Student Bloggers

What do I need?

Presently, this question resonates within me on multiple levels as I prepare for my departure. Most practically, it applies to my packing – as I try to fit enough clothes for sixteen weeks into one suitcase, I find myself asking if I can afford to bring that jacket; whether I can get away with just one pair of dress shoes; and do I need that collection of Robert Burns poetry, or is the desire to bring it just another result of that incorrigible literary pretention that I’ve been carefully cultivating since a young age? Ultimately, the Spartan approach wins out. The suitcase contains no more than three pairs of jeans, a handful of t-shirts and flannels, a couple assorted pieces of nicer clothing, and yes, the Robert Burns collection – I guess I can’t escape that pretention just yet. The items that didn’t make the cut sit dejectedly off to the side – some clothing, a yoga mat, and my lute, the last of which is truly heartbreaking to leave behind. It feels odd to look down and see that my entire life for the next four months fits in such a small space, the sensation evoking some childhood state in which the only requisites for a full and fulfilling day were clothes to wear and a book to read. Nevertheless, I feel confident that I have all necessary materials, and so the zipper can be closed and the suitcase leaned against the wall until it comes time to leave for my flight.

It’s a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no telling where you might be swept off to.

I suppose I should explain a bit of what’s going on here for those of you who might not be aware. My name is Cameron (as I’m really hoping you already know if you’re a friend or family member reading this), and I’m a classical guitar student at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. I frequently get confused or inquisitive looks when I say the words “classical guitar,” and somewhat understandably so; in a world where electric and steel-string guitars are arguably the most prominent instruments in Western culture, their quieter classical predecessor has fallen into the category of being a niche field. The classical guitar is a lot of things, describing all of which could fill another several blog posts (or could occupy many hours of me yammering nonstop in your ear), but the most basic explanation is that I play an acoustic guitar with nylon strings that I pluck using the meticulously shaped fingernails on my right hand. I’m preparing now to continue my guitar studies for a few months in Aberdeen, Scotland, and this blog is the result of a lovely scholarship graciously offered to me by the University of Aberdeen as an exchange student. Throughout the fall, I’ll be updating this blog regularly with accounts of various adventures cultural, musical, and otherwise that will be accessible to anyone with an internet connection and the patience to read through the long, meandering sentences that I seem to prefer.

Back to my first question, though – what do I need, really? I’ve already discussed packing and material needs, but as I mentioned earlier, this question extends far further than my suitcase. What do I need mentally for this experience? Emotionally? Spiritually? Do I need to prepare to hunker down and spend every waking moment studying? Do I need to take advantage of the freedom from my community and homeland by partying it up like never before? Do I need to hang on to every moment of my trip so that I can return an enlightened, multicultural guru who spends the rest of his life exasperating his peers by finding excuses to reference his time abroad in every conversation he has? Yikes – hopefully not. The way I see it, study abroad is about neither intensive study nor indulgent debauchery nor building up an experience to be a transcendent, life-altering ideal that must be clung to and re-lived for years afterward. Rather, as with much of life, it is an experience that ought to be viewed and lived out with balance. Yes, I go to study, but I also go to engage with new people and a new culture, to spend time outside the practice room interacting and learning about a place and population foreign to me. Yes, I go to have fun, but as with life in America, the moments of real joy, fulfillment, and substance will come from meaningful relationships woven within the quiet moments of life, not from any sort of indulgent party culture (a culture and lifestyle which, for better or worse, has never interested me anyway). Yes, Scotland will be an exciting place of new experience and curious adventures, but much of daily life will still be average and even, dare I say it, mundane.

What I need, then, is an open mind. I need to seek adventure when doing so involves something grand and exotic, but I also need to look within the rhythms of daily life in this new place and learn to find that which is extraordinary nestled within the ordinary. I need to remember that I am both foreign and small, and that my bent must be towards humility within this new society rather than towards an attitude of imposition that makes me overly important in a place that is not my own. I need to expect difficulty and challenge on multiple levels, from obvious arenas such as assimilation and academics to the more intimate regions of homesickness and loneliness. I need to remember that I will make friends, but not with everyone I meet. I need to keep in mind that to study abroad is not to experience the pinnacle of what it means to be human. Once the semester is over I will certainly look back on it as a significant and perhaps even formative experience, but ultimately it will just have been another semester of school that I happened to be fortunate enough to do in a different locale. I will walk into this time away from home ready to experience it as it is, not as I want it to be. I will be prepared to sit and listen, to learn without pretense, and to be receptive to the rhythms and patterns of Scotland. My bags are packed. My guitar is tuned. 

I’m ready to go.