How to (somewhat) Succeed in Being an Exchange Student (with a lot of trying, confusion, and temporary sadness)

Ciao, ragazzi.

This blog post is gonna be a long one, and pretty brutal. I really want to make it known what exchange really feels like when you get down to it. I know for a fact that a ton of exchange students hit a wall as soon as they stepped off of the plane in their host country, and I want to make it known that most of the time, exchange isn't "what dreams are made of"...more like a "can we all stop screaming now i need to study this schoolwork i don't understand and later go try and figure out something i don't understand either".

Let's get down to business.
(TO DEFEAT. THE HUNS.)

but really.

Coming up to exchange, we are prepped out of our minds with everything that could possibly happen during 10 months of being abroad. What to pack, what to wear, what to say, what to do, what to think, what to oppose to, how to react, how to handle, how to deal, how to feel. When we are sitting at home in our pajamas and aimlessly scrolling through our newsfeeds and watching terrible reality television, we are annoyed that we have all of these pamphlets to read and paperwork to fill out and redundant information that was shoved our way since the day we clicked "submit" on our application. We think that everything is so self-explainitory and unnecessary to hear over and over again, and in reality most of it is not that way.

Here's where that wall comes into play. From the first time we lay eyes on our host family, we are thrown into a portal of the life we were "prepared" for but definitely were not. The scenarios in our head of how we thought it would be aren't anything like what reality really is, no matter if the difference is positive or negative. Instantaneously you learn about them: their levels in the languages they speak, the way they talk, the way they laugh, what makes them happy, what makes them mad, how they treat each other, how they show affection, what their sense of humor is like, what their expectations are, what they like, what they don't like, literally, we are tossed into learning everything at once.

Not knowing anything, let alone everything, is one of the most terrifying things to experience. It's basically a constant struggle of not knowing whether to laugh, nod, respond, be shocked, try to make a joke, or do nothing whatsoever. So we just sit there and try not to be a nuisance because we're terrified of making a bad first impression on who we think will be our family for the next 290 some days.

After the atrocity of confusion that becomes complete reality (aka the first night), you are thrown into the cycle. THE CIIIIIRCLE OF LIIIIIIFE. The circle of life your host family lives every day but you have never lived once. It's a fantastic feeling (I say sarcastically) to have your head pop off the pillow and just think to yourself, "oh no. oh nonono. did I sleep too late? What do I wear? should I even get dressed or just go out in my pajamas? do I wear shoes? do I comb my hair? should I put makeup on today? is anyone else awake? should I get breakfast by myself? what if they've already eaten? what if they're still asleep? ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod". So you get up and thankfully they're still up, and you sit down just for the next wave of reality to roll in.

You've never eaten breakfast in an Italian home. What do you do? How much do you eat? What do you eat? Where are the mugs? bowls? spoons? plates? where's the food? Are you allowed to drink coffee? Do you drink the milk after your cereal? Should you wash my silverware after you're done or just leave it in the sink/table?

Literally, and I do mean literally this time, you know NOTHING.

For me, knowing nothing is petrifying. I'm that kid in your class that knows what will happen before it even does, has dates marked on her calendar for next school year, knows how to work every appliance known to any citizen of the USA, can probably tell you more about your schedule than you can yourself, but can't figure out how to open a damn cereal box in Italy.

Until you're settled, you're turned into a babbling idiot. You can't do anything by yourself. Most of the time, you can't even speak for yourself without a translator or having to force the person to repeat themselves 174 times. You're asking 7 and 8 year olds how to work a shower, how to cross the street, how to work a television remote, where to sit at dinner, etc., when they are expecting you to be a lot smarter than you can be when you are here.

Bringing me to my next point. If you have to switch families for any of an assortment of reasons while abroad, you don't get a chance to be able to settle in one place. You go from Gateway City to Host Country to Host Family to Temporary Family to New Host Family, and you can do all of that in under three weeks. But, let's throw in school and actually having to be social and recall everything that you learned 4+ months ago so the teachers can understand where you are in your education and aren't actually an idiot (and you just weren't taught what they were learning). So we have (simultaneously) school, social life, Italian life, American life, exchange life, all to throw in at one time with no rest from any of them.

You must understand that no matter how fluent someone is in a language, doesn't mean they can understand you. Comprehension is different than understanding. You don't know struggle until you build up the courage to tell someone you care for something extremely difficult, and have them comprehend you, but not understand you. Google translate is trash for both of these things. That difference is basically the difference between life and death; either making everything so much better, or making everything so much worse. What's a good victory story without getting worse, though?

Point being through this whirlpool of information that there is no rest for an exchange student. There is always something being done, being put off, needing done, etc. From talking to other exchange students and reading blogs, it seems like we all have had that day around noon-ish where we just lose it sitting on a bidet in a select location and crying about our life and where we are at the exact moment. I haven't got a name for this. Bidet syndrome? Bidet depression? PTSB (post-traumatic stress bidet)? But anyways, we honestly had no idea what we were going into when we clicked "submit" on that application and we didn't have a way of knowing. We are voluntarily lost.

Don't let this scare you. I am legitimately happy. I'm happy because through the past 22 days I was pushed to my limits and I came out on the other side, stronger than I have ever been, and ready to face more. It's only been 22 days and I have 270 some more, and I feel ready and good about them. I know my strengths and I know my weaknesses. My weakness is my language, my strength is my determination. Strength is also strength, and if you can convince yourself you have enough of it, you're invincible.

All throughout the past three weeks, I would ask myself at my hardest times if I wanted to go back home to America. The answer was always, "no". No matter how much you miss something, sometimes determination and strength can overrule that completely. It's awesome how the human mind works. It's amazing how your inner strengths and wants just demand to be noticed in everyday life. Life is just astonishing in itself.

This blog post was deep.

Sometimes, you're just able to sit around and life comes to you in your thoughts, and you learn to appreciate it so much. And that's why I love being an exchange student.