You can still maintain contact through the computer and phones and snail mail. This is work worth doing. Some of these people will be your friends for life. Remember, you are not the only one feeling left out. Now, you are someone else.
Some students prepare for coming home in different ways.
He wanted to make an impression of being free and daring, and was growing his hair knowing that it would be cut when he finally returned to his family. He wanted to shock his friends by looking western and daring. Some students want to make a different statement. They are not the children that left the family to study abroad. They now have different opinions that are important to them.