Hello! I’m Emma, and I’m a third-year student from the University of East Anglia. This past September, I embarked on the most intimidating journey I have been on in my life: moving five and a half thousand miles from home for ten months to study at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). And as I sit here in the UCLA Botanical Garden – a place that has quickly gone from quaint novelty to my writer’s haven – observing this bizarre juxtaposition of plants from Californian cacti to English lavender to Chinese palm and beyond, I can’t help but think of how they all seem so simultaneously out of place yet fit together perfectly on this campus. It’s a sensation I’ve become very familiar with recently, and one that I’ve realised is an ingrained and essential part of my time here in California.

The Familiar Meets the Unfamiliar… But with…