There and Back Again: An Exchange Student's Tale

Well ladies and gentlemen, this is it. I am officially one week away from being finished with the most nerve-racking, terrifying, vivid, wonderful, beautiful year of my life, and by extension a phase of my life that began two and a half years ago in November 2010 (when I went to Israel on my first exchange trip). I cannot believe I made it through, and I want to share my emotions, thoughts, and advice with whomever may be reading this.

I spent the last five days in Germany's wunderbar capital, Berlin. I saw the sites, I drank the beer, I flirted with girls, I played chess with life-sized pieces. The Brandberg Gate was magnificent, the Wall tragic, and the currywurst amazing. As well as experiencing the city, I participated in a seminar with my exchange organization, and many of my interactions with my friends and fellow students maybe realize how truly happy I have been here, despite all the hardships. I realized how lucky I was to see what I saw and did what I did. I've seen so many cities, skied down the slopes of the Austrian Alps, saw the tragedy of Auschwitz, and made an unbelievably large amount of memories with my friends and host family.

I've never fallen in love with something so fast, after seemingly tolerating it for so long. I truly feel now that Germany is my second home, and I will truly miss it. I will miss it's people, I will miss the food, I will miss the culture. But I think the thing I will miss the most will be me being in it. Just the day-to-day interactions, at school (when I was there), at home, at the REWE. I will miss going to the same trashy clubs on weekends and waking up with the same regrets. I am going to miss everything.

In case you haven't noticed, I've changed. A year ago I would described myself as what I was, a Catholic, American, normal white kid. But now, now, I would say I have no idea who I am; my religion has taken the backseat and I have decided to keep it there for a long while yet, my nationality is more important to me then it ever was but what I define as "patriotism" is beginning to change, my skin color never changed though, but I am anything from normal. I am an individual, one who is built up from these experiences, and they are now what define ME, and will never cease doing so. I am who I am, not what background is, what I was known for, or how I acted in high school. I am a person on the edge of a rapidly changing world, along for the ride.

As my journey nears it's end. I note how curious how it feels like the beginning, not just the beginning of the program, back in D.C. but also in October 2010 when I started my trip to Israel. The more and more I think, the more I realize, this was one big chapter of my life. A beginning and an end, of what I am unsure. But, hey, I am along for the ride.

I laughed, I cried, I loved. I completed a CBYX Exchange Year. I am changed.

“Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that made you smile. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

― Mark Twain

"Breathing comes in pairs, except for twice, one begins and one's good bye" - The Fray, "Enough For Now" 

Fragility of Life.

I officially have somewhere between two and one and a half months left in Germany. For anyone who has been reading these blogs, you would know have been down, up, back down again, and finally found a happy medium. As my time begins to wind down, I am forced to realize how much I've changed, both willingly and unwillingly, where I have been, what I've done, and where I am going. 

I've seen so pretty amazing stuff here, castles, beautiful countryside, more thousand-year-old cathedrals than I can count. I've been to Cologne, Frankfurt, Nuremberg, and Krakow, among other famous cities. I have also seen some not so amazing places, the smokey interiors of bars and clubs, sketchy alleyways, and dark corners of Germany. However right now, I want to talk about the most memorable places I have been so far: the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, the sight of countless lives lost because of the brutal Nazi regime of World War II. 

Before, Auschwitz, and the Holocaust in general, held only academic, historical meaning to me. As a white, Catholic American, living four generations after my ancestors stepped of the boat, there was little to no personal meaning in it for me. Sure, I have Jewish friends (mostly from Israel) and I understood why it was important to them, but never was anything emotional for me. That has all changed, after seeing the camp and attempted  to grasp how one million people had died in the general vicinity of where I stood, it became terribly personal. I realized the horrific fact, that unless prevented, history repeats itself, and that it has with the Holocaust.  Countless genocides in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe have taken place then. Both subtle and blatant racism (one of the root causes of the Holocaust) still permeates culture in Europe and the Americas, and acts of terror take place all the time, everywhere from Syria and Afghanistan to the United States. 

Which brings me to what happened in Boston. 

The Boston Marathon was bombed, with three people dead and one hundred injured. the city was on lockdown for a week. I was shocked when I heard, I felt powerless because I was half a world away, unable to help in anyway. I couldn't donate money or send some sort of condolence, all I could, and can do, is pray. It's the worst I've felt in a long time. 

I can now fully appreciate how fragile Life really is.  

DFHSDJKFHDJSHFJDKHF SPRING.

Endlich!

Finally spring has arrived in Germany! Woohoo! As promised, an actual post about Germany!

A quick update:
1) I have two-and-a-half months until I come back home.
2) I am currently on my first day of "Osterferien" (Easter Break).
3) it's confirmed I will be going to visit Dredsen over break, Poland in May, and I may be having an opportunity to go to Paris.
4) Apparently sunshine in Germany isn't a myth.

So where to begin? right now I am in the "homestretch" part of my exchange, from what I gather, I will be doing a lot of sightseeing, outdoor recreation, and partying as the well gets brighter and warmer. I am pretty excited, but reaching this milestone in my exchange has forced me to meditate on how exactly I feel about being almost finished, to be going home to family and friends, and to finally say goodbye to Germany. To be honest, I will be happy to leave, not because I hate it here or that I have had a bad exchange experience, but the closer I get to the deadline of departure, the more I realize "it's time" to leave, it's time to go back home to my country, my people, and my family. My reasoning behind this is, through living in Germany, I have discovered how lucky I be an American, this exchange has proven to me that no matter how my personality, beliefs, or worldview may change, I will also be proud of where I come from. Also, one of the  reasons I signed up for this exchange was the homecoming, the though that I had gone out somewhere and done something most wouldn't do, and then return into my family and friend' welcoming arms. It is a feeling I am sure will be something I will never forget.

Germany it's self is a wonderful country, despite all the things I found uncomfortable or intimidating, Germany is home to wonderful people, culture, and even most of it's history can be viewed in a good light. But most of all, the land itself is just plain beautiful, I often finding myself wishing that America's open spaces and Germany's natural beauty could be combined, forming something resembling Toilken's Middle Earth. I am going to miss it.

In conclusion, I know I have enough time to really sink my teeth into my exchange, to really do dumb, crazy, adventurous things, and to be able to forge even more great relationships with the people of Germany than I already have. 

P.S - Apparently people actually read this, even some who are trying to be in the CBYX program next year, so if you are one of those people, here is a quote for you:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

We Are Getting Cheated: An Exchange Student's Social Commentary

We, the youth of the world, are getting cheated. We are being sold fake love, cheap drugs, and crappy music at the expense of thousands of years of human development and wisdom, of our natural resources, of our national identities. Why? Because we want to be like the people on MTV. We think that this oversexed, overhyped, overdrugged reality shown on our TV screens and getting it blasted at us on the internet, is what life is about. We are getting cheated, and we aren't even putting up a fight.

And we are supposed to be the one changing the world for the better.

Why don't we fight? What is preventing us from ending the destruction of the rainforest? From putting an end to oppressive governments? It's ourselves, we just are too busy smoking the next joint or sleeping off that last hangover. We, as a generation, are counting ourselves out before the fight even starts. We have the potential to change the world, some of us get and already have (the Arab Spring, the campaigns against SOPA, and the countless young people from around the world defending their countries by serving in their countries armed forces), but most of us haven't. Most of us are perfectly content just playing the next Call of Duty or buying a new snapback from some overpriced store at the mall (which probably was built on some cleared out patch of forest, and the hat made by a 5 year old in China). We are to busy securing our own needs instead of securing a future for the planet and the rest of the people who will live there in the future. It's honestly, disgusting.

We, instead of being the generation who collective shout,"No, we aren't going to let consumerism consumer us, we aren't going to live like this, we will stop it." Instead we are just going to rollover, listen to the newest single from Lady Gaga, and let the world destroy itself.

We could change, we could dedicate ourselves to something greater then us. Whether that is an ideal, or your people/country, or God, whatever inspires us. We could change this, we don't have to destroy ourselves, our society, our culture, and our planet. We can prove humanities worth.

But it's up to us. It's our world now, getting freaking motivated. Get in the fight.

P.S I promise the next will actually be about Germany, and not a social commentary.

Thoughts on Sandy Hook....

Hey guys, so I know it's been a bit of time since it happened, but I really wanted to throw up a blog post about my views concerning the shooting at Sandy Hook, gun control in general, and the state of our society.

Sandy Hook was beyond tragic, it was pitiful, a pitiful waste of human life, including the students, teachers, and the madman himself. What drove this young man to murder young children is beyond my understanding. I was shocked by the news, hearing from across an the ocean, I spoke about it in school, with my friends, and with people back home over Facebook. I wanted to feel a sense of unity from my country, an Earth moving cry saying: WE WILL RISE ABOVE THIS. But I didn't.....

The first things I saw on Facebook where statuses pointing fingers at guns, at the government, at video games, at movies, even at God. I am sure, caught up in the partisan wave, I commented on a few statuses, trying to point the blame in a direction (I honestly don't remember). But looking back I am disgusted, disgusted we let a madman with a weapon divide us, revealing Americans as a fractured people, when they should be united.....even my generation, the ones who despite what political, religious, or whatever views that we have, still manage to rise above it everyday, remained divided, pointing the finger at the other side. Most of all, I feel defeated, I feel defeated because the U.S to me was always different. We were the noble ones of the world, we fought to preserve our lives...but now we don't. We need to unite, before it's to late, before the next school shooting (several have occurred since), before the next big natural disaster, before the next terrorist attack (though, by all means, this was an act of homegrown terrorism). If we don't we fail. Simple as that.

So, in conclusion, Sandy Hook for me, was an exposition, showing how truly petty and fickle we have become, how our nobility was lost somewhere, and how we are just a step away from chaos. If the United States became truly united again, we could not only overcome this vile act of cruelty, but we could truly make the wrongs right again, regain our purpose as Americans, and lead the world by example once more.

Sean D

It's been awhile...

So here I am, I have posted since early October, so before I rant...a rundown:
I am now heavily addicted to sci-fi movies, shows, etc....when I have enough time to chill out
Gillian Craig is my exchange student best friend
My German class is awesome
Spent Christmas with my (real) older brother at an Army base in Bavaria
School is meh.
I am now reading Lord of the Rings in German
I have yet to go to H&M and not buy anything
I own four scarves
I have eaten one metric ton of Gummy bears
Met with fellow CIEE/Experimenters in Cologne (went to a prayer service inside the cathedral)
Christmas markets...Christmas markets everywhere
I have yet to seen the Hobbit
German exams suck

So that is pretty much everything from the past 3 and a half months.

Wow, it has been a long time since I posted. I apologize for leaving whoever reads these in the dark, only with random, nonsensical statues on facebook, along with some pictures. Taking an mental, spiritual, psychological assessment of myself and I am in awe of how much I changed in this time period. Although the more I progress into this exchange I am not sure if it is for better or worse. Being here in Germany has made me wonder so much more about the future, where I, humanity, and this planet are headed. I am of course hoping for what I am consider the best, but I feel maybe just a little bit pessimistic then I used.

Overall, I feel so much more different, my opinions, behavior, even how I understand my religious beliefs as a Christian-Catholic. There are times I wish I could go back to understanding the world as it was, before all this change started taking place. It just seemed like so much more of a bright, colorful place then, now with me thinking the way I have been, I would say it far enough to say this world is still bright and colorful, but constantly changing, constantly under threat from a sudden social change or technological discovery, or even industrialization of what is left of undisturbed, real Earth. I just wish the world, even with it's problems right it has, would stay just as it is, for eternity, but it won't, and it can't.

Now you have and idea of what goes through this exchange student't head on a daily basis!

I'll give a detailed rundown of the Mid Year Meet Up in my next post.

The September Slump

I am typing this one from my iPod in front of a warm fire, in Germany. Sounds all cozy and European right? Well it is, but since this isn't on my laptop, please for give any typos, misspellings, or grammatical errors. I've cranking out these things about every two weeks now, mostly because Sunday's or afternoons in Germany provide ample opportunity to do so. So first thing first: I have it the infamous "September Slump" that it is common for a Cbyxer to experience. I miss my family, friends, and my state. I miss my church, my school, the frequent use of the English language, the American mentality, and I am rather upset to be missing string of concerts with some of my favorite artists visiting VB (Matt Maher, Ike Ndolo, Needtobreathe, Ed Sheeran, etc.) I am missing out on Senior year, the first legit homecoming dance in recent Talllwood history, and yes even the THS band program, with my verrückt band director and two good friends as drum majors (Sara and Heather) running the marching band this year (and was given the chance to be in the top ensemble for the first time before I left last year)

To be honest I am telling myself that I am having the time of my life here, that I shouldn't want to trade it for anything, but I am not quite believing it. However, each day is a challenge, and I can feel myself becoming more and more skilled, not only in the German language, but in how I handle myself around people of all kinds (the typical Euro teen is definitely different from how they make them in America, much more akin to college students the. American high schoolers). I am not going to lie, I have failed multiple times already to keep to true to a promise to myself that I was going to stay grounded, not get swept in the moment and compromise what I believe to be my integrity.

But hey, this isn't some epic tragedy, this what being an exchange student is about, to expose yourself to a new culture but still maintain who you are as a person, and in a place that retains some qualities of home, but is yet vastly different, is hard. I am still waiting, praying even that I will come into what I thought was going to perform like here, and go much further from the tourist-like form I have as an exchange student to something much more profound.

In other news...went to my first German club on last Friday. Fun time with a good group of guys, retained my sobriety, and enjoyed myself. Until The group of guys I was with spent two hours getting a cab home, I guess teenagers being bad planners in universal. Wann in Deutschland.