When I was eleven years old, my parents asked me, “If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?” Being the child I was, I instantaneously replied with “Thailand!” as we had recently visited the country over Christmas break. Less than a year later, I was halfway across the world studying at an international school where 80% of the kids’ mother tongue was not English. The study abroad trip was supposed to last one year, after which we would return back home to Anchorage, Alaska. Being the extroverted character I am, I begged to stay another year. I hadn’t had enough of the culture, of the people, of the education. Eventually it got to the point where I just assumed I’d be going back to school there next year. In June, 2018, I graduated high school from an international school in Bangkok, Thailand.
Whenever people ask me, “Why did you move?”, it’s really hard to explain we just wanted to. My parents believe the best gift they can give my brother and I is the gift of education, whether it be through the form of tuition costs or exposing us to other cultures. They believe, which has resultantly been instilled in me, that it’s one thing to visit a place, but it’s another to live there. So that’s exactly what we did.
Sounds like a fairytale, right? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to gloat or tell my story to try gain attention, but I’d like to tell my story to the public because I feel you, yes you, the reader, can probably relate whether it be through emotions, impulsive decisions, having a sense of adventure, or simply having an interest in traveling. Now I’m not going to deny living abroad wasn’t the craziest decision of my life, but at times it was hard. I suffered from severe homesickness, like real bad. There were so many times I wanted to move back home, to once again live and not just visit my hometown, but I stayed. Every day. Every. Single. Day. I thank my lucky stars I did.