Imagine finishing high school in India

Though it's almost all I think about, the idea of moving to India is as abstract of an idea for me as moving to Antarctica would be. Rationally, I keep telling myself 'Thule, you're going to India next year.' but it's not something that the emotional part of my brain has caught up with. The thought of me boarding a plane with bags stuffed with clothes and nationalistic memorabilia that pay tribute to how far I've come seems like a dream that has manifested in front of my eyes and now I don't know what to do with it.

These last few days I've experienced a lot of emotions, from total excitement to nostalgia to fear. I'll think about the place that I am in and how I can only guess what lays ahead. Because this isn't like making plans for the future and generally knowing where they might go ... everything will be new. I'm scared of little things, like whether I will have problems with my luggage, whether I should stock up on hair elastics before I go or just buy them there, but also big things. I'm scared of knowing what I want and staying true to myself in such a diverse community. As much as I should have a healthy amount of doubt towards everything I previously believed and come there with an open mind, I don't want this to mean my opinion can't be different. I know I won't be alone in being scared and this comforts me. When I first started this UWC roller coaster, I thought going to a UWC school meant that I would get handed epiphany after epiphany and that everything would fall into place. I've come to realize that maybe what it will do, and what it is already doing, is showing me how to create my own.

Truthfully, I don't know yet what I'm getting myself into. I have never been to a country that hasn't been westernized and I have never been to any place warmer than central US. My diet before this point largely consisted of potatoes, salty things, and nutella. I found a home here in the forests of Vancouver Island like I found a home in the one in the Netherlands, but I know I'm ready to be uprooted to a new forest, and maybe I'll find a home there too.