yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Beautiful Animation Shows What It's Like to Be Homesick in a New Country | Short Film Showcase


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

Every spring, my mom used to plant boxes of violets and propagate the geranium she's been growing for years in a small garden on a balcony in Tehran. I remember her telling me, "When you move a plant from one place to another, you need to give it some time before it will grow new leaves."

My journey started in 2011 when I moved from Iran to the U.S. to pursue my dream of studying abroad. It was one of the worst times for Iran's international reputation. There was always something bad about Iran in the headlines. It seemed that where I grew up was the biggest reason; a lot of people were surprised that I knew how to drive and that I used to rise up late to work. Tehran is a city of 10 million people who live in skyscrapers. It's not the best place to come from these days, is it? But I was a proud Iranian. Tigress, we were an empire once.

I tried to use every opportunity to be a representative of our culture. I had statements and arguments ready. I was reading the news of the day, trying to keep up with everything that was happening around the world, just in case someone asked me something. I knew enough about what I was asked about; things that I never expected. "Do you have apples in Iran?" I wasn't sure if he was asking about fruit or computers.

The first few months were a lot to take in. Instead of speaking English five hours a week, now it was 15 hours a day. Everything was a challenge. Playing games that required languages, those felt like we took in my English competency exam. How fast you can decide what you want on your sandwich from 32 different ingredients that I listed in front of you? When you barely remember it except their names in English, and you keep trying to revert your brain's English dictionary to remember what they're called while there are these 1,200 people standing in line behind you all staring at you.

I could hear my funny accent. I knew I was making grammatical mistakes. My Middle-Eastern features stood out in the blonde crowd. Writing Farsi in public after someone called it weird; signing symbols. What was going on? Was it all in my head?

I clearly remember my first Thanksgiving when my friend's dad bought me a box of baklava, the closest thing he could find to an Iranian pastry in Florida. So, the family, your taste would make me feel at home. You must be homesick. I kept thinking about my mom's Deranian and what she told me, "When you move a plant from one place to another, its roots may get damaged. The soil changes; it needs time before the roots grow strong, and then you will see."

More Articles

View All
Discontinuities of rational functions | Mathematics III | High School Math | Khan Academy
So we have this function ( f(x) ) expressed as a rational expression here, or defined with a rational expression. We’re told that each of the following values of ( x ) selects whether ( f ) has a zero, a vertical asymptote, or a removable discontinuity. …
Functions with same limit at infinity | Limits and continuity | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy
The goal of this video is to get an appreciation that you could have many, in fact, you could have an infinite number of functions that have the same limit as X approaches infinity. So, if we were to make the general statement that the limit of some funct…
Gov Of The Gaps (Mirror)
We’re getting a lot of disease in our town lately, and we don’t know how to stop it. Does anyone have any ideas? “Yes, I have an idea.” “Mr. Scientist, go ahead.” “Yes, I have this theory. You see, that disease is caused by teeny tiny little life forms…
My response to Pewdiepie
What’s up guys, it’s Graham here. So, I never thought this would happen. Two things. Number one, today is my 30th birthday, which means obviously I turned 30 today. So yeah, that’s kind of crazy! And for anyone wondering what I’m going to do to celebrate…
5 Mistakes To Avoid In Your 20's | Chef Wonderful
[Music] Hey, Chef Whatever here, and cheers! I’d like to have a little sip of that delicious O’Leary Chardonnay—shameless promotion! Before we start cooking, I want to cook up a little advice. If you’re in your 20s, I’m going to give you five pieces of ad…
Warren Buffett: The Best 10 Minutes of Financial Advice on the Internet
Testing one million, two million, three million. That’s working. Okay, talk to you about your financial future, and I hope those figures become applicable to all of you as we go along. And I’d like to start by posing a problem for you. I said I’m just go…