As soon as I got home to New York, I tried to get back.

That was true even when I was a student in New Zealand. During “debrief week,” the last week of the study abroad program, there was a session on returning. I thought the staff meant returning to New Zealand, as a staff member. Turns out they meant our imminent return to the states.

A few weeks later I returned to the coldest and snowiest Boston winter I’d ever experienced. I tortured myself by checking the social profiles of the New Zealand staff in all their summer time activities. Barbecue! Swimming at the beach! Whale-watching! I went from bright, long, pre-summer days… to winter.

I didn’t even care that it was my last semester. I had only a few months left of my four-year college experience with fri...

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