I have now passed the one year mark of my return New Zealand, and rapidly the two year mark is approaching. I always thought that I would never be able to fully integrate back into New Zealand again, however eventually it happens without the realisation. I am currently my second year into a psychology degree and absolutely love it, I work extremely hard academically, but also have great friends who I can go out with on the weekends.
I'm so excited to be returning to Brazil for two weeks only in November, time I have off between university and work. I spent the last hour or so reading my blog posts, and so many emotions were brought back. Brazil holds so many awesome memories for me, and I am so lucky to have been able to experience them, I will always shed a tear or two when I think about just how amazing a year I had. However I am scared about returning, that a lot won't be the same, and although I don't have the expectation that it should, it will be a shock that people live different lives to that i experienced. I know my once closenit school mates have seperated and hardly ever get together, this was a huge part of how much i enjoyed my exchange. I have to be prepared to not re-live my experience, but create new ones. Don't get me wrong though, i am super super excited.
I always said after my exchange that I would never do another exchange like that, rather instead travel place to place for a short time only. Not because i didn't love my exchange, but because I loved it so much that coming home was so difficult. However I have somehow healed from this, who knows how, I remember being so distraught, and have applied for a university to exchange Montreal. I am still undecided if I want to go for 6 months or a year, i know my last 6 months in brazil were the best of my year, however they were also the months I got more emotionally attached, so I have somethings to consider.
I don't necessarily feel 'home' still anywhere, and rather than trying to make a home, move from place to place, constantly travelling back and forth between places. Maybe one day i'll stop doing it but at the moment it works for me.
All in all, life post exchange has its ups and downs as does life with or without an exchange. I would never take it back and reccommend it to absolutely anyone :) i am who I am today because of it.
I love reading my blog everynow and then and getting to relive the moments just for a short while.
