Exchange
is change. Rapid, brutal,
beautiful, hurtful, colourful, 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 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 is going to react when you see her
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 you’re 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 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 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 is 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 !
-- Dieser Beitrag kommt aus einer FacebookGruppe von Austauschschülern --
-- Dieser Beitrag kommt aus einer FacebookGruppe von Austauschschülern --