That Awkward Moment

I remember last year, sitting at Rotary Oreintations with all of the other Outbound Students while we talked about things like Culture Shock, and Hosickness, and Learning a New Language- and all that fun stuff.

I remember a Rotarian telling us that if our Exchange didnt have ups and downs ALL time time, and that if it only stayed neutral, that we werent experiencing our exchange year correctly...

And this is what I wanted to post about...

those crazy ups and downs.

Now, I DONT want you all thinking that I am homesick, or having a bad time, or just plainly hating life...because that is TOTALLY not the case! (I just always post about the ups, and never about the downs- and I think that this is an important thing to address as an Exchange Student.)

As an Exchange Student, the first few months are GLORIOUS...ABSOLUTLY glorious.

Everything is new.

Everything is different. 

Everyone is speaking a different language. 

You see things and do things you have never done before. 

Its just glorious!

But then as things get into routine, and everything settles in...you experience a pretty bad low. (Or at least I did.) It wasnt that I was homesick, or that I missed a lot of things from home, or that I was talking to my friends from home too much or anything like that...I just cant really explain it, or WHY I was feeling so low.

I guess I was kind of always trying to speak Finnish, and listen to Finnish, and try to do my school work in Finnish. I had to translate all of my notes, so I was doing all of my school work TWICE in a day; and I just never really got a break.

As all of this is happening, you feel like you always have to be super happy, and smiling, and interesting...because you just want to fit the profile of a typical exchange student.

I thought I would make a post about this phase of Exchange, because I know that many other exchange students from my home district are also going through this. It has been hitting us all at different times, and to different degress..and I am offically one of the LAST ones to get to this phase. 

I thought it was never going to hit me...but alas, I was wrong. :/

I decided to post kind of about what other exchange students (and myself) have gone through during this phase, and kind of talk about it through my point of view as well as others. 

1.) You are tired all the time.

I am actually naturally just tired all the time in my home country, so I guess this is something I would experience either way! 

You are always speaking another language, and going to school in another langauge, and EVERYTHING around you is just moving fast, and it doesnt stop. 

You are trying to study this foriegn language, and trying to speak it all the time...and while you are doing this, you are still trying to be the always-happy foreign exchange student; who is absolutly exhausted all the time.

And in Finland, the sun sets really early- so its dark a lot of the time, which doesnt really help you to stay awake. 

(I was actually SO tired once after translating all of my notes from school, that I went to bed at 7.30.)

2.) You use social media/ skype a lot. 

 

I have only skyped home once, however I know that some other exchange students probably skype more that I do.

I HAVE been guilty about using facebook..but its hard to explain because I dont actually talk with a whole lot of people from home. (AGAIN, I apologize to any of my friends from home who read this...) 

I think the reason why I use it so much, is because I really dont have very many people to hang out with in my Host Country yet, and things are still settling in at school and what not. 

During this stage in Exchange, you are just kind of bored and you dont really have hobbies in your host country yet and you dont really have good enough friends to just call up and do things with yet. (Not that you are bored with your host country, but that you just dont know anyone well enough to hang out with them or to message them.)

3.) You start getting lazy with your host language

At this stage, you kind of get lazy with studying your host language- and you fall into habit of just speaking English (or whichever your native language is). You kind of fall behind with speaking and studying.

In this part of your exchange, you REALLY have to just force yourself to study, and to keep on speaking- even if you dont really want to. 

And sometimes this is hard for me when I have a bad day, and I just DONT want to deal with miscommunication and not understanding people, because they all speak English anways. (BUT its something that ive been working on!)

Part of your key to getting out of this stage of Exchange is actually learning your Host-Language more. It opens A LOT of doors in your exchange, and even though its frusterating now- itll be worth it, because then most of these problems will all be taken care of. 

My personal Experience...

 

In my case, everything was GREAT until I started having skip hours EVERY single day at school. While everyone else was in class, I had 2-4 hours every single day of just sitting around alone, waiting for my next class to start... 

I had to sit alone every day for at least two hours. (Sometimes a total of 4 hours a day, if the day was Tuesday.) And then after school, it would be totally dark and I would just go home and then translate all of my notes from school, because it was too late to do anything else after school. (My day would always end at 4pm, unless I had Finnish class and then I wouldnt be home until around 8.30.)

And this is all that I did for a few weeks. 

I think that NOW since classes are ending, and we are getting new ones- that things will get a WHOLE lot better...like NIGHT and DAY difference because I wont just have to sit around the school by myself every single day and now im starting to actually get friends at school and such. 

 Over-all, this stage in my exchange only lasted for a few weeks- and now I think that its not going to be long until its over. (I think the switch in classes will help a lot.)

I know that im not the only Exchange Student going through this phase of Exchange in Finland, but I think a lot of the reason why a lot of us are, is because that its so dark a lot of the time, and none of us really have lot of friends at school yet and people to talk to...so its just sort of a really depressing mood to have when its dark, and your cold, and you are just kind of alone with no one to really talk to...

BUT I mean, it doenst last all the time; and most of the time we are all super happy and everything! Just sometimes you get really down, and sort of depressed because of this awkward phase of exchange...

Im sure that once the classes end, and we get new classes and with the change and the holidays coming up; everything will perk up again and this phase will be offically over with!

(LIKE I SAID, dont get me wrong! I am still having the time of my life! Its not that im homesick, or anything of the sort...this is just one of those awkward exchange student phases and downs that I wanted to post about. I dont think an exchange blog should JUST be about all of the up´s you experience. They should be the ups, and downs, and everything inbetween.) :D