Reflections – Rivers and Roads

Hello! It has been a while!
And a lot has changed.

Honestly I haven’t wanted to post because I felt too stressed to finish the posts about the end of my exchange. But it has literally almost been 8 months and I haven’t found the motivation to do so, so unfortunately I don’t think it will happen.
The end of my exchange was insane. Crazy busy. I traveled with friends and family all over Europe and Morocco. Eurotour with Rotary was AMAZING. And the month following traveling with my American family was great (it was hard to see them again but it was great). But all good things must come to an end. Leaving Finland, despite the ups and downs all year, was the the hardest thing I have ever had to do. At the airport I was surrounded by my Finnish family and my local friends, all of us were crying and promising to see each other soon. But it didn’t end there.
REVERSE CULTURE SHOCK IS A THING!!!!

Going home was SO HARD. It was great to see my friends and family. But no one really understood what I had been through. Many of my friends grew annoyed by my stories from Finland and my experiences and began to distance themselves. My family was not accustomed to the new me, and I had forgotten cultural norms and manners of the Southern United States. Walking into stores and having workers greet me with “Hello, Welcome…” and as I left the “have a blessed day” threw me into a nervous mess. I lived in a country for a year where no one talked to you unless they had to, this was not normal for me at all. It was apparent to me once I returned, how normal Finnish cultural values had become to me. Going back to school was probably the most difficult. Living in Finland with one of the best education systems in the world really turned me off to United States school systems. It only took two weeks for me to lose it. I was sitting in school for eight hours a day and feeling like I was doing nothing and having to just go home and reteach myself everything. I was annoyed by the amount of time I was spending in class that felt unnecessary. Most of my friends were no longer friends with each other or had no interest in being friends with me. I knew I needed to find something different despite the fact I only had one more year of high school. I began to talk to my mom to figure out what I could do. My first plan was to take college classes at the community college in my city to get the rest of my high school credits. As I was doing more research on where I wanted to go to college I found the University of Granada in Spain. It sounded AMAZING to me, but I had to learn Spanish to take the entrance exam for the course. I hit a road bump. It took a lot of courage and research for me to approach my mom and ask if I could do online school and graduate six months early in order to go abroad again and learn Spanish. I was shocked when she agreed. I began doing research and calling my friends from exchange to see if any of them had a place for me to stay for six months to study Spanish. My third phone call was a success! One of my best friends from exchange, Andrés (from Ecuador) was about to leave for Russia to go to Med school. After explaining my situation and what I wanted to do he said I could live with his mom in Ecuador for six months while he was studying in Russia. I would also help out at his aunt’s jewelry store for my keep.

I was beyond ecstatic to know I had a plan and a way to learn Spanish. Five days later I “dropped out” of high school and began classes online. For the next four months I was doing almost 9-10 hours of school a day to try to finish nine months of school in four. It was insanely stressful and online school is not the most fun. It was hard to establish trusting relationships with teachers and communicate when help was needed, but I figured it out. I was able to establish trust and relationships with my teachers which helped me reach my goal of graduating high school early.

After finishing high school all I had left was to pack and prepare for my big trip to Ecuador. More on that NEXT TIME!!!!

I have attached pictures from the end of my exchange

Estonia with friends

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All the girls who went on Eurotour

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Budapest

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Beach in Latvia

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John Lennon Wall in Prague

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Budapest

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Salt Mine in Poland

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Final Night of Eurotour in Germany

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First round of goodbyes to my friends

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Midsummer with my host sisters

My little sisters

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USA Parents in Finland

Host Family and their Tennessee shirts

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Summer Cottage visit with my real family and host family

St. Petersburg with my dad

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Visiting our past exchange student in Spain

Fez, Morocco

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Both previous are from Morocco

My friends and family seeing me off at the airport when I went back to United States

This blog post is filler because this week sucked. Honestly, it was terrible, no idea why and there’s not much of a good explanation. School was stressing me out and I had no motivation to go to my classes. The weather was finally really great, it was warm, so I didn’t want to be in school. I wanted to be out exploring and enjoying the weather. I think I have learned the most in the last two weeks than I have since I’ve been here, because the last two weeks have sucked but the weekends have been really great. It has really reminded me that this year isn’t just supposed to be easy, it’s not just a vacation.

There are times when I want to go home, I want to see my friends, my family, MY CATS (let’s be real, I miss my cats more than anything else), my city, my car, my school, my room, my bed, my house, my outdoor shower, Chick-fil-a, and Clumpies (only Chattanooga people will understand). I miss being able to blast my music whenever I want, being able to make spicy thai noodles or pesto pasta or chocolate chip cookies whenever I want, packing my lunch for school, the drive to school, joking with my brother, getting popsicles, Whole Foods, getting gas, knowing where I am 80% of the time, just walking around with my friends, and being able to hide in my room without feeling rude.

But more importantly, I miss being able to understand what’s going on, I miss the fact that people won’t (most of the time) just ignore me when I try to talk to them, I miss two sided conversations where I don’t have to force it, I miss being able to make a joke without worrying people will be offended, and I miss being able to just be me and not being scared that someone will try to get me sent home. I am tired of having all of my senses on high alert 24/7 because when some is yelling they could be yelling at me but how would I know. I’m tired of people starting to speaking Finnish to me and I stand there feeling really dumb, not understanding a thing they say and getting myself in awkward situations because of my “yes” or “no” answer.

But despite all of the things that I miss or I am “tired of”, I don’t want to go home because of weekends like this one or the one before last. Weekends and adventures where I am surrounded other exchange students, who understand exactly what I am going through, or other people I know that genuinely care about me. Those adventures are why I am here, those people are why I am here, and they are why I am still here, why anyone is still here. I have learned so much about myself and the world in the short two and a half months I have been here.

I am okay being alone, I am not dependent on being with other people all of the time. I have found peace with just walking around the city alone and seeing whatever I want, and in the process I have found some really good music. I am less anxious and have more confidence. Even though my confidence or anxiety aren’t at my ideal level yet, it’s gotten so much better. I don’t wake up every morning terrified of anything and everything, I’m not constantly on the verge of freaking out, which was something I experienced frequently in American high school. I am more happy with myself, my sense of humor, my ability to make people happy, and I now understand how people should actually treat me.

Although I still hesitate sometimes, and of course there are some moments I am scared and have self-doubt but those are much less frequent than in the past. I have grown up, I know how to buy my own groceries, make my own food, limit the amount of unhealthy food I eat (we are still working on this one, exchange calories don’t count right?), read a map, get around with public transportation, ask questions, be independent, and talk myself through my own issues and uncomfortable situations.

Despite the fact that I miss home sometimes, I am here, in Finland, living my best life. I can live at home for the rest of my life after this year if I want to. I have made amazing, life-long friends from all over the world that care about me. I have plans to travel the world to see them. I have experienced amazing things that a lot of people my age don’t get to: I have seen the northern lights, been in Finnish sauna, visited Sweden, visited one of the most iconic places in Finland, rowed with people from all over the world in the Baltic Sea, lived in Finland for two and a half months, attended Finnish high school, explored, traveled, seen weird things, lived with an amazing host family (with four younger sisters), and been a Rotary Youth Exchange Student. This journey hasn’t always been easy but it’s not supposed to be or you wouldn’t learn anything. I would not and will not trade this experience for anything. These friends and memories will last a life time. I really look forward to spending the next eight-ish months in Finland learning more about myself, this culture, language, and amazing country.

Rivers and Roads

Category: Reflections

My Life Now

Week Ten: Reflection