyone has moved out of their yearlong housing and will soon be moving into the Haverford College Apartments. This will be awesome: I'll be with my friends, we'll have a kitchen so we can cook for ourselves, and HCA just has a chill, social atmosphere. I can easily make our apartment, and HCA, home for the summer.
But right now it's what I refer to as "Gummere week," when we all live in Gummere singles for the first week while they clean out HCA. Now that I've discovered that people hang out in the common room of 1/1, it's a little less lonely, but I'm coming to think of Gummere week as a lonely time. I have Josh and Janela living on my hall, which is awesome, but it's just weird to be on a hall with a bunch of people I don't know, in singles, living away from my friends. Gummere by nature is a bit isolating, since all of the rooms are singles, but I'm used to living here on Freshman halls where everyone at least knows each other if they're not all friends. But this week, I feel like Gummere is way more isolating that usual. I want to come home after work and sit in a living room and cook dinner with my friends, you know? It's not as fun to come back to a deserted hallway where everyone is in their rooms, and I have to start madly texting everyone to see where they are and what they're doing for dinner.
So how does this pertain to home? I guess just that I really appreciate having one. I like having a home base, that's somewhat more permanent than a week, and that's actually homey. Right now I feel like I'm in between homes, and I don't like it. And that's just on-campus homes. I haven't been MA-home since March, and while everyone else has emptied out and gone home to their families and, for the most part, to the places where they grew up, I'll be here until July. And when I do go home to Needham, it will only be for three weeks, to get my wisdom teeth out (ouch!), and attempt to pack my life into two suitcases and a backpack, and then fly off to somewhere else that, yet again, will have to become home.
I think that Argentina can become home, though. It will take some adjustment, some - as everyone keeps stressing - "Culture Shock." But I think I can do it. As long as I have a room that's my own, and hoepfully a nice family, I'll be fine. I'll be there for five months, so I'll develop a sense of "home" as well as a routine. It'll be cool for Mendoza to become home, at least temporarily. I've never formed a daily routine in another country, at least not for more than a week, so this will be a really cool experience for me.
Anyway, time to eat breakfast (alone in my room :'( ) and then go to work...later today I'll post my Summer List!
