Wrapping Up

The term "wrapping up" can have many different meanings, for example, hiding Christmas presents within colorful paper (or, as dictated by my college budget last year, within newspaper), bundling up in multiple layers of insulating clothes to protect you from the blistering cold of the North American winter, or, less literally, bringing something to an end.  Currently, I am participating in only one of these "wrapping up activities."  I'll give you a hint, it doesn't have to do with presents or the cold.  Yes, I am talking about the semester coming to an end.  Now, for me, you could say, and I even imagined up until today, that this point is really more of a halfway marker, because I will be in Senegal for 5 more months.  However, as was suddenly brought to my attention a few hours ago, this is the end for all of the semester MSIDers, and therefore the end of my being a part of MSID Fall 2010. 

I actually happen to love wrapping presents

The good-byes today were awkward and unexpected.  We actually did have some presents, but no wrapping or newspaper.  We also have some students who will soon be experiencing the biting cold of jack frost, but, since it is currently 77°F with a slight ocean breeze, we have no layers or insulating materials.  Endings we do have, and as we come from many different universities, it really may be the last time some of us will see each other at least for a very long time, maybe ever.

This will not be a part of my wardrobe this year

Thrown together in a foreign country, the twenty of us make quite the hodge-podge.  Although many lasting friendships, and no deep-seeded rivalries have resulted from this semester, there has certainly been lots of tension at times (Real World: Dakar, anyone?)  We have also had lots of fun, and so it was a sobering day for the group.  I, in particular, was reminded of the All-American, white Christmas holiday season (because let's be serious, in America, Christmas dominates the month of December) that the others are going back to.  I was made aware of just how different their junior years will be from my own.  While this "winter break" is, in ways, a new beginning, it is also the wrapping up of my Fall semester- minus the usual wrapping up of presents and my body from the frigidness of December.