#exchangeyear

Tere-tere!

Today was the day many exchange students are afraid of. I was afraid too. It was my first time not being home while having birthday. A very different feeling, but the day was amazing.

I woke up having a big shock: My hostfather connected his phone with the musicbox in my room and turned on a jazzified (?) birthdaysong. Full volume. I nearly shit my pants.

After that, I went downstairs and saw my whole hostfamily with a big smile on their faces waiting for me. They all wished me happy birthday (in estonian of course) and gave me presents and the big package of my natural family.

The next thing I saw, was the big, beautiful cake on the table (pictures follow).

After eating this really healthy breakfast, I went to school, bringing some candy with me, to follow the tradition. Arriving at school, my friends came and gave me hugs and much love. All my classmates also wished me a happy birthday andI gave them candy in exchange. (I love that tradition!!!)

Then there was this moment, in which I had a full conversation in Estonian with one of my classmates. That was amazing. I didn’t understand everything on th first try, but after a repetition, I got everything. I know that it wasn’t that big of a deal for her, but if you read this, that brightened my day even more! (Liis <3)

Before the second lesson my friends gave me their present (pictures follow) and told me, that they will kidnap me to the theater. I love theaters. They told my hostfamily before, so everything was already planned. It felt like a movie.

Even my classteacher gave me a present, mostly because of the presentation I gave on Monday, but still: Nii armas!!!

After school I came home and opened all the presents of my German Family. I think I can feed three families with all the candy I have now.

The evening came and so my hostfather gave me a ride to the theater to my friends, where we watched an amazing play. (It was without language, only mimic, gestic and music.) I fell in love with that play immediately.

Coming out of the building, I saw my hostfamilie’s car driving towards me. When I came in, I realized that everyone was in the car, and that my hostmother brought my laptop with her. They planned a surprisedinner for me and took my laptop with them, so that I could skype my German Family.

It was one of the best days I had so far. Dear future exchange students: don’t be afraid of your birthday. It’s the best.

Today is the day!!! Vertrek zometeen voor 10 maanden naar Virginia Beach :) Ondanks dat ik al m’n familie en vrienden bijna een jaar ga missen heb ik er ONWIJS veel zin in!!

Coming home from exchange comes in 4 stages. The first stage is the “I don’t care anymore, I want to go home, screw it all!”, when you stop caring and start getting angry. You’re sick of all the problems and things not working out. You’re sick of not being understood or able to fully express yourself. And you get sick of caring. So you start not to care and start to do as you please and live life by your own rules. You can’t wait to be home, to the easy and to the familiar.

The next phase is a sort of denial, the “life’s perfect, I don’t want to go home, I want to stay in my bubble forever”, where you practical run around singing and dancing in the streets because life is so perfect and every moment can never be ruined or forgotten. You go about your life with a spring in you step, just taking every experience in and sucking in as much as you can. But you’re so in love with life and blinded by that love to see that your bubble will soon pop.

And when that bubble burst and your happiness crumbles it marks the beginning of the next stage “the emotional breakdowns of realisation”, you start to think about when will the next time I do this or see these people again, when will the next time be when I’m in this city again? And the questions begin to clear and crowd your head with realisation. You realise that time is almost gone and there’s nothing you can do about it. You start to notice yourself doing things for the last time but yet you can still remember doing them for the first, but all becomes so normal to you now. It becomes your daily life, it feels like home, it feels so natural now. But doing those exact same things for the last time makes you stop and think about how far you’ve come. Not knowing when you’ll be back or if you’ll ever meet you host country friends again or exchange student friends and all the heart breaking goodbyes but you never really know when it will be the last time you see them and the uncertainty will eat you away. With every goodbye your heart will break a little and every person will take a little bit back home with them so your heart is spread across the globe and is bigger than ever before.

The last stage is the “dead neutral stage” and not everybody will go through this, some might be torn and others egger for the last day. But to be dead neutral is by fair the worst because you’re so blank and emotionless, that you feel dead. But you’re alive and feeling everything at the same time. Going home is like going insane. Thinking about your home life the previous year leave you feeling hollow and empty because you can’t fill those shoes anymore, they don’t fit you anymore. However, there will be a new pair of shoes for you to fill, ones that you get to mould and create to fit you perfectly. The final goodbye will make you sick to your stomach and you’ll find yourself waking up panicking because the hallways are too small in this country or you’ve forgotten a word in your host language. It’s the small things that will scare you the most. It’s the goodbyes you didn’t get that to say will eat you away and the hellos of the other side that will cure your heart. Although you’ll never be quite whole again, you find new ways to slowly lose the rest of yourself. But that is what it is to be an exchange student…

- Kat Puchert