When I made the decision to travel 10,000 miles around the world for college, I did what any right-minded study-abroad kid would do: I started a blog.
Reading it now, I smile at accounts of the first time I visited a Target (they sell cornflakes and carpets in the same store!), drove a friend’s car with left-hand drive, witnessed a sorority girl fulfill her stereotype—things that were initially novel, but that I don’t bat an eyelid at now.
As I extend my time abroad, I recall other firsts with a heavy heart, like the first realization that scheduled Skype sessions would replace simply picking up the phone and calling my mom. Those will persist and have been harder to get used to.
Entering my last weeks at Duke, I thought it appropriate to include a few excerpts from my inner monologue during my first weeks here.
August 19, 2009.
“Homesick. Today I met two girls that live on my hall. They’re nice and we get along fine, but still, making friends from scratch is tiring.”
I didn’t know this then, but those girls and many other friends would become my family and my home away from home. We shared our successes, secrets and suffering—everything from rocky job hunts to personal tragedy to hilariously awkward encounters with the opposite sex. While at Duke, I have met so many intelligent, genuine and lovable people who have brought me immense comfort and joy on days when home seemed so far away.
I forged other friendships with mentors—professors, advisors and editors that I am fortunate to have learned from. Something I discovered my sophomore year: Your teachers stay brilliant when class is over, and learning about a professor’s research can transform your academic path. And Courtney, Margie, James, Ian, Chase, Lawson, Maya, Naclerio: Each of you has made me a better editor and photographer.
August 23, 2009.
“Tonight I helped edit photos for tomorrow’s issue of The Chronicle.”
Our class has experienced a lot together, but I saw it all through The Chronicle’s lens. I was in the office when Katie Couric’s staff called and asked for Gossip Bro. When Austin Rivers hit his celebrated buzzer-beater against UNC, I was sitting under Duke’s basket.
The Chronicle has been a source of valuable learning and priceless friendships, but it has also brought me frustration and grief. Trust me, for every comment you’ve seen about how The Chronicle is a hopeless rag, I’ve thought the same three times (aka thrice).
On a recent evening while hashing out #chronproblems with a former sports photography editor and close friend, I realized that in a way I’m fortunate to have dug deep into something at Duke that sits so close to my heart. Sure, many mornings have seen me hunched over the paper, rubbing my temples and asking “Why?!” (or “REALLY?!”)
But that’s only because I spent two years caring more about this newspaper than my grades, health or social life. There’s value in investing yourself in something that doesn’t always make you feel successful or proud, but always makes you feel like you’re an irrevocable part of it—something a lot of us would say about Duke.
September 14, 2009.
“I’m going to work really hard this week and relax next week … is what I told myself last week.”
I spent my first three years here thinking that being more meant working more. This year, I took time to not work.
Don’t get me wrong: Senior year has had its share of mild panic attacks. Like reading and coding 1,400 news stories for my thesis or writing a 20-pager during the Ohio State game or sending out resumes till mid-April.
But between these things, I worked in advertising and uncovered a new passion. I went to concerts with a best friend, where we immersed ourselves in songs we’d grown up to on different continents and others we had just then grown to love. I walked through Durham, camera in hand, forever remembering the light that hits a crumbly green wall and squat newspaper stands in brazen primary colors. I took time to sit in parts of my Duke experience that had hurt or angered me.
You might not have time to do those things now, and that’s fine. I didn’t either in the years I spent shuttling between classes, extracurriculars and the impression that time spent outside these places was wasted. I don’t regret keeping busy, but my Duke experience would have been incomplete had I never looked up from the textbook, the viewfinder or the computer screen.
When my parents dropped me off at Duke, my father looked around in wonder and said, “Wow—this is a real institute of education.” My time here has not only been four years of education, but four years of learning as well. I find myself mind-stretched, with horizons-broadened and still very much a half-written book. I have made and changed decisions, fulfilled and broken stereotypes and promises.
I have been taken care of in the best ways possible and have tried to do the same. I have become less rash but more impulsive, more thoughtful but less caring about the deep and infinite meaning of all things.
Yesterday, on my last LDOC, I sat on the quad and contemplated how strange it was to be leaving Duke for a full-time job in a city. Things are going to be so weird. And a friend said, “Well, coming here was weird.”
It was weird—and so will be the upcoming year. But with good friends, work I love and a little bit of time for myself, maybe that’s okay.
Melissa Yeo is a Trinity senior. She is creative director of Towerview Magazine and the former photography editor of The Chronicle. She would like to thank her parents, Apartment I, the Girls and Muppets, Albert and the original BBM group for keeping her sane despite the tribulations of 301 and von der Hazard.
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