As I stepped into the crowded quad of Yale Silliman University, my mind was clouded with both excitement and nervousness. People from all around the world stood beside me, like myself, anxious with a luggage filled with personal items we would later laugh about.

We stepped into my new dorm, and looked around. The dorm was two floors and had no air conditioning. Downstairs, all of the dorms were connected and led to a lounge. A girl was standing inside my room already. She wore a Ralph Lauren crew-cut shirt with a sweater hanging on her back. Her half of the room was bright pink, accessorized and bursting with cosmetics and fragrances. And mine, an empty canvas, longing for something, something I didn’t have. Right then I regretted not bringing my own throw pillows and paintings to brighten up the bland wall. Although the window was open, little light shined in, and the air stuck to our skins. As she spoke to my mother, I managed to crack a fake smile while I unpacked. The closet was filled with short Hollister dresses and color coordinated hangers. I quickly hung my own dress, much longer than hers, on my white hanger. When what seemed like minutes, passed, both our families left, and I was stuck, in Connecticut with a group of spoiled, bratty girls for three weeks at an educational camp. This was my first time away from my parents for this long and I couldn’t breathe.

Since we all lived together, we were forced to work as a group and eat together. We soon slowly emerged from our shells and spoke to one another in short sentences. There were ten of us in the dorm, two from Dubai, four from New York, one each from Texas and Georgia, and two from Connecticut. During our break after classes, the first floor girls mingled. My roommate, Beverly, wasn’t really as different as I thought. She lived in New York, too, and she loved Bath and Body Works. We chattered away about our similar clothes and laughed about how overly organized we both were. Not only did we share interest in material items, but we also felt something important that the other girls didn’t. Homesick. New York felt a long way from the small state of Connecticut, and it would take three hours for our parents to drive back to Yale. As dawn fell, we crawled under the sheets and laid on the rock-like mattress. The mattress was one of the only things we didn’t bring, and it sure didn’t feel like home. The both of us tossed and turned, but we couldn’t sleep. The clock read 2:00 am and we had to wake up by 6:30 that morning. I hugged the stuffed polar bear on the corner of my bed and tried to smell the flowery detergent we used at home. Every time I tried to shut my eyes, sounds of crickets and cars rushing by woke me. I looked over to Beverly, and she smiled back. This time, I smiled back, too, and I closed my eyes to try to sleep again.

Eventually, I got over my homesickness, but it took many calls home and nights of crying. Luckily, I had four great girls who lived in my dorm, who were always there for me. By the end of camp, I was confident in the cozy dorm room and I had more than 20 new friends. At the closing ceremony, tears welled up in all of our eyes, remembering our fun times with each other. Us girls and boys had become ladies and gentlemen in the three weeks, and we were a family. We were now inseparable by heart, and connected as a whole, even though some of us were going home to China, Dubai, and Sweden. Unlike the beginning of camp when I was afraid to be without my parents, now I was miserable because I would never see some of my closest friends in person again. We exchanged phone numbers and hugs, and promised to Skype often. That camp at Yale was a new chapter for me, and taught me how to be courageous and confident.