I ve been here for exactly five months now, what means that my 'turning point' is here. It s been a while since I arrived and my life has changed completely. Not only my life, but I have changed as well. I d like to believe that for now I have adjusted to this place, learnt a lot about the culture and found so many cool people. Right now I m considering English as ''my'' language more than Estonian. Which is kind a obvious as I am living here. I think in English, I talk in English every day, I have classes in English - the language is all around me. So whenever estonians ask me how I am doing with my English, the answer is that I m not even kidding if I say that when I m writing in Estonian I usually translate in my head things from English to Estonian. While talking in estonian I always mess up so many words and sometimes when I have to react quickly I automatically say the first word in English like 'what' or 'and then' etc. Sometimes I just give up and start talking in English when I am skyping w my parents. I used English pretty much in Estonia, but when I got here, I realized that I know nothing...The biggest accomplishment with English is that I feel 100% comfortable with communicating in English. I don't have a problem with talking in front of the class or telling somebody stories. So I would consider my English pretty good. Sometimes when I have time to 'just think about things'(well mostly all day every day) then I always think how thankful I am to everybody who helped to make my dream come true. Coming here was the best decision I could ve ever made n' I would never change that. Exchange year is a funny and complicated thing. I am not gonna lie sometimes it feels like the worst time of your life. I am pretty sure that almost every exchange student thinks that at least once. Sometimes you just notice only the bad things and every little thing pisses you off. At this point of time you start to compare everything to the things back home. I m sure it is mostly homesickness, but what I felt at that point was that I actually have adapted now. Seeing bad in some things made me realize that yes, I don't like everything and everybody here all the time, but I still like my home and love my friends&family even if I disagree with most of the things. At first I felt bad every time I was just at home watching movies 'cause i felt like I am not allowed to do that and I m supposed to do something amazing all the time because I am in America n' I can't waste my time. Now I m thinking how stupid that idea was, it s not like I was running around all the time in Estonia either. I still had times when I was just chillin' alone doing nothing. So the feeling when you re just sitting in the living room with those people watching a movie and suddenly you just look around and think that yep this is home, this is family. Trust me, that feeling is pretty damn good. One thing what you start to see as being an exchange student is that you live in like a completely different world. Suddenly almost everything in your life is connected with a word 'foreign', exchange students and - programs. Also you just learn to notice all the news and opportunities about this topic. Exchange just comes part of your everyday life whether you want it or not.
To wrap it up, what I wanted to say w this post is that I am happy here. I love life, this city, all these people and everything that is around me. Only those 5 months alone have given me and made me realize so many things so I am looking forward to the next 5 to see what s going to happen.
Fun fact is that you start to see the pros of exchange year in so weird ways. Sometimes it just hits you and you think 'wow yea cool I really like that place, glad I m here n' I don't wanna be anywhere else'.
So that s it for now, see y'all soon :)
xoxo
 |
No comments:
Post a Comment