Hello Reader,

For those of you that don’t know, I was born and raised in the good ole’ southern California for 17 years of my life. For the past 3 years I have been living in a small town called Bellingham, Washington. I currently attend Western Washington University studying Kinesiology: Pre-Physical Therapy. I have 2 more quarters remaining and will be graduating in December 2019 and after that I come back to California for graduate school.

A lot of people ask “why did you come up here?” or “what made you leave California?”
Every time I am faced with that question it varies from “I have no idea…” to “I didn’t really feel like I belong there” to “I wanted to experience something new.”

Now that my college term is slowly approaching to an end, I wanted to share what it’s like being an out-of-state student:
It’s definitely different. You encounter people who have different ideals from those back at home. You have more depressing weather (only in Washington, cannot say for other states). You have to pay a little bit more than all the other students when it comes to tuition. You meet people that you could keep in your life and take back home like a souvenir, “hey guys look who I brought back, this is my good friend….” You have to see if the curriculum in Washington aligns with the curriculum in California (regarding graduate school). You experience new things that you wouldn’t at home (e.g. jumping in leaves, hiking through trees, going to Canada instead of Mexico). You learn to be completely independent [financially, physically, mentally, and emotionally] from your parents. You get home sick..You feel free..and often times you think to yourself “okay, what’s next.”

In all honesty, I can’t really see myself living in Washington or California. I’ve become so adapted to this life up here that I don’t want to live down in Cali OR Cali is always home and everything I love is there OR I just feel like I don’t really belong in either place.

The thought that’s been obscuring my head the past few days is that the people I’ve become so close to and have reached important milestones and overcome tough obstacles won’t be part of my daily life when it’s all over. They’ll fade into a memory or “my friend on facebook.” Yeah the friendship will always be there and I can communicate through all sorts of technology, but that’s so different than looking at them and feeling their presence and radiance and sharing the same air. For instance, I’ll come home and won’t see a smiley/goofy Anthie OR I’ll go to class and I won’t have Dmah to play “HORSE” (basketball) with when we need to destress or Q to be like “Hello Katelynnnn” OR I won’t have Daniel to be stupidly in love with.

Being an  out-of-state student has its ups and downs. Sometimes I think to myself that I wish I never came here…just because I don’t want to say goodbye to the good things and good people that I have witnessed in the past few years. Sometimes I feel like I need to go somewhere new AGAIN  just so I don’t have to pick between the two. Maybe Hawaii (better have that bed ready for me Kereesa)??

I guess it’s just a food for thought..back to studying Human Physiology

Love,

Kate