Feelings

I thought I would write a post about my feelings and what I have been experiencing here. I will start from the beginning of my exchange, but I won't do too much detail. Just enough so that you can understand what I was feeling. If you are wondering why I am doing this. It is because I want to give everyone an inside look on what it is like during the first months of exchange. And also so I can reflect as I look back on my exchange five or ten years down the road.

I was afraid, nervous, excited, tired, and anxious. One could imagine having to fly to a new country to live for 50 weeks, live with complete strangers (which in the end they may consider family and would do anything for them), go to a school with people and a language that they have never used or seen before, changing their lifestyle to be like everyone else, and not be able to see loved ones. Before I had envied exchange students. They had left their home country to do the exact same thing as me. Now that I have the chance, I was definitely going to seize it.

As I saw my parents with their exchange student, I felt jealous. He is staying with my parents, sleeping in my room and bed, doing the things I used to do, going to the school I have gone to my whole life, seeing my best friends, and living my life, but with some differences. I never knew I would feel like this. Seeing him on Skype with my parents made me cry. I wanted to be there more than anything. I wanted to see and hug my parents. I wanted see my friends and family. I cried because of being jealous. I feel like it is over nothing, but I know it is because I miss my life and everything that came with it.

School is hard. No matter what country you are in. I thought Sweden might be a little better with it because of me speaking English and most students in foreign countries are studying English. And it could help me improve my Swedish and improve their English. Well I was completely wrong. Almost no one at my school talks to or wants anything to do with me. I mostly just go to school, learn, sometimes eat lunch, and then go home to do nothing. Sometimes I go out to lunch with people from my class, but that has only happened twice in the past month and a half. When I get home, I do online classes, study for school, watch tv with my host family, eat dinner, and go up to my room to do more work before going to bed. I think I have cried over not having friends to do things like I used to do back in the States more than twenty or thirty times. I don't really cry that much. Maybe two or three times a year. So I have cried enough so far to last for the next ten years.

There are some days where I just want to call the agency that booked my flight and tell them that I want the next flight home. Other days I feel like I am on top of the world and nothing could break me down. I wish my exchange was like most of the others that came here to Sweden. They have it easier because they are closer to each other and have more time to go to see each other. I wish that I could just talk a five or ten minute bus ride to go and see some people that I know. But I can't. The closest person to me is a forty-five minute bus ride away.

Right now I wish I could just go home. I wouldn't care if it was for a day or if it was forever. It honestly sucks to be on exchange for me right now. I hear about everyone that I have met from my own district back in the United States and as well as the exchange students that I have met here in Sweden and how much fun they are having with new friends or even getting to see one another. It makes me upset and want to go home even more. Also this is the time of year when candy corn and pumpkins, sweatshirts, pants, Thanksgiving, my birthday, and hunting season all start to come into play. And I love the fall time in Vermont. Its beautiful and breathtaking. But the advantage I have is Sweden is a lot like Vermont.