Hey everyone,
first of all I want to say: I'm sorry for not replying most of you for about a week without a warning or anything, I really am and I will be faster and reply sooner now because I have a lot of time and not much to do.
The reason for me being unable to answer last week is simply because I came back home after one long exchange year that started August 2013 when I flew from Germany to California, not quite knowing what would await me there. All I knew was that I was going to live in an American family, go to an American High School, make new friends, see new places and experience the American way of living. That also meant that I was going to be without my parents, friends, relatives for about a year, take a one year break from school and not walk the familiar streets of the village that I grew up in anymore. But that was okay then and it's okay now, even though many things have changed, most things stayed the same. And the exchange year was one hell of experience - not in a negative way - but I feel like I learned and grew so much as a person, this year will always be remembered and nobody can ever take all the memories from me. I'm so glad I did this but now I'm also happy to be back home. Speaking German still feels kind of weird, I'd rather speak English all day but I'm slowly getting back into my dialect and the slang.
My life in California had its ups and downs, I went through really hard times but I also had great times and made great friends that I'm still in contact with and occasionally skype with or spazz about mvs over Kakaotalk etc. I was hosted in California by a mother and her daughter, both of them seemed very nice and anticipating to live with me in their family since they're both really interested in Germany, the culture and the language. I thought that everything was going well between us but unfortunately my perception didn't match theirs which I had to find out during a family trip to San Francisco in November when my host mother had a panic attack because she thought she had to spend a day alone with me. Turned out that things were not going well at all, there were some cultural misunderstandings but they never told me so I was very surprised when my host sister who has the same age as me took me aside and explained the situation to me. We kind of talked it out and solved the conflict but only superficially and I knew that there was still more. I started to pay more attention to things and soon I realized that I didn't really like their family life because well it didn't really exist. With only two people that are very close to each other there was no need for family meals together or activities but for me as a third person in that family... I felt very excluded and not part of the family at all. The host mother would always introduce me as "their exchange student" when we met people, at night she would cuddle her daughter and say "I love you so much" before turning to me, mumbling a "goodnight Laura". I talked to my liaison from my organization about things like that and me feeling excluded and unhappy, however I didn't get the response I expected. My organization actually blamed me after having a meeting with the host family and told me that I needed to change, not the family and that if I didn't change things, they would send me home. Of course, I tried to make things better and change but on the inside I actually became very depressed. I was in my room too much, sometimes cried at night in my bed and tried to stay in school for as long as possible so that I wouldn't have to be with my host sister and her mother. Things got worse and worse and the absolute low was around Christmas. Christmas time was awful, full of fake happiness, presents and gosh, I missed my family so much... My host sister started talking about me in school, I didn't really have many friends - I'm usually not that shy of a person, but hell, seniors in high school seemed so judgemental! - and just when I thought that I found a good group of friends, she came up to me and said that they're all crazy and stupid, something she said about me behind my back to them. I somehow got over it, I just stopped caring at some point and did my own thing, I had a pretty good friend who was also an exchange student who helped me a lot until my host sister forbade me to talk to her and talked to my organization about how my friend would be the reason why I don't have any American friends which is complete bs but at that time my organization totally believed her and her mom. Anyways, I did cut contact with her but I started hanging out with this other group of friends more, they were American, one girl liked to dance, two were in my core classes and one liked K-Pop! I'm so glad I did stay with them, they are the best friends ever, once I really got to know them I knew that they were friends for life and I'm planning on coming back for them because I love them so much! On the other hand that host "family" I lived in kicked me out in February, the host mother literally kicked me out saying things like "I don't care if you call me a !", "I never wanted you in my family, only in my household but you were never thankful!", "We only wanted to host you because we knew a German exchange student from last year and you had a picture with a guinea pig on your application! You are immature and a burden to our family! You make us sick and stressed out!"
I lived as an orphan for about two weeks, not somewhere on the street but in the house of my liaison, the same one that blamed me before but finally apologized after an angry phone call by previous host "mother" where she showed her real face. My liaison was very sorry but for me it was already too late. You can imagine how I felt. Beyond depressed on the inside but I was also kind of happy that I got out of this and was looking forward to finding a new host family, a family that really unerstands what "family" really means and that was willing to take me in and share this family life with me, someone who wanted me in their family and not their household. Finding a family was hard. I asked around my school for so long, but nobody seemed to have any interest in hosting me, my previous host sister that went to the same school made it even harder, she talked every fellow senior I asked out of hosting me and I almost gave up hope to find some family in my area when suddenly out of nowhere a family called and said they were interested. Long story short, I stayed with them for the last four months of my exchange year and they were a dream family. Two parents and two lovely kids, 9 and 11, a real family opening up their home to host and get to know me! They were like sent from heaven, the time I spent with them went by way too fast, I had so much fun and made great memories, I love them all and I was so sad when I had to say goodbye to them last Sunday... Living with them really made my exchange year somehow and now that I'm back in Germany I realize what a great time I had and how thankful I am to them and my friends for not giving up on me and bringing me through this year with great experiences and memories. I had a hard time at first but those times only made me stronger and able to appreciate the second family I had much more. To all of you too, family is so important and has such a huge impact on your life, you should be glad and thankful to have one. I am and even though I really liked the American one I had for the past four months I'm also glad to be back and have my real family.
Thank you for reading up to here, that's of course just one short little summary of my exchange experience but there is another group of people I have to thank for bringing me through the year... This goes to all the people that I have been roleplaying with since last August, the people here on roleplay republic. THANK YOU. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR BEING THERE FOR ME, even though you didn't know it at that time but roleplaying really helped me to be distracted and forget about my problems for a while, to be happy and think clear again after certain incidents in real life, I always knew that I could rely on you people here and escape into our great stories of the Korean idols we all love.
THANK YOU VERY VERY MUCH to the roleplayers of JONGUP (Calling All K-Pop), PARK HYUNGSEOK (Seoul Academy) & MARK (Proelium)!
I had so much fun roleplaying with you guys, I never thought that I was going to write stories like that, all the stories that I got to write with you guys are unique and have been going on for quite a long time now, I'm so glad that I found you here and want to thank you for being awesome writers and friends, unconciously supporting me and bringing me through the year. Whenever I was unhappy or depressed I knew that I could count on you, I'm sorry for not being active for a week and I hope that we can create more memories and awesome storylines together, once again THANK YOU, I hope you read that because you three are really important to me and I really wanted to tell you that. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.
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