The Tripod

This summer I made a last-minute decision, one I have not (yet) regretted: I decided I would not go abroad this spring semester. The decision was more visceral than reasoned. I do not harbor any doubt towards those who find going abroad redeeming-I'm sure it is, in most cases-but it didn't feel right to me. So I chose to stay here at Trinity for the entirety of my Junior year.

Last semester I might as well have been abroad. Meaning: last semester at Trinity was unlike any of the semesters that I have experienced since my freshman year. The Vernon Houses opened and brought fresh life to a street typically devoted only to "weekend fun" or to my English classes, while houses helped me find something between the fun and the classwork. I met people I had never met; I moved into an apartment with two people I only vaguely knew and soon came to consider close friends; I saw a student art gallery arranged by my friends; I went to concerts; I volunteered at an outstanding, student-run mentoring organization at the M.D. Fox School, a Hartford, Conn. school that clearly appreciates the students who had the motivation to help us make a positive impact on young students' lives (contact Jake Prosnit '12 about this, if you're curious).

I may not have seen the Amalfi Coast; I may not have walked the streets of Vienna, Paris, or London; I may not have bathed in the Caribbean or scorched my skin under a South American sun. I did, however, learn a worthwhile lesson that the Office of International Programs(OIP) (unintentionally) conceals: Its perfectly possible to go abroad without going anywhere, to find foreign spaces in what we trick ourselves into thinking is a consistent or repetitive reality.

So to everyone who left last semester: Welcome back. If being abroad taught you anything, I'm assuming it relates somehow to the observation that our little private sphere here at Trinity College is ephemeral, that there's a real world going on out there that we observe in small flashes in books, on the television; that, ultimately, our small Trinity-world is definitely not the only one. And also, probably, that other countries are really fun. But add to that lesson one more, which all of us non-abroaders had to confront: You can still go abroad while remaining here, but the ticket prices are much cheaper and there is no exchange rate.

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