Hey guys! I found this in an exchange student group on
Facebook, and thought it was very true, so I wanted to share it with you all.
"Exchange is change.
Rapid, brutal, beautiful, hurtful, colorful, amazing,
unexpected, overwhelming and most of all constant change. Change in lifestyle,
country, language, friends, parents, houses, school, simply everything.
Exchange is realizing that everything they told you beforehand is wrong, but
also right in a way. Exchange is going from thinking you know who you are, to
having no idea who you are anymore to being someone new. But not entirely new.
You are still the person you were before but you jumped into that ice cold
lake. You know how it feels like to be on your own. Away from home, with no one
you really know. And you find out that you can actually do it.
Exchange is learning to trust.
Trust people, who, at first, are only names on a piece of
paper, trust that they want the best for you, that they care. Trust, that you
have the strength to endure a year on your own, endure a year of being apart
from everything that mattered to you before. Trust that you will have friends.
Trust that everything’s going to be alright. And it is seeing this trust being
justified.
Exchange is thinking.
All the time. About everything. Thinking about those strange
costumes, the strange food, the strange language. About why you’re here and not
back home. About how it’s going to be like once you come back home. How that
girl/boy is going to react when you see them again. About who’s hanging out
where this weekend. At first who’s inviting you at all. And in the end where
you’re supposed to go, when you’re invited to ten different things. About how
everybody at home is doing. About how stupid this whole time-zone thing is. Not
only because of home, but also because the TV ads for shows keep confusing
you.Thinking about what’s right and what’s wrong. About how stupid or rude you
just were to someone without meaning to be. About the point of all this. About
the sense of life. About who you want to be, what you want to do. And about
when that English essay is due, even though your marks don’t count. About
whether you should go home after school, or hang out at someone’s place until
midnight. Someone you didn’t even know a few months ago. And about what the
hell that guy just said.
Exchange is people.
Those incredibly strange people, who look at you like you’re
an alien. Those people who are too afraid to talk to you. And those people who
actually talk to you. Those people who know your name, even though you have
never met them. Those people, who tell you who to stay away from. Those people
who talk about you behind your back, those people who make fun of your country.
All those people, who aren’t worth your giving a damn. Those people you
ignore. And those people who invite you to their homes. Who keep you sane. Who
become your friends.
Exchange is music.
New music, weird music, cool music, music you will remember
all your life as the soundtrack of your exchange. Music that will make you cry
because all those lyrics express exactly how you feel, so far away. Music that
will make you feel like you could take on the whole world. And it is music you
make. With the most amazing musicians you’ve ever met. And it is site reading a
thousand pages just to be part of the school band.
Exchange is uncomfortable.
It’s feeling out of place, like a fifth wheel. It’s talking
to people you don’t like. It’s trying to be nice all the time. It’s bugs.. and
bears. It’s cold, freezing cold. It’s homesickness, it’s awkward silence and
its feeling guilty because you didn’t talk to someone at home. Or feeling
guilty because you missed something because you were talking on Skype.
Exchange is great.It’s feeling the connection between you
and your host parents grow. It’s hearing your little host brother asking where
his big brother is. It’s knowing in which cupboard the peanut butter is. It’s
meeting people from all over the world. It’s having a place to stay in almost
every country of the world. It’s getting 5 new families. One of them being a
huge group of the most awesome teenagers in the world. It’s cooking food from
your home country and not messing up. It’s seeing beautiful landscapes that you
never knew existed.
Exchange is exchange students.
The most amazing people in the whole wide world. Those
people from everywhere who know exactly how you feel and those people who
become your absolute best friends even though you only see most of them 3 or 4
times during your year. The people, who take almost an hour to say their final
goodbyes to each other. Those people with the jackets full of pins. All over the
world.
Exchange is falling in love. With this amazing, wild,
beautiful country. And with your home country. Exchange is frustrating. Things
you can’t do, things you don’t understand. Things you say, that mean the exact
opposite of what you meant to say. Or even worse…Exchange is understanding.
Exchange is unbelievable. Exchange is not a year in your life. It’s a life in
one year. Exchange is nothing like you expected it to be, and everything you
wanted it to be. Exchange is the best year of your life so far. Without a
doubt. And it’s also the worst. Without a doubt. Exchange is something you will
never forget, something that will always be a part of you. It is something no
one back at home will ever truly understand. Exchange is growing up, realizing
that everybody is the same, no matter where they’re from. That there are great
people and douche bags everywhere. And that it only depends on you how good or
bad your day is going to be. Or the whole year. And it is realizing that you
can be on your own, that you are an independent person. Finally. And it’s
trying to explain that to your parents. Exchange is dancing in the rain for no
reason, crying without a reason, laughing at the same time. It’s a turmoil of
every emotion possible. Exchange is everything. And exchange is something you
can’t understand unless you’ve been through it."
