*Audible gasps heard all around as my blog is updated for the first time since my return*
I can’t believe I’ve been home for nearly five months, that is insane to even say.
After conversations with a couple exchange students, in which I gave small advice, I was told “I should write a book for exchange students.” And actually, that happened to be a coincidence, because this post is a long time coming. I started writing this before I even left Denmark.
For many exchange students, it’s getting to be what’s called “the homesick stage.” Their host families are driving them insane, they’re tired, etc. So I’ve compiled some advice. Some are things that rested heavily on my mind pretty much every day of my year, and some are pieces that I’ve borrowed/heard from other students. (For example about eating everything…)
So here goes!
- Do what makes you happiest, what works best for you. If you go on Facebook in your free time, don’t worry about the “separate yourself from social media on exchange.” It doesn’t matter if you Skype your parents every week for half an hour, or every three months for two hours, or just whenever you feel like it in between. Skyping your parents is not “living with one foot in each country.” Your parents raised you, supported you before you left, and continue to support you now, more than you’ll feel 5000 miles away from it all, even when you insist you don’t need it.
Friends are important, and frankly, a friend made in anyone is a friend, and is one more success to put under your belt during your year long journey. Whether you make friends with the exchange students, or make friends with the natives, or make friends with everyone equally, it will no less take away from your experience, or immersion in the culture. The majority of my year was spent around exchange students and through all that, I still feel as though I have developed a deep appreciation for the Danish culture through everything my host families taught me. You may feel like you lack friends at some point. You may feel lonely. Maybe you already do. It gets better. Your year abroad is supposed to challenge you, and if one of the challenges is spending a year more alone than you’re used to back home, believe me, it will only do you good in the long run. - Say yes to everything. I know it’s painfully awkward sometimes. I know sometimes you’d rather stay home and watch Netflix, sometimes it’s easier to be antisocial. Either to let yourself embrace the loneliness, or because you’re actually so social you feel like you’ll lose it if you don’t have a moment to yourself. I’ve been on both sides of the spectrum. I physically felt nauseous the last consecutive days of the last two weeks of my year, because of those full two weeks, one day was spent by myself. I’ve also contemplated refuting generous offers by host family to walk the dog on the beach at 9:00 in a frigid Danish winter, because I felt lonely and wanted to succumb, on that particular night, to all my worries and irritations as an exchange student. Some nights I went, some nights I realized that I am allowed to be human and take a night off.
One day in September my host dad asked me if I wanted to go to a grocery store with him, with an excessive amount of enthusiasm. Honestly, how can one be so enthusiastic about a grocery store. That is one memory that I still associate with this example, a perfect example of why you should say yes. Turns out this grocery store was this giant private grocery store for private vendors only, with the biggest freezers and MISSION TORTILLAS which, if you’re from The United States, and like Tex-Mexican food, you know mission.
And a year later, I stepped into the big freezer at work back home to grab something for out front at the register, and it actually took me aback. I had to pause for a couple seconds because I all of a sudden thought “wow this reminds me of grocery shopping with my host dad.”
Say yes to everything. - Eat Everything. Honestly words cannot properly describe the amount of times that I came up with newfound plans and revelations to “lose the exchange weight,” while I was on exchange. Especially in the latter half of my year. It never happened. I continued to eat. Frikadeller, ringriderpølse, hakabøf… nachos med kylling, ice blended coffees. Don’t even get me started on all the Danish pastries I ate. Kanelsnegle, marzipan, (surprisingly not too much flødeboller). The food from the kantine at school, tuna salad sandwiches with jalapeños, and then my favorite chokoladeboller. Was it worth it, to eat all my favorite food in one year, that I knew I’d have limited access to back home? Sort of. Granted, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel hella self conscious at times amongst all the thin and attractive Danes. It probably didn’t help that I was broke and could afford little of what Denmark had to offer.
In hindsight though, perhaps I could have afforded something if it weren’t for my food consumption.
Eat your favorite foods while you can (perhaps I overdid it on the Nutella for something I have in The United States though…) - KEEP YOUR EXPERIENCES A PART OF YOU. If you have a blog, don’t neglect it, or delete it, or forget about it, USE IT. MAKE SURE IT GETS USED. DO NOT LET IT COLLECT DUST. If you just cannot stand the idea of blogging, you hate it, you don’t want any extra responsibilities, journal your experiences. Do both. Just write it somewhere. Someday your exchange year will all just be memories, and you want to be able to keep those memories a part of you, forever.
I have three unfinished journals all for different purposes, a scrapbook of ticket stubs from every ticket I kept, which was almost all of them, and a scrapbook given to me as a gift from a host family. Not to mention my exchange blog, and an abundance of unwritten, or poorly written, or written and ready to publish “blog posts,” that are currently sitting idol on my computer. - Live in the moment. Living your year is easiest when you feel you have an abundance of time, infinite time, time to kill. Take it from us, the rebounds, the ones who have lived through the last week of our exchange year more specifically, that it’s terribly hard to “live” when you have an impending expiration date.
- Do not talk yourself into believing that your exchange year is easy. I know from much personal experience, 327 days of personal experience in fact, that most everything on exchange feels terribly easy while you’re living in the moment. And with everyone saying “an exchange year is not easy,” it’s easy to talk yourself into believing that you’re doing something wrong.
And I want you to know you’re not. While you’re reading this, you may be feeling terribly lonely, or tired, or homesick. You may feel you like you’re running away from responsibilities by not making friends. Or running away from responsibilities because you sit in your room half the time because you don’t feel at home with your host family.
Your utmost challenge, and your utmost responsibility, is simply getting through your year alive. And as long as you’re not booking your airline ticket back home right now, you’re fulfilling your responsibilities, and your overall duty as an exchange student.
Right now, you might not even realize how emotionally exhausting this year is for you in the moment. Believe me, you’re not living anything easy right now, but you’re also not doing anything wrong. Breathe a little bit, and let yourself feel some relief. - Do not regret your regrets on exchange. Do not. Impressions and judgments aside, I wrote, multiple times in my journal “I’m afraid I regret going on an exchange.” I vowed that those words never be uttered out loud to anyone else, and to be honest, I couldn’t even blatantly state it on a piece of paper. I had to write “I’m afraid that I regret it,” as though the possibility for me to change my mind was still there. I couldn’t simply write “I regret my year.” I felt terrible for ever thinking that I regretted a single part of it.
And now it’s on my blog, for the whole world to see. All my Facebook friends, Rotarians that sponsored my exchange, host families, future exchange students, etc. Why? Because I no longer regret my regrets. Because I was human, and my thoughts were legitimate for what I was pushing myself through, and it wasn’t until I was home that I could view my year from the outside looking in again.
And I now realize how much my year truly benefited me, and how much I grew, in times I even felt like I was on a growth decline. I know now that there will never be a reason to regret my exchange year. And furthermore, that there’s not a doubt in my mind that it was one of the best years of my life.
However, in realizing that there was no reason to have regretted my year, I am also adamant in that I still don’t regret my regrets. As you all shouldn’t either. You’re only human. You’re doing extraordinary things at only 17 or 18 years of age, and it’s not like it’s easy. - This is one of the best years of your life. If you don’t think it is “The best year of your entire life,” and that is gnawing on your brain right now, I applaud you.
My exchange year was an amazing year. What made it amazing? The growth. The love I received from families and friends. The trials and tribulations, days where I had to force myself out of bed and nights where I had to keep myself out of my room. And most importantly, the gratitude I developed by the time my year was over.
The party stories, the language stories, the travel stories, are not what makes it the best. Do I still like reminiscing on those crazy exchange stories that we all love to tell our friends? Yes. But those moments are all just small things in the midst of the big picture.
And right now, while you’re worried, and homesick, lonely, tired, etc, you may not realize how much you’re growing and how much you’re benefitting. So if you don’t think it’s the best year ever yet, that’s alright. Scratch that off your list of worries. I promise you that you’ll feel differently two weeks, or one week before you leave your host country. Or one week or two weeks after you’ve returned from your host country. You’ll feel differently when you’re witnessing your own growth, and when you’re back on the outside, looking in again. - Don't worry about how fast you're learning the language. Perhaps you've heard some rebounds say "I was fluent by December." And now it's November 17th and you might be thinking "What the heck, I only have thirteen days to be fluent."
Stop. Pause. If you're not even close to being fluent, so what. If you are fluent, or close to it, congratulations.
I held myself to the "fluent by December standard" based upon those reports. And despite that standard, I didn't consider myself "fluent" until maybe March. I'm not kidding, I made a countdown and called it "fluent in Danish," and watched the time tick until New Years which was my goal. That was sure one pointless countdown, and look at me, I'm still alive.
Don't stress, everyone will learn the language at different times and different paces, and to different capacities.
Repeat after me: You have no reason to worry.
