It has been two years since I left my home country and I survived. The original reason I did not go back to Malaysia for summer break was because I missed the cheap plane ticket and of course I was a bit frustrated at the beginning. However, I decided not to be disappointed and started to draft my activities to enjoy my summer here in the States.
Take some classesMy advisor said summer semester was an opportunity for me to speed up my graduation. I was a bit selective in choosing my summer classes because I preferred to take classes that required a lot of time commitment.Typically people only have one or two classes in one day. I took Calculus 1 and Calculus 2 and fortunately, my lecturers were a bit lenient about the grades because there was only a small number of enrolled students. I did not regret taking classes instead of rolling on my bed because I still had time to enjoy the summer in the evening.
This is an important point if you are surviving the summer break alone. This is to make sure that there is someone you can rely on in case something happens and, of course, for you to get new friends. I was lucky because my housemates stayed back with me. All of us loved food so we came up with our Bloomington restaurants tour. It is worth it because now I have a list of good restaurants I can visit every time I feel hungry.
They say I will miss US after I graduate as much I miss my home country. So I went for a road trip from Bloomington to California. Traveling was challenging. It was a very long drive, yet a valuable experience that I would never get in my everyday life. I crossed eight states. My car almost slipped off the mountain when I was driving up to the Yellowstone. My front mirror also cracked because of the unexpected weather changing. I visited the Sherman Tree in California, the oldest and biggest tree in the world, and I drove along Highway 1.
Highway one, a paradise scenery