Jeg fandt dette på nettet, skrevet af en tidligere udvekslingsstudent.
" 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. 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. People who actually talk to you. Those people who know your name, even
though you have never met them.
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 . It’s trying to be nice all
the time. It’s BUGS. 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 ! "