ALANA KELLAN
kellenar@lopers.unk.edu

For most UNK students, traveling home for the holidays can be easy if they live in-state. Other students who are traveling out of state or even out of the country, might have a more difficult time going home for the shorter holidays like Thanksgiving.

Kosuke Yoshii, a junior multimedia major from Japan, has a more difficult time traveling on these breaks. Since the Thanksgiving break for UNK isn’t very long, Yoshii doesn’t go home for break like most other UNK students. Instead, he makes plans to stay in the states and goes home over Christmas and summer breaks.

“Last year I joined my host family’s thanksgiving and ate the food, but I didn’t like it,” Yoshii said. “My friends invited me for a Friendsgiving this year and it was my first time, but it was fun. It’s a little different than Thanksgiving, but I liked it.”

Yoshii has been unable to celebrate a traditional American Thanksgiving until he came to UNK. Despite not liking the food, he has liked other parts of Thanksgiving and being in the states.

“I like being back in Japan for vacation and seeing my friends and family, but my hometown is kind of similar to Kearney so it still kind of feels like home,” Yoshii said. “I wanted to come to the states to study multimedia and something in film, but it’s more famous here. I can work and take classes here, so I enjoy being in the states.”

Other students who are out-of-state don’t have as difficult of a time traveling for the holidays as Yoshii, but still struggle to go home over shorter breaks.

Gabrielle Buttermore, a junior wildlife biology major from Phoenix, also struggles to make it home for the short holidays. Buttermore came to UNK to be a part of the swim team because Arizona doesn’t have division II athletics like she wanted to compete in.

“I had a friend back home that went to UNK as well and was on the swim team,” Buttermore said. “She came out and liked it, so I came to visit and liked it as well.”

Buttermore is lucky enough to have family close to Kearney to be able to spend the holidays with when she doesn’t want to make a 17-hour drive home.

“I usually go to Grand Island for Thanksgiving and see my cousins and go Black Friday shopping the next day,” said Buttermore. “I usually don’t go back to Arizona unless it’s winter break and sometimes over spring break.”

For both students there are difficulties in making it home for the holidays. They often choose to make other plans for the holiday to avoid these long travels home, resulting in little quality time. Having to wait so long to go home does make the students appreciate being home more.

“It gets to the point especially during the spring semester when being on campus is just not enjoyable and wishing I could just go home,” said Buttermore. “My favorite part about Thanksgiving though is the last couple of years my grandma comes out and sees me and we get to see people we don’t get to see very often.”