I knew that becoming an exchange student would be hard...but NO one ever told be about all of the awkward and embarrassing moments I would have
EVERY single day.
Life as the Foreign Exchange Student is
REALLY awkward. I may not enjoy all of the awkward moments very much while they are happening to me...but when I think about it, I cant help but wonder how hilarious these moments look to everyone else around me; and I always laugh when I look back at everything that happens to me day by day.
For those of you that have known me before my exchange, you all know that I am
REALLY good at laughing at myself; and I don't get upset very easily...Which is honestly the perfect mindset to have as an exchange student. Sometimes it IS hard to laugh at yourself in these situations...but in the end you just have to do it, because they happen, and that's just life. :)
I decided to make another little list and talk about just a FEW of all of the awkward moments I have every single day. There isn't really any order...but all of these happen to me pretty frequently:
1.) Walking into the WRONG classroom.
I CANT tell you HOW many times this happens, even though I know my way around the school pretty well. I often find myself randomly walking into a classroom, and just standing in the doorway as everyone in the class is looking at me. I think to myself, "Who ARE these people?!" And then I realize that I am in the wrong room, so I slowly back away out of the classroom, and shut the door and leave...
This one generally isn't TOO awkward, more as it is just plain embarrassing.
2.) Getting on the WRONG bus.
Luckily for me, this one doesn't happen too often anymore...But I never realize I am on the wrong bus until towards the end of the bus route when I have NO idea where I am. Its pretty obvious as well, because im randomly looking everywhere with a super confused facial expression while everyone around is just staring at me, trying to figure out whats wrong with this girl who has been on the bus for almost the ENTIRE route, and is now randomly looking all over place trying to figure out whats going on.
Its nice to know im not alone with this one when I see another exchange student chasing down a bus, only to realize that when the bus stops, and after they walk up to it that its the wrong bus; so they awkwardly try to play it cool like nothing ever happened, as they walk away from the bus, and the bus starts driving off again...Sadly, this is actually halarious (when it DOESNT happen to you.).
Of course I have been guilty of this as well, and it is VERY embarrassing because not only EVERYONE on the bus can see you...but EVERYONE else in the general area can see you! You cant pretend it just didnt happen, because its pretty obvious to everyone that you just ran after a bus waving your hands around, and you DIDNT get on it after it stopped...
3.) Not understanding what someone said even after they already repeated themselves several times...
I have given myself a limit of getting 3 chances to understand what someone has said to me. I feel as though saying, "What?" ANY more than 3 times is just WAY too many. But unfortunately, sometimes even after 3 times, I STILL don't understand what people are saying!
So...what do I do?!
I honestly pretend to know what they said, and just reply with something and hope that my answer is passable.
However, sometimes it gets even
MORE awkward if my answer
DOESNT make sense, because its
VERY obvious that what I said didn't make ANY sense based on someone's facial expression.
But the
MOST awkward thing that can happen in this situation is when my answer doesn't make sense, and they don't say
ANYTHING about the nonsence that I just said...They just nod and smile, and look
SUPER confused.
This makes me want to just hide under a blanket every time, because I know that they are trying to be polite and nice to me for trying, because my Finnish is SO terrible...But I cant help but wonder if the conversation sounds anything like this:
"What did you do today?"
"Yes...I like that."
or even:
"Hey, what did you do last weekend?"
"No, I haven't eaten that before..."
Of course when I speak, I sound MUCH more like a caveman...but in some ways im glad that I cant hear what I sound like when the conversation goes completely wrong. :P
4.) When I don't realize when someone asks me a question.
Finnish is a very monotone language, and your tone of voice doesn't go up when someone asks you a question like it does in English; and if anything the tone of voice actually goes down when asking a question.
It was VERY hard for me to understand at first when someone was asking me a question, because it sounds just like any other sentence. Sometimes when people talk fast, I don't catch that they asked me a question...
This can be an awkward situation, because while they are waiting for an answer; im standing there trying to figure out why they all of a sudden they stopped talking and why they are just looking at me!
In some ways, I guess its actually even MORE awkward when I cant tell wether or not someone asked me a question, so I honestly just reply with, "Oh yeah...hehe." and hope with ALL of my might and strength that it wasn't a question!
This can also go either way, because if it
WASNT a question, then you are
VERY, VERY lucky...but if it
WAS a question, generally people always say to me, "Uhmm...did you understand?"
That's when the conversation goes south and it gets very awkward...
5.) When people don't understand a word I say to them.
My Finnish REALLY isn't very good, but I try my best. I try to speak Finnish most of the time when people talk to me; but sometimes it doesn't exactly go as planned...
There are always situations at LEAST once a day when NO ONE understands what I say, but everyone is either too afraid to correct me or no one tells me that they didn't understand anything. Everyone I was talking to just all looks at me with blank faces and replies with, "Yeah haha..." or they just awkwardly laugh and nod.
This situation is SUPER embarrassing and it happens literally at least ONCE a day!
I KNOW when they are pretending to understand what I said, because thats what I do at least 80% of the time...its pretty embarassing when no one can understand what you say, but they dont tell you, so instead they just pretend to understand in order to be nice to for your horrible langauge skills!
6.) When I dont understand a joke, and I am the only one not laughing.
This situation is ALSO super awkward, and it happens A LOT.
Someone tells a joke, and everyone I am sitting by all of a sudden starts cracking up laughing, and I am just sitting there with a straight face because I had NO idea what was going on, and I didnt even know someone said something funny.
I always feel like an emotionless robot in this situation; and while everyone else is laughing, I just sit there like this, ".......".
It probably makes the situation awkward for everyone else around me as well, because then they look over at me, and realize that I probably didn't understand ANY of it and it kind of kills the whole joke, and just makes It awkward for everyone. :(
7.) When someone repeates directions to me English, and I still don't understand.
This one
HAS to be one of the
MOST embarrassing of all!
When I speak in Finnish or listen to other people speaking in Finnish for a long period of time, I cant just automatically switch back into English. I cant really explain it...
I guess its like my brain is in a different mode, and it just doesn't work like a light switch where you can just switch between English and Finnish. So a lot of the time I actually cant understand what someone is saying if they just start speaking English after I have been speaking or hearing nothing but Finnish for a long or continuous period of time.
This makes for some awkward moments...
Here's a story that happened last week as an Example:
It was the first day of my music class, and the teacher counted us off into groups. I had been speaking Finnish all morning prior to my music class, and I didn't hear where my group was. After everyone got into their groups, I went up and asked the teacher where my group was. I turn around, and not only is everyone looking at me, but I have to walk to the BACK of the room where my group was, and on the way to my group, I trip over a chair!
(That was the back story...Now comes the embarrassing part.)
One of the members in my group tried to explain to me in English what we were supposed to do, and I couldn't understand what he was saying so I kept on saying, "What?" and he repeated himself, and then handed me our group's laptop.
EVERYONE just stared at me, as I kind of looked at the laptop, and then again at everyone else in my group. I sat there waiting for my group to tell me what to do, but we all just sat in awkward silence... Eventually, the boy who explained the assignment to me in English, just slowly took the laptop away from me, and my group just did the whole assignement without me...
Needless to say, I was SUPER embarrassed.
8.) When you cant tell if someone is talking to you, because you dont understand what they are saying.
Every once in awhile, I hear someone on the street, or in the hallway talking SUPER loud in my general direction; and I literally cant tell what is going on, or who the person is talking to...
I generally stop walking, and look super confused and a little creeped out; until I finally realize that they indeed were NOT talking to me...
Sometimes its a bit scary depending on the situation, and I look pretty stupid, because im walking and im just doing my own thing, and then all of a sudden, out of the blue, I just stop and I look SUPER confused for awhile, and then I start walking again.
I dont even want to know what I look like from someone else´s point of view in this situation...
9.) When you finally understand the teacher....but she is talking about YOU.
I get REALLY excited when I can understand what the teacher is saying! ...But unfortunatly, sometimes what I understand isnt what I had in mind!
One situation I have been in several times, is when the teacher asks the class if anyone wants to sit next to me, but EVERYONE just stays where they are and looks at me...
This one is REALLY, REALLY embarassing because usually the teacher also says to the class, "She doesnt speak any Finnish" or, "Does anyone speak English?" or, "Who wants to sit by the Exchange Student?"
I CAN understand what the teacher just said...and its SUPER embarassing!
I really dont know what to do in this situation while everyone in the class is just looking at me...and a lot of the time I honestly find myself just pretending not to understand what the teacher says when she asks this, because its just TOO embarrassing...
10.) When you mishear what someone said, and you end up looking like an idiot.
This situation happens at least ONCE everyday, and to best explain it, ill give you a two examples:
Example 1:
My host dad was asking me if what we were eating was the
same ("
Sama". But if you add the ending, "ko" to the end of the word, it makes it a question.) as it was back home in the USA, and I thought he said the Finnish word for "
Frog" (
Sammakko).
So I thought I heard the words,
"Food" "
Eat" and
"FROG!"
You can tell where this conversation went...And I have to say that my host family STILL laughs about this! :(
Example 2:
I was with my host family in Lapland, sitting in a house, and my host dad tried asking me a question. I didn't hear him, so I said, "What?" and he repeated it for me, but I still couldn't understand. I said, "What?" AGAIN, and he repeated it for me for a third time, but I STILL didn't understand.
EVERYONE in the room was looking at me, and I didn't know what to do...
My first thought for some reason was to point at the ceiling...DONT ask me why; for some reason it was my best comeback for not understanding what he was asking me!
Not a moment later, the WHOLE room starts laughing at me!!!!
How embarrassing....
I cant even tell you WHY I did that...EVERYONE was just looking at me, waiting for a reply, and I didn't know what to do!!!
Gahhhh...I guess we all have our moments. :(
11.) Not knowing if doors are "PUSH" or "PULL"
Let me just say, that this happens EVERY.SINGLE.DAY!!!!!
I can NEVER tell if I am supposed to
PUSH the door or
PULL it to open it...its HORRIBLE!
Its horrible because all of the doors at my school are this way, and its pretty embarassing when people look at me weird because I cant figure out how to open the stupid door! To tell you the truth...I actually can NEVER open the restroom door at the library, because I CANT remember wether the door is a PUSH or PULL...and so I stand there for a few seconds until I finally realize which one it is...
I guess we all have our embarassing moments...
It makes me feel a lot better about myself when I see the other exchange students at my school have the same daily struggle of not knowing if the door is PUSH or PULL; but its pretty embarassing because everyone stares at you.
12.) When people dont realize you´re the foreign exchange student.
Lets just say, this would be a GREAT compliment if I could speak Finnish...
But unfortunatly, its SUPER embarassing because when people dont realize that im the Foreign Exchange Student, they often times confuse my lack of language skills with complete stupidity.
AND...This actually happened today!!!
I was in my class, and we had to get into groups. There were only 3 other people in my class, and the teacher told us to go sit in a group. I wasnt sure how the groups were working, so I just kind of sat and watied...
The other kids in the class were already in a group on the otherside of the room awkardly waiting, and the teacher told me again in Finnish to go over and sit with the group; and so I did.
When I got there, they went right into doing the assignement, and I just kind of sat there awkwardly not understanding ANYTHING that was going on.
I didnt know that the assignment was, and I had NO idea what they were saying...I didnt know what to do, so I just kind of sat there facing everyone and tried my best to listen.
Sometimes they would pause, stop talking, and then kind of look at me...and then they would start talking again about the assignement.
Eventually I guess they finished the assingment or something, because they started talking to the teahcer. I didnt understand much of what they said, but I understood this part of the conversation:
"Uhmmm...shes the Foreign Exchange Student."
AND then everyone in the group reacted like this:
"WHAT!? SHES A FOREIGN EXCHANGE STUDENT!? ....oh."
I actually wanted to die of embarassment RIGHT then and there because it was SO embarassing!
I cant help but wonder what people think when they dont know that im the Exchange Student, and im just sitting there with a blank facial expression and not knowing whats going on...
I dont think I want to know...
Although NONE of these moments are very enjoyable while they are happening, I know that they are all a part of being an exchange student. (At least for me...) They make great memories, and funny stories- and I wouldnt take back ANY of these moments for the world! (Which may be hard to believe, because some of these situations are VERY, VERY embarassing!!!!)
Hopefully other exchange students dont have as many embarassing moments as I do everyday, but I have to say that they are the best memory makers I have right now on my exchange. :)
