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A Fresh start
By Anisha Chadda, McGill University (Montreal, Canada) I have been a student at McGill University for a week and a half, but it already feels like I belong here. While many of my peers yearn for home and all the things they left behind, I assume a different approach. When I left suburban New Jersey for the bright lights of city life in Montreal, I did not just leave my town, or even my state. I left the country. But though I am not physically at home in New Jersey, I do not feel as if I have left. Technology--cell phones, social networking sites, instant messenger and video chatting--give me access to all the familiar faces and voices that are not here at McGill with me. This proximity to familiarity, though I am 450 miles away from home, makes college feel not at all daunting, but rather more like an opportunity. McGill is a fresh start, a new life, a chance to see myself without my usual influences, without the people and places I know. Though many people do not see it at first, college allows you to flourish in ways you would not have elsewhere--as an individual, a student, a family member and a friend. Such an understanding of my place in the world, back home in New Jersey, and the place I would soon carve for myself in Montreal, allowed me to walk away from my family toward my future with my head held high, no tears, because it is not goodbye. It is a vacation from the ordinary, the monotony, the comfort of what you know, and a journey into the unknown, toward a better version of yourself. For this reason, it seemed fitting that it was raining on the day I moved in, as rain symbolizes rebirth, a fresh start and a better future. Yet rain also waters the roots of my existence, and everything it nourishes grows upon what I already have, so my college experience may be different than my home, but they are still connected. This is my chance to flourish in a new community, a place that offers opportunity I will not find elsewhere, and will allow me to become a unique bridge between my two homes--McGill and New Jersey. I look forward to the experience with the assurance that I will never lose what I already have, and that New Jersey will be waiting for me, once McGill has given me all it has to offer. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
