I’ve been back in the United States for a few days now, and people always ask me the same question – “What does it feel like?” To be honest, it feels pretty great. I missed my family, my friends and some of the everyday facts of life that I had taken for granted before leaving my house, like always having hot water and being able to flush toilet paper!
Interestingly, since coming back, I’ve been having a lot of the same feelings I had after we got back from our Spring Break Freedom Tour through the South. I’ve been questioning how I bring back what I experienced to enrich and inform my life. After that trip, it was pretty hard for me to find an answer. But after Ecuador, things are a lot easier. I have a much clearer picture of where I want to go, who I want to be, and how I want to carry myself after this trip. I think that that is because a lot of this trip was about confirmation or clarifying ideas I already had about life, whereas other trips have been more shocking and have taken me awhile to adjust to their discoveries.
Principally, this trip taught me that my happy place is in the classroom. I love teaching, and I want to do it for the rest of my life, whether that is in a high school, ESL, EFL or college setting. This was one of those confirmation things that I mentioned – I always had an idea that I would like teaching, but after this experience, I have had that hunch confirmed. This has an incredibly huge impact on me coming back to Penn State this fall because I know what sorts of jobs I will be applying for and I can go through senior year with a clearer vision of not only the next few years, but even the rest of my life.
The second thing I have brought back from Ecuador with me is a greater sense of maturity. In truth, I feel like I grew up a lot over this trip. This is not to say that I was immature or childish beforehand, but rather that the process of overcoming homesickness, functioning in another culture, learning more about another language and making new friends has broadened my view of the world, put everyday struggles of my life as a college student, and my plans in the U.S. into perspective. It is difficult to put into words what this feels like. However, I think the key with coming back to the U.S. in this sense is making sure that I don’t come off to others as though I think I know more about life than them now that I’ve done this trip because that is definitely not true. In fact, I think that it has only helped me catch up to the maturity levels of many of my friends and family members, and for that I am so, so grateful.
Overall, I am excited to return to Penn State with the knowledge, experience and emotions that I have grown and honed during my time in Ecuador. South America is an amazing place, but you know what? The United States is too. So I am excited to continue my life here incorporating aspects of what I learned down south into my everyday life.
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