Now, Let ME Tell You the Significance of Being an Exchange Student

One thing I realize is that when the sun is smiling at me and so am I. LOL. I mean, when the weather is nice, I'm always pumped up to face the day. That, I realized when I talked to my Ukrainian friend, who easily gets bored. These days, he looks cheerful, most of the time. When I ask him to go out and take pictures, he quickly said yes, "Fresh air! I love it!" he said.

And I also realized this when I read my friend's blog. She's an exchange student hosted in France. Her blog seems more cheerful and in one of her posts, it's obvious that weather is one of the factors. It's almost Spring!

Trust me, when you see snow for like 6 months, you will miss that beautiful sun.

Ok, that paragraph is actually an introduction AND an intermezzo. In this post, I want to write what I feel during my exchange year. Because, I realized that I don't tell you much of what I feel. My posts are mostly stories I observed, events and things that happened.

Looking back to my very first day of school here, until now, I realized that American teenagers are very hard to befriend with, unless you know them your whole life. They've been together since kindergarten and it's no wonder they have built strong bonds, covalent bonds. And I realized that they are living in their own little world. At first, I thought it's because of the language barrier (I don't talk American slangs and let alone northern New York accent) so that I couldn't blend in with the people. I feel this town (including the school) is surrounded by a huge closed bubble. Being a minority in a closed bubble? Wanna bet? I bet you'll cry hard! Probably go crazy and commit suicide (ok, not that extreme please...). One day, I went to Syracuse, a much bigger city, for a conference and saw a lot more diverse people. Then I thought, "I love seeing all these people here."

Nothing occur to me until one day at lunch, one of my friends, she's an American that most of the time disagrees with the American society, said, "I feel sorry for you that you have to live in Canton. It's really boring here. If I were an exchange student, I would hate living in Canton."

But then I answered, "Well, the cities are already full of Asian people. So I would be no use. But in here, I can share something with you guys. (the pressures are on me though, I thought.) I'm thankful that I met you guys!"

They all nodded, "That's true! We're thankful that you are here too!"

My answer was probably the quickest answer I could get at that time. I could've easily answered, "Yeah, I know I'm so unfortunate," but I didn't. When I think about the words I just said, I went, "Oooohhhh!!!"

You think that makes me understand even more about being an exchange student? You betcha!

If I didn't get hosted here;

1) I couldn't have tasted the joy of walking 1 km to school everyday

2) I couldn't have learnt my host parent's favorite recipes and seen their antique cooking tools

3) I couldn't have known that New York does not always mean New York City

4) I couldn't have tried to live in the temperature of -30 C

5) I couldn't have seen the making of maple syrup (my favorite syrup for pancakes)

6) I probably won't have rice cooker and asian foods available

7) I couldn't have observed the life of country people, including the lives of the teens

8) I wouldn't have known who an Amish is and what they do

9) I wouldn't have realized how luxurious my Jakarta life was

10) I wouldn't have realized how great my parents are

11) I wouldn't have met a great English teacher that teaches me American Literature and writing (she was an exchange student too when she was in college)

12) I couldn't have been able to live without TVs, Malls and Cells

13) I couldn't have learnt my host parent's unusual generosity

14) I wouldn't have met my AFS sister, the quietest girl I have ever known but could be fun too

15) I wouldn't have met my AFS besties, my team mates, plus my American besties Emma, Vicky, Elizabeth, Kaitlin, Hillary.

And a lot of other things. My life is pretty much the same here, no big changes or anything. It's just a matter of looking at things from a different perspective. Imagine if my life is still like in Jakarta, I wouldn't possibly get those things. Why cry over things like these?

Talking about friends and besties, I want to tell you that there are also people who talks to me insincerely. Which I'm sick of. They say stuff like, "Hi!", "Bye!", "So, how are you?" , "I like your shirt!", "How do you like it here?"

One sentence, two sentences and that's it. I guess they are actually nice people but they aren't friendly or they don't know what else to say (talk about friendliness, I think Asians are unbeatable). I just smile, you know... not really considering them as someone that means anything to me. Just a Hi-Bye friend.

I didn't think I could hate anything easily. I love food, people, whatever just the same. I never really hated anything. Until that moment. The moment where I realized that most people in here sucks, I hate the teenage life, the society, the town, the weather, I hated everything (except food). Why do I have to be the one who always have to start the conversation? Why are they talking to me insincerely? Why do I have to be the one who have to find out everything that's going on?

I hated it. I was sick of it. Homesickness is the result of a happy home life, and it occurs often in a child who misses the warmth and security that comes from a good relationship with family and friends. (cited from: www.scoutscan.com/resources/homesick.html)

I won't get homesick if the situation here is better than at home. Like when I was in Australia, hell I didn't even want to go home, I felt like I was already Australian. Of course, until this moment, I don't feel like an American at all! But an Indonesian in America. Why? Because the point of this whole thing is for me to be able to think about myself and my country in an outsider's point of view. I opened up my old agenda. The one that I used to write orientation stuff. The diagram of interdependency, the diagram of 'seeing everything beyond the obvious', Kak Imam Prasodjo's recomendation on books to read and movies to watch, our talent show plans, things that I should do before the departure, that agenda really opened up my mind again and reminded me to see this year from a helicopter view.

I went online and read my friends' blogs. They're all different in contents but it calmed me down when I know that I'm not the only one that's suffering from homesickness.

So, I guess homesick is a common thing. Just get over it.

I have about 13 weeks left. A lot of people are worrying over how to bring their 10 pairs of shoes home, what kind of suitcases to bring home, but I'll leave those one out for later. I don't think I'm ready to go home yet. I said yet. I will be, eventually, I think. It's just scary to go back, well it seems scary. I don't know why.

Anyway, today is staff development day which is why I'm not in school. I think I'm gonna go downtown and get some cheesecake and hot chocolate at the blackbird cafe. I have just finished reading "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy (an awesome book) and I've started reading "Predictably Irrational" (an awesome book. Recommended by my father. hehe) and next week, I'll be reading "Skeleton at The Feast" AND meet the author of that book!

At the end of this month, I will be up on stage! Wish me luck...