An International Experience

2010 was an interesting year for me, to say the least. That was the year that my family packed up and moved to the other side of the world. To India. For the next four years.

Now you have to understand, to my ten year-old self, this was the end of the world as I knew it. Born and brought up in Ohio my whole life, to suddenly move to a place I hardly visited before (and even then, I was too young to remember it), was devastating. At the time, I had every misconception there was in the book about India.  

To be fair, I was pretty young. And it seemed like nothing would go my way. I had trouble adjusting at first. Often times I'd come home from my new school, in tears. Everything was foreign, from how people dressed, to the color of the road. But a few months in, I had quickly adapted to the way things went. Not that I particularly liked it. 

I didn't exactly love the first school that I went to. It was a big international school, with children of all kinds of ethnic backgrounds. The actual learning itself took some getting used to. Teachers had some unconventional (well, to me) methods of going about things and the students seemed to know what they were doing. But I had troubles ranging from taking notes in class to knowing the latest sports teams. And let's not forget all the pre-teen drama. But, when in Rome...

The third and fourth year were definitely better for me. Having switched schools, I was now in a smaller environment. The student body consisted of about three hundred and fifty students. Most of my classmates were in the same position as I was. Slowly as time went by, I realized whether I lived here or there, the inner-workings of a thirteen year-old mind didn't change. Everyone was obsessing about One Direction or wondering when the next Harry Potter movie would release. The 'unconventional' things turned into the norm. I made some life-long friends and got to see family more often. 

I learned so much as the years zipped by. And now I'm back. Part of me likes that. But part of me misses my home in India. There, I evolved into the person I am today. It is a huge part of who I am. It's an experience I'm eternally grateful for and wouldn't trade for anything in the world.