19 Dec Oh friends, why are you so far away?

One of the things that I KNEW was gonna happen, when I went on exchange, is that I was going to miss my friends and family back home. And sure thing, it did. Back home I was used to having a big community of radical, activist people who spend a lot of time fighting for change, and when I got here I realized that it was going to take a lot of energy finding that kind of a community here.

I tried and succeeded some, but at the end of the day I missed my friends. Different time zones made it even harder, because in the afternoon when I finally had time to talk, everybody back home was asleep. So, I missed people a lot.

But there were also upsides to all of this. When you are around someone all of the time, you can easily forget to really SEE them, because they are just always there. But being away from my friends I started to see them in a different light, I started to miss things about them I never thought I would miss and I started seeing just how radical and radiant they actually were.

Here, towards the end of my stay in San Francisco, I am not missing my friends, rather I am so so looking forward to seeing them again. I keep imagining all of the cool projects that we were going to do together, projects that San Francisco has inspired me to do. Being away from my friends have made me appreciate them even more than I did when I was around them! So thank you, San Francisco, for making me realize that! :)