This was stolen from someone else's blog which was stolen from a quote. Anyways, think this is awesome!
"Exchange is change. Rapid, brutal, beautiful, harmful, colorful, amazing, unexpected, overwhelming, and most of all constant. Change in lifestyle, country, language, friends, parents, houses, school, simply everything.
Exchange is realizing everything they told you before hand was wrong, but also right in a way.
Exchange is going from thinking you know who you are to having no idea who you are anymore to being someone new. But not entirely new. You are still the person you were before you jumped into that ice cold lake. You know how it feels like to be on your own. Away from home, with no one you really know. And you find out that you can actually do it.
Exchange is learning to trust. Trust people who, at first, are only names on a piece of paper, trust that they want the best for you, that they care. Trust that you have the strength to endure a year on your own, endure a year of being apart from everything that mattered to you before. Trust that you will have friends. Trust that everything's going to be alright. And it is seeing this trust being justified.
Exchange is thinking. All the time. About everything. Thinking about those strange costumes, the strange food, the strange language. About why you're here and not back at home. About why you're here and not back at home. How that girl is going to react when you see her again. About who's hanging out where this weekend. At first who's inviting you at all. And in the end where you're supposed to go, when you're invited to ten different things. About how everybody at home is doing. About how stupid this whole time-zone thing is. Not only because of home, but also because the TV ads for shows keep confusing you. Thinking about what's right and what's wrong. About how stupid or rude you just were to someone without meaning to be. About the point of all this. About the sense of life. About who you want to be, what you want to do. And about when that English essay is due, even though your marks don't count. About whether you should go home after school, or hang out at someone's place until midnight. Someone you didn't even know a few months ago. And about what the hell that guy just said.
Exchange is people. Those incredibly strange people, who look at you like you're an alien. Those people who are too afraid to talk to you. And those people who actually talk to you. Those people that know your name, even though you have never met them. Those people who tell you who to stay away from. Those people that talk about you behind your back, those people that make fun of your country. All those people who aren't worth your giving a damn. Those people you ignore. And those people that invite you to their homes. Who keep you sane. Who become your friends.
Exchange is music. New music, cool music, weird music, music you will remember all your life as the soundtrack of your exchange. Music that will make you cry because all of those lyrics express exactly how you feel, so far away. Music that will make you feel like you could take on the whole world. And it is music you make. With the most amazing musicians you've ever met. It is sight reading a thousand pages just to be part of the school band.
Exchange is uncomfortable. It's feeling out of place, like a fifth wheel. It's talking to people you don't like. It's trying to be nice all the time. It's bugs...and bears. It's cold, freezing cold. It's homesickness, it's awkward silence, and it's feeling guilty because you didn't talk to someone at home. Or feeling guilty missing something cause you were talking on Skype.
Exchange is great. It's feeling the connection between you and your host parents grow. It's knowing in which cupboard the peanut butter is. It's meeting new people from all over the world. It's having a place to stay in almost every country in the world. It's getting a new family. One of them being a huge group of the most awesome teenagers in the world. It's cooking food from your home country and not messing it up. It's seeing beautiful landscapes you never knew existed.
Exchange is exchange students. The most amazing people in the whole wide world. Those people from everywhere that know exactly how you feel and those people who become your absolute best friends even though you only see most of them 3 or 4 times during the year. The people who take almost an hour to say their final goodbyes to each other. Those people with the jackets full of pins. All over the world.
Exchange is falling in love. With this amazing and wildly beautiful country. And with your home country.
Exchange is frustrating. Things you can't do, things you don't understand. Thing you say, that mean the exact opposite of what you mean to say. Or even worse...
Exchange is understanding.
Exchange is unbelievable.
Exchange is not a year in your life. It's your life in one year.
Exchange is nothing like you expected it to be, and everything you wanted it to be.
Exchange is the best year of your life. Without a doubt. It's also your worst. Without a doubt.
Exchange is something you will never forget, something that will always be part of you. It is something no one back home with truly understand.
Exchange is growing up, realizing that everybody is the same, no matter where they are from. That there are great people and there are douche bags everywhere. And that it only depends on you for how good or bad your day is going to be. Or the whole year.
And it is realizing that you can be on your own, that you are an independent person. Finally. And it is trying to explain that to your parents.
Exchange is dancing in the rain for no reason, crying without a reason, laughing at the same time. It's a turmoil of every emotion possible, Exchange is everything. And exchange is something you an't understand unless you have been through it."
