Exchange in USA

Túto “úvahu” (?) vytvoril môj kamarat z Brazílie, ktorého som stretol v NYC na študentskej orientácii. Ak si chcete precitat nejaké ceľkom pekné myšlienky a precvičiť svoju angličtinu, tento článok je aj pre vás :).

Exchanging… giving up on your family, your friends, your girlfriend, your dog, your bed, your life for a long period of time and not being sure about what is going to happen when you are away… Exchange isn’t easy. It isn’t just like a normal experience… Exchange is about learning. It’s not as simple as learning something that you were taught at school or by your parents. It’s learning by yourself.
It’s about learning how to listen, how and when to speak, how and about what to think. It’s learning about when to make a decision, choosing (or not) who you want to hang out with, learning who you are.
It’s learning about what you think that is really important to you and what you don’t give a sh!t damn about. Exchanging is learning about how to tolerate, how to accept, how to like and how to love… and unfortunately, sometimes you have to learn how to be heartbroken and that sucks wherever you are. Learning how to give as well as receive, and how to trust that everything will get even on its own…sooner or later. Give some time to the time.
It’s about looking forward for a weekend and miss the week that just went by. It’s about remembering your mom’s and dad’s advices… and see that they actually ARE important…Exchanging is about learning to treat people as people, not as “stereotypes” or “cliques” (even though that is really hard in Hawley… unfortunately). Learning that sometimes a simple kiss isn’t just a quite as simple and sometimes it means less or nothing at all. To try to achieve, how to try to succeed, how to try to accomplish. Now take off the “try to” out of the past sentence and that is what you are really learning, how to get tough, stronger, smarter, a better person.
It’s about learning that you don’t have to do things you don’t want to just to look “cool”. Is to find a new person deep inside you… yourself. Exchange is about learning that large parties don’t necessarily mean a good time. Learning that loneliness doesn’t go away in a crowd, and that sometimes it’s okay to be by yourself on a Friday or Saturday night. Only SOMETIMES! haha
It’s about learning that your lunchtime buddies don’t constitute your popularity, and that popularity is all a matter of perspective… It’s about learning that it is much better being the way you are. If you aren’t “popular”, it’s okay. If people think you are a “weirdo”, that’s alright. At least you are being yourself… and you get much more from everything by doing that.’
Exchange is about learning how to pack a bag, and how to bring back that same bag… it seems like the bag was cut in a half, but you can still squish your new things… and the majority these new items are inside you. It’s about learning that people [probably] like you a whole lot more than they’ll ever tell you, and that it’s your responsibility to make sure your friends know how much you appreciate them, even though I am not that good at this point. It’s about learning how to chose wisely, how to make the bad choice and still get good experiences from it. It’s about understanding more your friends and recognizing that you are wrong. It’s about seeing the girl you love grinding with other guy and get hurt. You can still take something out of it.
Exchanging is about learning… learning that not being flexible and doing only what you are supposed to do isn’t enough. It’s about learning how to make people smile, or at least try to. Exchanging is about learning how to miss people enough to not stick them in the past, and how to not miss them that much that it keeps you from moving into the future… and the future is already here!
Learning that sometimes you need to motivate yourself and feel good when trying to motivate others. It’s about learning 25 different ways of saying ‘we had sex,’ and how to swear in all the different languages of the other exchange students (You don’t need to get pissed Miri). It’s about learning that bros > hoes. It’s about learning that girls are just like parking spots… the good ones are always taken. Exchange is about learning. Learning how to live.

Zi

P.S: P.S’s are cool. We don’t have that in Brazil . I just wanted to thank you all for being nice to me. Thank everyone that I don’t even talk with, just looking at watching what you do/act is already a really good experience for me. The Senior retreat was AWESOME… It made me think about all I went through here and what I got from it. Thanks for those who read this note. Thank you all

P.S 2 : The people I tagged in this note are people who I have a lot of respect for. And I will come back Fo sho.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 at 3:11 am and is filed under Blog, Zážitky z USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.