Lately, people start commenting about what I do in the United States. The majority of them said I spend the whole year only for traveling, shopping, and having fun. The others said, I’m only wasting time because I will go home with nothing but bad habits that I got from the environment in my host country, and there are also some of them said that I will regret my decision to go on an exchange program and miss one year of high school. But let me tell you all my secrets about my exchange year that I never told anyone before.
To be honest, United States was not the first country on my list, and I never dreaming go to the United States as an exchange student. But my fate dragged me to this country, I did not even know that much about it. I could recognize the flag and I knew the president, but that was it. When they asked me to mention the name of some states, shamelessly I answered California, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Las Vegas. I was right for California and New York, but pretty sure the interviewers were laughing so hard after I left the room. Then, when they announced that I was selected for the KL-YES program to the United States, I only had two places in my head: California and New York. California because I want to see the Hollywood sign, and New York because I want to see the Liberty statue. The fact has they put me in Minnesota, once again I did not know anything about it. Now you might think that my exchange year went so bad, don’t you?
Being an exchange student is not easy. It is like riding a roller coaster, it goes up and down. Sometimes it goes up very slow then goes down so fast, and vice versa. Mine is not the extreme one, but enough to pump my adrenaline.
It started when I left everything behind, family, school, best friends, and my life that I built for seventeen years. I traveled thousands of miles, crossed the Atlantic Ocean to a strange place called the United States of America and started to build my life all over again. I was not so excited, since Minnesota was not on my priorities. But beyond expectations, this state stole my heart at the first time I got here. It such a peaceful place with nice people everywhere. Since then, I’m willing to introduce Minnesota to everyone who never heard anything about this wonderful place before. My roller coaster slowly goes up.
Moved into a house and live with people that are called family, having my own room that doesn’t look like it, hearing people talk so fast with typical Minnesota accent then I noticed that my English is not as good as I thought. Very first day of school with zero friends, had a hard time to understand what my teachers said, got confused on my first lunch about who to sit with, did not know what to wear to school because I used to wear a uniform. I honestly could not stop comparing American high school with the schools in Indonesia until my second month. Then I realized I should not do that because everything is totally different. Then I began to enjoy and get used to the everyday life, had my first homecoming, first pep fest, making friends, and get easier to understand the lessons in my classes. The school is one of the highlights of my exchange year.
As an exchange student I have to introduce myself to everyone. Sometimes I get upset when no one knows what and where is Indonesia. But sometimes it is also really funny when people ask me, do I wear shoes in Indonesia? Or do I live on the tree? Or do I have car and television in Indonesia? But that is my job, become a representative of my country, introduce Indonesia to those people who never heard about it. Might sound like a hard job, but it is not as hard as people thought, yet not as easy as exchange students thought. Actually it is the main purpose of the exchange program, and I really enjoy it.
My life was going very well until religious issues started to come up again. Shooting in Paris and San Diego, along with a political statement from one of the presidential candidate who wants to ban Muslims to come to the United States. Everyone talked about that, and made me a little bit frustrated. But fortunately, my friends and host family are open-minded people who do not directly blame a specific group only based on what they saw on media, it was enough to cheer me up.
Towards to the end, I begin to miss everything that I left behind. I get tired of American foods and miss the foods from my country that I used to ignore. I miss my friends, it really hurts me when I saw they are finally done with high school and I will never meet them at the school anymore. But I understand that’s the consequence, I choose different way therefore I have to live a different life.
Every exchange student has their own roller coaster. For some people, an exchange is the life of their dreams. The others might worse than their life in their home country, and for some other it is kind of the same. For me, there is no comparison. My exchange year has its own space in my heart and in my entire life. Exchange year makes me more mature, personally and mentally. It shows me how big the world is and how diverse people are, it also teaches me how to think widely and how to act wisely, because sometimes there is no one can help me to go through a hard time but myself. Exchange year makes me appreciate and be more grateful for everything I have, it changes my view of the world and grows my nationalism to my country. That is why exchange year is more than just traveling and having fun, it is not a waste of time, and more important than a year of high school that I miss. It’s a life changing.
