{"id":4190,"date":"2024-07-16T20:21:25","date_gmt":"2024-07-16T20:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/?p=4190"},"modified":"2024-07-25T23:35:52","modified_gmt":"2024-07-25T23:35:52","slug":"how-i-overcame-my-homesickness-despite-my-roommates-late-arrival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/07\/how-i-overcame-my-homesickness-despite-my-roommates-late-arrival\/","title":{"rendered":"How I overcame my homesickness"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I arrived at Jones Hall, I was running on four hours of sleep after my 6 a.m. flight from San Francisco. I trudged my way up to my dorm, dragging my 55-pound suitcase behind me. My family, friends and home were <\/span>1,853<\/span> miles away for the next four weeks. <\/span><\/p>\n

My only solace: I thought my future roommate would be a guaranteed friend.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A few hours passed, and she still hadn\u2019t arrived. With a few late arrivals trickling in, I didn\u2019t think much of it. The thought of our future friendship reassured me. That night, I laid awake in bed and felt panic creep in. Where was she? Everyone else was befriending their roommate, and I was still alone. I didn\u2019t know how to confidently socialize without a foothold in one of the developing social circles. I missed the familiarity of my home, and I hated worrying that I might unexpectedly start bawling in public. Resigned to my roommate-less fate, I vowed to devote myself to my assignments. I bought Target pre-made salads (supplemented by an alarming number of Goldfish) to evade the harrowing dining hall and avoided the beach.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By the end of the week, I realized self-imposed isolation was not going to conjure up a roommate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The next morning, I sat with a random group of cherubs and talked with a few fellow Californians. It was surprisingly fun. I challenged myself to eat with new people at every meal. Each introduction started the same, but every conversation ended differently. I thought that maybe I could socialize without the reassurance of a roommate. Journalism had taught me to be curious and slightly invasive, so why couldn\u2019t I take a risk and make some friends?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Four days into the program, one of the community and academic associates tapped me on the shoulder during a morning lecture. My roommate stood in the back of the room, dragging her own 55-pound suitcase. We spent the program enjoying the peaceful companionship, tolerating each other\u2019s late-night phone calls and developing a quiet friendship.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Every day, I walked the sidewalks around Jones Hall, surrounded by kind people whose friendship inspired me to stay positive and be joyful. In Fisk Hall, I sat beside them \u2013 girls bonded by our love for journalism and each other. I spent every meal with them, laughing at the fleeting nature of our problems and visited the beach on an almost daily basis. I began this program surrounded by silence and ended it with the constant roar of laughter ringing in my ears.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I never stopped missing home, but I realized I would miss my new home at cherubs even more. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I learned my roommate was arriving late, I reached out to others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":5180,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[288],"class_list":["post-4190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-experiences"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":288,"user_id":151,"is_guest":0,"slug":"violetnegrette","display_name":"Violet Negrette","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cff300d5ebe5f242b6027104ab6c0f625dd9f8b367ed01c6d32d5172357b1b34?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Negrette","first_name":"Violet","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4190"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6664,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4190\/revisions\/6664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4190"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=4190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}