My New Zealand Experience Was...

One of my main goals I wanted to accomplish while in New Zealand was to engage in the art community and focus on learning about this country’s art history both inside and outside of the classroom. My other main goal was to live more in the moment and work on building meaningful relationships with the people around me. I’m happy with how my experiences here have contributed to learning in both of these areas, but the lessons and new knowledge I now have weren’t necessarily acquired in the ways I expected.
I expected my learning in the classroom about art history and my engagement in the art/cultural scene in New Zealand to be two different experiences but they overlapped quite a bit. For example, I would learn about artists and movements in New Zealand history, then in my travels to a new city or region, I would be able to actively see this art, see the land depicted, and truly be engulfed in a way which was much more wholesome and surprising than I would have imagined. This goal overlapped with two of my career objectives to learn technical skills for a future job and to improve my communication skills because this engagement led me to talk with the people in these environments-- gallery directors, other museum patrons, artists, volunteers, and art students like myself. I could use the knowledge from the classroom to have a sophisticated, insightful conversation with those I met, and many of these conversations were extremely valuable to me looking back.
My goal to live in the moment manifested in a number of different ways which were extremely rewarding. Journaling my experiences (which I’ve never done before) has helped me to process many of my thoughts and feelings. I’ve done things and experienced things out of spontaneity which have resulted in unlikely friendships and some of the memories which I cherish most from my time here. Spending time and energy on my relationships with my housemates has been the most rewarding. I had no idea who my roommates would be before coming to New Zealand, and they’ve turned out to be two of my favorite people in the world! I’ve become closer with them than I would have thought possible in such a small amount of time, and they have become such an important part of my study abroad experience that I don’t know what it would have looked like without them.
Feeling connected to my community and life here in New Zealand has required me to make some adjustments to how I’ve communicated with my community back home. About halfway through the trimester, I began feeling torn between two lives while I tried actively maintaining relationships with people back in the US through social media and messaging apps. It was taking up so much of my mental energy and despite spending time trying to connect, I felt those interactions weren’t meaningful and most of the time they felt odd. I made a decision to delete several of my social media apps and I think doing this was the best action I could have taken for the situation. I spend less time on my phone thinking about home and more time thinking about my life in Wellington. Being less connected has allowed for these few interactions with people back home to be meaningful. I’ve been able to fully apply myself here in Wellington and that has proven to be so worth it! Although things might change when I go home, and there may be relationships I have to work to build back up, having a distraction-free experience in New Zealand has allowed me to go home with zero regrets about the say I spent my time.
Like I said, my time in New Zealand had some ups and downs as far as my comfort level with my new, temporary life. I sometimes questioned what I “should” be doing, if I should be doing more to find opportunities to try new things or if I was missing out on making a connection with someone new. I struggled with this feeling of responsibility, a responsibility to live like a study abroad student who never turns down a chance to get a new taste of life. In the end, I came to the conclusion that being a student living abroad doesn’t mean I have to prove that my experience was “worth it” every step of the way. The things that count are those that no one ever sees. A new bond created with an exciting and different place is fostered solely by the person and the place, and any other objective opinion from another about how that relationship should play out is irrelevant. The take aways may be big and life changing or they may be small, lighthearted keepsakes to remember and smile about years later, but your unique experience is yours only. It will be different from others, even those who spend time with you on your journey.