USA

This week has been the one about which I'd always heard travellers complain, though I never fully realized the anxiety of the position until finding myself here at last. Now it's not just the packing; I've travelled to enough varied places that I feel like I could recite the packing mantras: Only pack what you use/wear at home-- if you don't wear it now, chances are you wont abroad; pack once, unpack, cut out a third of your stuff and then repack... repeat if necessary; roll your clothes; back clothes in zip lock bags and suck out the air; leave room for things you might pick up on your travels; bag your toiletries. I could go on. I've packed for varied climates, for work trips, for fun trips, for weekend trips and upwards of a month-long trip, but never for as long as a year. Suddenly, fitting a years worth of stuff into one backpackers bag has got my knees quaking.
But more annoying than the packing has been the running around town to pick up all the things I think I'll need on the trip... all while knowing that my new purchases will probably be the first to get thrown out. Yesterday was the depressing task of changing a good sum of my savings into euros. There was a time when I derived much positivity from the fact that I would finally be able to spend 14 years worth of savings -- this trip is what I've been saving up for afterall -- but in the numb blink of a bank teller's eye all the pride of a little girl with a fatted piggy bank was crushed by a criminal exchange rate. Sigh. Then came the mandatory dentist appointment. Thank the Lord I'm clear of cavities; that would've had to wait a year or at least until I got my french insurance card and was able to benefit from a socialist medical system. After dishing out more money to fill up my car (why am I buying gas when I'm going to be out of the country for a year in under 2 weeks??), I finally embarked on the last errand of the day: buying my International Student Identification Card.
For any body between 14 and 26 years old going to western europe (and probably most westernized countries in the world) the ISIC really is a must. Discounted prices on trains, flights, some stores and museum entrance fees. More than worth the $25 charge and the 30 minute drive up to the closest ISIC office, right? Well, I'm sure it would be worth it if I could find the elusive office. I spend 20 minutes walking up and down Main St. looking for number 102, since that's where the ISIC website tells me it is. By chance I walk by a map of the college that is situated on the opposite side of Main St. and find that the building I'm looking for is listed about the college's academic buildings, no where near Main St. Ok, so it make plenty of sense that the ISIC building would be on the college campus so I start out looking for it. After another 10 minutes trekking I come to the indicated building but it appears to be a dormitory. I walk around to the adjoining building; it's a laundro-mat. Hmm, but by that time it was getting close to when I needed to run my next errand so I opted to try again the next day, only this time call ahead.
The thought occurred to me that all the wandering I did yesterday was probably just a taste of the wandering I'll do in europe as a student. Only in Europe I might not always be able to read the signs or stop a passerby and ask him/her for directions. But it's somehow unpleasanter having to wander around one's own country in preparation for a year's worth of wandering in europe. There's no sense of adventure in going to the closest CVS and choosing from two shelves full of toiletries that all claim to do the same thing for your hair. There's no adventure in braving the heat and humidity of a code red ozone day on familiarly busy roads to buy last minute supplies.
It would be easy to say that I'm nervous about my year abroad, that I'm anxious that something will go wrong and that I'm sad about leaving the people I love here on the homefront. Those are all true. But I think at the root of those worries is a great restlessness to be there. Travel doesn't start with the first plane ride across the pond, I'm sure it starts weeks ahead of the departure date. I'm sure it started months ago when applying for a visa. It's here now with the hectic errands and packing. I believe this stage in the trip is called purgatory.

Well what do you know? The day after I write my post about how important study abroad is and how unfortunate that only about 200,000 American students take the opportunity, I receive an email from NAFSA asking for me to write a letter to my senators encouraging them to approve the Simon Study Abroad Bill http://www.nafsa.org/knowledge_community_network.sec. Not surprisingly, I'm not the only one who's been hoping for policy and monetary support for students wishing to study abroad. The bill, which has been included in the Advancing America's Priorities Act (S.3297), would award more grants to US students studying abroad in nontraditional locations, would "increase the number and diversity of U.S. students engaged in academic activities outside the US," while building more internationalized communities on US college campuses with more globally aware students. The most exciting objective of this legislation is that within 10 years it hope to see 1 millions students studying abroad[/url=http://www.nafsa.org/press_releases.sec/press_releases.pg/hamkeansimonoped]. The underlying theme of every item in the Advancing America's Priorities Act is that all the bills regard expanding the United States global perspective as a chief priority for the 21st century. I couldn't agree more.
All week supporters of international education have been sending letters and making phone calls to their senators, urging them to support the bill which is probably being debated at this very moment. My letter was among the 1,600. I have many thoughts and reactions about this exciting news.
First, there was an amazing feeling of synchronicity; that phenomenon where opportunities present themselves in serendipitous ways, problems we've been agonizing over are solved, answers to questions we were just asking ourselves the other day are given. We need only make ourselves receptive to the answers and we experience the synchronicity. I was not aware of the Simon Study Abroad Bill when I wrote my first post calling for increased interest in study abroad, even though the Bill has been around for over a year. Secondly, the idealist in me wonders why anyone would ever think about not supporting such an initiative! International education is education after all, and it is without a doubt one of the most effective instructive tools out there.
In light of world events (9/11, global warming, immigration "anxiety" across the globe, wars that are more complex and entangle more countries than the World Wars), there is an undeniable need to create a more globally-minded United States. And yet, I reminded myself, there are probably people, senators who would indeed see such an initiative at the Simon Bill as a waste of tax dollars. We are a nation, after all, that has been infatuated with the whimsical notion of "borders" for centuries. Manifest Destiny was all about giving us two of he most formidable borders and they go by the name of the Atlantic and Pacific. Never has a word better described a country's foreign policy than isolationism described the United States for a time. The examples go on, not ending with the most latest and dramatic example of bordering that can be heard in the Minute Men's cry for a wall to be built on the border... no matter if walls can be climbed, holes can be made, dynamite can be applied. A wall is what we need to make our fantastical dream of a solid American border a reality.
So yes, I can see now why someone might not vote for a piece of legislation that would break down America's walls. But the fact is, the walls must be broken down and they will be. Never has isolationism made less since than it does in our world today... and tomorrow it will make even less sense. Teach our citizens how to speak another language and the potential for a dialogue between two warring people has been established. Give an American farm boy from Arkansas the opportunity to take off his muddy boots before entering his Chinese host family's home, and perhaps he will show an Afghani family similar courtesy when he enters their country as a soldier.
For someone who's studying in two of the most popular and westernized countries in the world, France and England, I sure have some dramatic ideas about the kind of waves one student's study abroad experience can have on the rest of the world. But my enthusiasm about study abroad has been influenced by students who've gone before me, or students my family has hosted from other countries. Even just the act of convincing another young person to have their own experience with international education is, in my opinion, worth every cent of tax dollars it will take to make the Simon Study Abroad Bill a reality. We'll see this evening if the US Senate thinks so too.