Seeing the Realities of My Semester Abroad

I have to say, I got pretty emotionally watching the promotional video Semester at Sea sent me several weeks ago. I sort of had a vague sense or idea of what I was getting myself into when I signed up for the voyage, but visually seeing it put me in a whole new perspective. I realized I would be meeting a lot of new and very diverse people from all over the world, from many varying economic classes, backgrounds, cultures, etc. Great; I love meeting new people. But I had not thought about how hard it will be to be constantly leaving these people that I will grow a strong connection to, knowing I will most likely never see them again. This will probably be especially hard for me since I tend to get attached to people really easily. Not only will I have to leave my family and friends for four months but I will be constantly leaving behind many other friends I make during my voyage. at the end of the voyage as well, people from all over the US will return home and I will never get to see them all again. That's not an easy thing for me to accept.
Aside from the personal connections aspect, it will also be challenging seeing people surviving in terrible environments completely unrealized in the US. I will see the remnants of blatant discrimination in South Africa and India, I will see extreme poverty in Ghana and India, and I will see the remnants of war in Vietnam.
Then there will be the personal challenges to my comfort zone. There will be new and different things confronting me on every corner: new foods, new customs, new dress, new norms, etc. It's going to inevitable I am going to change and grow up a lot really fast. I will have to be fully responsible for myself. I will have to navigate a foreign county with no cell phone, hopefully with others, but without mom or dad to call up instantly to get help. I will be constantly forced to open myself to new and sometimes intimidating or scary things because it is what you do when you are in a new country. I'm glad I started to realize these things now so I am not in for as huge of a shock when I get to my first port.