I arrived on the UMass campus on Jan. 24 – two days before the start of the spring semester and the day after Northeast had been dumped with over 20 inches of snow.

I am from a warm, tropical climate where temperatures have never fallen below 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and the idea of a snowstorm just did not sit well with me. I was vacationing in London when that happened, and was told by the United Airlines that I might have to “standby” at Heathrow Airport until the next day. Boy, was I bothered … I was worried I might miss the falling snow.

I had never seen snow in my entire life and the idea of white, beautiful, flying, fluff from a Hollywood romance flick made me really excited about the storm.

Then I had to face reality. The “white, beautiful flying fluff” was now “white, ugly soaring bluff.” I sometimes missed lunches and dinners altogether, just to avoid the humiliation of having the snow hit my face. I preferred to huddle under the cheap down blanket I bought from Target. I started doing my assignments in bed, and I blamed the cold whenever I dozed off and did not get them done on time.

It was not until the end of March that I began to lament the lost time. I came back from my spring break to a campus cleared of snow. Ducks had started to swim in the pond and squirrels were hopping around. One time, I even encountered a raccoon, the size of my two-year-old Shi Tsu, who stopped for a few moments three feet away from me before scurrying off.

The snow came back a couple of times, but that did not bother me. I was making more friends now and was getting to know my dormmates better.

Americans are very generous. Besides the fact that they’re willing to hold the door for you, there would always be someone who would organize certain dorm gatherings where ice cream, pizza and hot dogs were provided for free. There were a few occasions when random dormmates would take out what they called, their “prized possession” – something in the form of dried grass, which they offered to me. Even now, I’m still bewildered about why they like it so much. I’ve always found it smelly and never took the offers. But I suspect that special grass made them quite happy – though they told me they took it to help them sleep better.

Flowers started blooming recently, and temperatures actually hit 90. That was the week people took out their sunbathing mats and played football and volleyball in the fields. I remember walking across the lines and lines of girls clad in bikinis and felt I was back on a particular beach in Singapore. I returned to my dorm to count the days; I realized there were only four weeks more.

Last Monday, I found a familiar note on my door: “Summer closing information … have a safe and enjoyable break.” Of all the talks we had in class about approaching deadlines of major assignments, about possibilities after graduation and about the semester ending, they never really hit me as hard as the note did – I’m leaving soon.

The 16-week study abroad program that had seemed never-ending will end tomorrow. But before I bid farewell, please allow me to say thank you. Thank you, UMass, for embracing me and my culture, for tolerating my rants against you and for making my stay enjoyable. So long now!

Grace Chen is an international student at the University of Queensland in Australia. She is doing a study abroad program with UMass and will return to her country, Singapore, at the end of the semester.