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Category Stories: Family Matters

  • Building a Family Abroad – A Digital Story

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    Building a Family Abroad – A Digital Story

    “My friends taught me what it was like to truly care for myself… My family abroad will be my family forever.”Queen Mary Fall 2017 student Rachel Godfrey describes making lasting friendships and connections while studying abroad in England. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2gq48NE0eQ Rachel Godfrey is an African American Studies and Science in Society student at Wesleyan University and…

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  • Skyping Home: Two World Collide

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    Skyping Home: Two World Collide

    When I walk through the gates of my host family’s home, I already feel comfortable and at ease. My ammaa Puja and I can sit and talk for hours; she tells me stories of her youth, her university days in Paris and the drama of her different boyfriends, how she knew she should marry my…

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  • How My Host Mom and I Almost Moved

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    How My Host Mom and I Almost Moved

    Growing up, I moved with my parents twice across the country, and we often reflect on the moving experience as a stressful but exciting time. For the first two months of my semester abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a real estate agent weekly showed the apartment I shared with my host mother to potential buyers,…

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  • How I Coped with Losing A Loved One While Abroad

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    How I Coped with Losing A Loved One While Abroad

    I will never forget my 21stbirthday, not because I was spending it on an incredible Spring Break Trip in Australia, although that certainly helps make it a bit more memorable. No, the reason I will never forget this birthday is because it was the day I found out my grandfather had passed away. When I…

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  • Dealing with Family Loss While Abroad

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    Dealing with Family Loss While Abroad

    Going abroad is exciting and wonderful but can also be a little intimidating. Leading up to my departure to Edinburgh, I had all those conflicting feelings. I had asked all the necessary questions to students who had studied in Scotland and I felt confident in my abilities and ecstatic for the opportunity to live in…

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  • Living With a Host Family | Love, Language, and Learning

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    Living With a Host Family | Love, Language, and Learning

    “Cabra chica, a comer!” My host mom endearingly called to me from the kitchen when it was meal time. I helped set up and the two of us, along with my host sister and dad, sat down for an evening meal called “once”. This is a particularly Chilean meal that resembles an extravagant tea time more…

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  • Studying Abroad with my Family Abroad

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    Studying Abroad with my Family Abroad

    Experiences Living with my Japanese Peruvian Family in Lima For a long time, Peru was somewhere I was curious about. I’d heard mentions of it from my dad, though he didn’t like to talk much about his years living there before moving to the US.I’m half Japanese Peruvian. My dad was born in Lima, Peru;…

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  • When Abroad, Phone Home!

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    When Abroad, Phone Home!

    Reality Hits It’s that time of the semester when there is increasing popularity of memes speaking to many students abroad who are slowly realizing that they still have academic responsibilities and are bracing themselves for the impending doom of neglecting them. The academics may be different from back home, but assignments, essays and exams still do exist on…

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  • Mi Familia Chilena: How I Found Home After Being Uprooted Abroad

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    Mi Familia Chilena: How I Found Home After Being Uprooted Abroad

    About a month and a half into my semester abroad, I had to switch host families for reasons beyond my control. While this experience was disorienting and stressful, in the end it turned out about as well as it could have, and it revealed a lot to me about the support network that IFSA-Butler cultivates…

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  • The Best of Two Continents – Cultivating Your Image Abroad

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    The Best of Two Continents – Cultivating Your Image Abroad

    Never in my wildest childhood dreams did I think that I’d pull a Hannah Montana and get The Best of Both Worlds– or in my case, the best of two continents. I’m not quite sure what I expected when I went abroad. Part of me had grasped the concept of starting a new- sort of -life, but I hadn’t…

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