Week Five of Scottish Survivin’

Back from my travels and back to reality. I titled this post “Week Five of Scottish Survivin’” instead of the usual “Scottish Livin'” because last week, I hit a point where I was incredibly homesick. I’m not usually one to miss home or feel attachment to a particular location so I guess last week was the first time I felt like I was barely making it through. As dramatic as this sounds, I missed California (my people, the food, sunny weather) so much. The storm here probably didn’t help much either.
While I think it’s okay for me to process these types of feelings because in return, my appreciation for both LA and San Diego increases greatly, I knew I had to alter my perspective that was clouded with misery to one of gratitude.
I had to remind myself that I worked so hard to get here – every application, every recommendation, every scholarship essay submitted has contributed to this experience. Having the opportunity to live abroad and travel for five months doesn’t happen to everyone so I quickly tried to pull myself out of this deep longing to go home.
For those of you who are living abroad, these feelings may be inevitable. In the case that they hit you too, these are some methods I took to process my thoughts and rearrange my perspective.

• Find a community. Join an organization, find a group of people with similar interests to you, push yourself to attend events even if you don’t know anyone. It’s always easier said than done and may take multiple attempts but making friends is definitely one of the easiest ways to adjust to a new location. Thankfully I already had built-in communities through my internship program and through my flatmates but I still had to go out of my way to meet other students at church. I also plan on joining a student organization to further build relationships as well.
• Explore the area. Staying home is probably the worst thing you can probably do for yourself. While I think it’s important to sit with your thoughts and emotions, too much of it can be counterproductive. Going outside, even for a short walk, always deepens my awe and appreciation for Edinburgh. There are always new things to see and experience and a select amount of activities may be free too!
• Challenge yourself to meet new goals. Even in the midst of anguish, accomplishing something new may lift your mood. Through my internship this week, I wrote my first newspaper column on disability rights and how accessibility needs to increase through a reformed system. At home, I tried making kimchi cucumbers for the first time and while I’m still waiting for them to ferment, I’m still pretty proud of the result 🙂
• Facetime your family and friends. This one is a bit contradictory because calling people back home may increase your homesickness BUT if done in healthy amounts, it may make you feel better as well! While I haven’t gotten to talk to every single one of my friends, catching up with the ones I’ve been able to along with my family has been really nice for me.

Obviously these pointers may be more personal to me and may not work for everyone. But hopefully you can still get something out of this post! If not, that’s okay too because it definitely helped me process. Cheers!!