Christmas is for some the best family time of the year and for most a well-deserved break, but for some exchange students, the holiday signals the end of a journey and a return to a home country.
“I wished I would have stayed the whole year,” Anaïs Furtade, a French foreign language student said.
Like many of the exchange students who stay only a semester, she is sad to leave OU.
Furtade said she’s going to miss living on campus, meeting people from so many different countries and everything that made her time in Norman a uniquely American experience.
“I’m gonna miss the tailgates and game days atmosphere, the free food, Campus corner and especially I’m gonna miss the conviviality of living all together; Kraettli was like my neighborhood,” Furtade said. “I’m also going to miss [Exchange Student Adviser] Tina (Henderson), she has always been there for us.”
Furtade said she had a routine here that will not be easily recreated in France.
“I took a coffee and a cookie almost everyday, I don’t have a Starbucks in my city in France,” Furtade said.
Furtade admits her lifestyle here was a bit crazy, one more thing she will not be able to recreate.
“We ate all day, went to bed really late, party during the week … It was Blackbird [Gastropub] on Tuesday, Brother’s on Thursday, Logan’s on Friday …no way I do that in France.”
Moroccan computer science graduate student Ismail El Hatimi Boukhoubza said he will also miss his Norman routine.
“We have so much services here: pool, swimming pool, gym... I would also have lunch at the Union, be able to get up late for classes … it’s easy to have your routine,” El Hatimi Boukhoubza said.
El Hatimi Boukhoubza said he regrets the fact he hasn’t been able to make most of his opportunities to travel because of the workload.
“The first two weeks were really great, but then, when the classes began, we realized it would never be the same,” El Hatimi Boukhoubza. “We also thought we would have time to travel, but in the end, not that much.”
Like a lot of other exchange students, El Hatimi Boukhoubza said blending with American people was harder than he thought.
“I didn’t meet much ‘real’ Americans, more the ones who only stick with the exchange students,” El Hatimi Boukhoubza said. “I feel like the relationships were too shallow, it was hard to get friends.”
Others had a bit more time to enjoy being a OU student.
YeongEun Jeong , a Korean business student, has been at OU since January.
“Before I came here, I had never been in a Western county,” Jeong said. “When I thought of Western, I knew I had to come to the United States.”
Jeong said she will miss the campus because her home university is separated into two campuses, and she goes to the small one.
“I went only once to a football game, now that I think about it I should have gone more,” Jeong said.
Jeong will also miss living with her roommates and shopping for much cheaper than in Korea, she said.
“Some things as simple as the pace of life, I didn’t like it when I came here, but now I know I will miss it because my college is in the capital of Korea, surrounded by tall buildings and busy people,” Jeong said. “I know I won’t come back here, it makes me even sadder.”
But Jeong said she is still happy to go back to Korea, to finally have Korean food and be able to go anywhere by public transportation again.
Ana Maria Meléndez, a Colombian psychology student, is also happy to go back.
“Christmas is my favorite time of the year in Colombia, it’s not as cold as here and we party with the family and friends,” Meléndez said. “Besides, How people behave here is different from home, I miss the warm greetings of the Colombians.”
But like most, Mélendez will miss being in the United States.
“We have too much cars in Bogotá, and terrible traffic, I’m gonna miss not being able to go somewhere quickly,” Meléndez said. “And also walking to go to class. In Bogotá I have to take the bus and it takes me an hour to get there.”
But Mélendez will miss a person more than anything else when she returns to Colombia.
“I didn’t really expect to meet anyone, but it happened and now it’s really serious,” Méledenz said.
Despite meeting her boyfriend, an OU student, only three months ago, Mélendez has decided not to give up.
“At first I didn’t want to get involved because I already had a long-distance relationship and it didn’t work that well, so I was holding myself back,” Mélendez said. “But if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.”
Mélendez said he’s going to come visit her in Colombia in April and she’s going to come back here this summer.
“I was very super sad this morning when he left, but I’m fine now,” Mélendez said.
Like most, Lydia Musial, a French foreign language student, said she feels there’s opportunities she didn’t take advantage of while in Norman.
“I don’t feel satiated, one year may be a bit long but one semester is definitely too short,” Musial said. “Here is a different world, I am in my bubble.”
Musial said she always wanted to experience the student life in the U.S.
“In all other countries, whether you are a tourist or a student doesn’t change much,” Musial said. “But in the U.S., I think the college life is like nowhere else.”
Musial said she knew she could not do everything she wanted so she made the most of it.
“I got tattooed, traveled a lot ... I realize how lucky I am.”
It’s a hard time for the exchange students to leave everything they came for behind.
“You hardly have the time to adapt to the culture, that you have to go back home already,” Mélendez said.
But exchange students know their memory of OU will never flicker.
“You meet so many people you learn a lot about the others and about yourself,” Musial said. “When you have plenty of time with yourself, away from home, you you take a step back and have a more global picture of your life. I know that this, is worth the trip.”
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TheJR 5 months, 1 week ago
I like articles like these.