One New Thing

By Ella Erdahl ‘25, UGM Fellow

Reflecting back on my first six months, I think I came into this fellowship a bit too confident. I had dreams of taking trips every weekend, making friends on every corner of the Indonesian islands, and trying every food I had never heard of before. I was not, however, anticipating the overwhelming sense of anxiety that would emerge during my first few weeks whenever I faced the prospect of leaving my room. Perhaps due to jet lag, or perhaps due to the fact that my luggage had been lost somewhere in the process of my 40 hour journey to Indonesia, I found it exceedingly hard to get out of bed. I binge watched TV shows, tore through my to-read list, and greatly improved my sudoku skills, but I was not journeying to remote corners of the world or forging the life-altering relationships I had imagined.