On the Edge of New Zealand

The suitcase has been brought out. The shoes have been washed of U.S. soil. And the date of my departure for Christchurch, New Zealand, draws ever closer. 

A friend of mine has recently returned from Spain, and successfully usurped my old room. Last semester, I lived in an apartment with three of our mutual friends, where things were always dying. For instance: cut flowers, which we endlessly cycled through the vase in the middle of our kitchen table. (One particular roommate almost singlehandedly carried the burden of supplying us with new flowers, by the way, when the old ones died. That’s how it goes, when she has a boyfriend, and she sings in a lot of recitals.) My houseplant, delicate and temperamental from the start, after it went un-watered during Thanksgiving break. Silverfish and fruit flies and cockroaches. There was one particularly large cockroach that liked slumming it in our kitchen and that caused one of my roommates, upon its discovery, to shriek in such a way that I thought she had possibly been murdered. That roommate sprayed it with so much Raid that, after it finally succumbed, curled in on itself and died, we had to open the door to let things air out. All these bugs and plants died in the way most other things do: in a way that was quiet, lonely, and unseen, slipping into the landscape.

That apartment is no longer mine. While students in New Zealand are out for summer, I have been at home enjoying an especially long winter break. Recently, I hiked up Pinnacle Mountain, just outside Little Rock, wearing hiking boots my mother bought for me to wear in Aotearoa New Zealand. It was my first time in a good, long while getting more than just a dying sliver of daylight, a half hour of apricot sun, because lately I have been waking up well into the afternoon. The summit is only a mile up, but, as the Arkansas State Parks website tells us, three quarters of that mile require scaling “several boulder fields.” As I traversed these with my father, the daytime sun was in full swing but came in dappled through the trees, scattering shards of light across the rocks. When my father and I reached the top, we split a fortune cookie that prophesied, like the pat from a reassuring hand: “You are a symbol of strength and resilience.” 

As I ate, I reflected on the first time I ever climbed up Pinnacle Mountain. I had trembled from the beauty of the view, from the height, possibly from the two hours of boulder scaling I had just done. This time around, I trembled, knowing I was on the verge of something great, on the verge of the sublime. I remember the first time I felt I had experienced the sublime, and felt I finally understood what my literature teachers had meant: when I visited the Grand Canyon and realized how beautiful and merciless it was. By comparison I was small, impermanent, tragically fragile: a fleshy lump upon the ground, who would be gone forever with a single misstep. 

I tremble to think of all that awaits me in New Zealand. I’ve been conceptualizing this semester as one of imagination: a time to grow what’s in my head, and what I can put on the page. This past summer, I was explaining to an old family friend, my mother’s best friend from childhood, my worry that I’m a bum because I’ve only studied abroad and never interned, and she said, “But you’re a writer! Your line of work is different; it’s about getting experiences, it’s about being human.” It struck me, and part of what I think she meant is: someone who wants to write should fill their head, with new feelings and people and places, so that there’s more stuff to overflow out of it. This family friend gives me too much credit and holds in me too much faith, but I think studying abroad will be helpful in refreshing me, planting new ideas in my head, and helping me see everything through a different lens. While in Aotearoa, I hope to read, encounter new people and ways of life, and see lots and lots of beautiful nature. This all feels so essential: to my story, to my personal growth, to my own enjoyment of these precious college years. I’m really hoping to expand my worldview, which I think is indispensable to anyone who wants to be a good person, writer, or perhaps, even both. 

I have studied abroad once before—last summer in Paris—and I still sometimes think and dream about it. I am scared to admit to people how excited I am to go abroad again. If you brag to your friends about a man and afterwards he cheats on you, then you are left with nothing but a good-for-nothing boyfriend and the world’s greatest humiliation. That’s why I’m forever afraid to brag about anything. For instance, how bad would it be if I told everyone how thrilled I was to go to New Zealand, and then my experience there absolutely flopped? 

That being said, I don’t truly think it will flop. I think this is a common case of the nerves, which I had last time I went abroad, too. I don’t personally know anyone in my program, at least not yet, and I am a little nervous to directly enroll in the University of Canterbury. But stepping outside the familiar is what makes going abroad fun, and what makes you grow. And I am well aware that studying abroad is a privilege, a once-in-a-lifetime (or twice, in my case) experience I’ll forever get to gently hold and treasure. 

I leave the U.S.A. on February 4, and I arrive in Aotearoa on February 6. For anyone considering studying abroad, here is my collection of tips:

1. If you are on medication, be proactive in speaking with your insurance company to get a supply that will last you while you’re abroad. (As in my case, there may be limits to how much you can take with you, and there may be hoops to jump through that you had not anticipated.)
2. Don’t forget to get adapters for the outlets of your host country. Also, as I learned in Paris, you’d be well-advised to buy a power bank, so you can wander around in a foreign country without worrying about your phone dying.
3. If you have a food allergy, I’d recommend asking your doctor to prescribe you multiple EpiPens, since you don’t know how many times you’ll need them or how easy they’ll be to come by abroad.
4. Make extra, paper copies of everything—passport, visa, etc.! 

I look forward to being able to give updates on life in New Zealand! Until then, I will keep packing, and keep waking up at 2 p.m. I’ll be spared the jet lag, at least.