uncensored

What is the first words that come to your mind when you hear the words “exchange student”?  The answer will undoubtably be different for each person depending on what his experiences have been.  I have not conducted a formal (or even informal) survey, but my guess most people (read: those who have not been exchangers) would give an answer possibly including the words: fun, exciting, adventurous, once-in-a-lifetime, unique, interesting etc. Generally positive words.  (If I missed some, please comment and let me know what your thoughts are in response to this question.)  Ask a current or past exchanger and you will get a lot of the same words (life-long friends will also be said).  However, words such as “emotional, hard, growth, exhaustion, loneliness, extreme sadness, tears, too many good-byes, and extremes” will likely be said as well.  In short, being an exchanger is not all fun and games.

Don´t get me wrong, there are a lot of amazing aspects of exchange and I believe the world would benefit if more young people had an experience like this.  Even though there are times I wish I was home, I wouldn´t give up these 10 months for anything.  They are forcing me to grow emotionally in a ways I could not if I was at home.  After my time in Turkey is finished, I know that I will remember it as a very important time, a time I learned more than I knew was possible.

Still, I feel a certain obligation to reveal what an exchangers life is…at least what my life has been like since August 31, 2010.  Allow me just to get straight to the meat of the topic.  Sometimes this life can only be described with one word: crap.  Now, those who know me also know that I don´t throw words around without having them mean something.  Read the sentence again and consider.  There have been times in the past 4 1/2 months (and there will be more in the 5 1/2 months ahead) when I want to call an AFS person and say, “I´m done.  I want to go home.  This experience is not worth the pain I am going through right now.”  Obviously, I did not make that decision and don´t plan on it.  But I will not deny having the thought. 

I realize that this post may be just a bit depressing for family members/friends to read or a bit discouraging fo hopeful exchangers to hear.  Don´t be depressed.  Don´t be discouraged.  There are a lot of really good times.  They outshine the bad ones by far.  However, that does not mean the hard times don´t exsist.  They do. 

So.  What is the moral of this post?  Realize even though something may look fun and effortless from the outside, it can still be hard.  More importantly, someone can appear from the outside to be perky and happy when in reality, he/she is having a really hard day.  Remember to be kind.

Just a note: I wrote this while in a good mood.  This was not an outlet for present sadness.  If I really was sad now, this post would have been very sad and would not have helped me at all.  Right now I am good.  In fact, today at school I made a list of all the good things in my life.  Maybe that can be the next post…