my first 100 days-- again

"and... i had two contrasting feelings. 

one was complete happiness, as if i was back in a comfortable place 

with people i knew and who knew me. 

the other feeling was complete and overwhelming homesickness. 

it was as if the two feelings were taking turns, 

and i was waiting to see which one would win." 

-- bloomability, sharon creech

my three-month theory about exchange -- the idea that after three months, you are exchanging "for real" and you are more than just a tourist-- isn't exactly a secret. that is, it's not anything particularly special or brilliant or life-changing. it's just a theory, a theory that happens to hold true for a lot of things; after 100 days (a little longer than three months), you have to change. 

and so i shouldn't have been surprised when, yesterday, i hit my one hundred days.

but i still was.

people laugh, sometimes, when i say that i'm homesick. they think i'm being funny on purpose. but the thing is-- i AM homesick. i'm homesick for places i've explored and languages i've heard and people that i've loved, because to me switzerland is home. 

i'm sorry if that sounds ridiculously stupid.

(actually, i'm not sorry.)

(go on exchange yourself and then come back and tell me it sounds stupid to call your host country home. I DARE YOU.)

anyway.

at the same time, i love oregon. i never realized how much i HAD missed my life here until i came back... because here, as well, are places i've explored and languages i've heard and people that i love. even though i hated the US when I first got back, coming home forced me to recognize that portland, oregon, is home as well.

and i've missed it.

more than eleven months ago, i was sitting on my bed exulting in the fact that i was finally more than a tourist. more than a visitor in a foreign land. more than some random weird crazy girl who didn't belong.

and now here i sit, and i'm posting this because i'm finally, finally, FINALLY more than a tourist. more than a visitor in my own land.

because finally i am someone who feels, 

in her own random weird crazy way, 

that she belongs.

how lucky i am

"how lucky i am to have something

that makes saying goodbye so hard."

--winnie the pooh

whenever people tell you why you should study abroad, they tell you the good things.
they tell you that you'll learn about yourself, that you'll speak a new language and adjust to a new culture.

but what they don't tell you is that it hurts.

sure, it hurts to be away from home and to bite the dust in language and to constantly embarrass yourself in foreign etiquette. that's normal. but it's not that bad.

what hurts is the missing. the countdown of days. the awareness that you will be both returning home and leaving home at the same time, the feeling of constantly saying goodbye, the knowledge that your year is about to end.

it is unpredictable, because it creeps up on you at strange times -- in math class, or lying awake at night, or walking through a crowded city street --  and it makes you frustrated, because you don't understand. you don't see how in less than 12 months, one can fall in love... not with a person or a thing, but with an entire country... and you are upset at yourself for not seeing it earlier. for not, somehow, avoiding this ache.

and yet you ask yourself if you would give up this year, this crazy tangled beautiful mess of a year full of excitement and disappointment and learning about yourself and making stupid mistakes and overdramatizing and having heart-to-heart talks and traveling and making memories and dreaming bigger than you've ever dreamed in your entire life...
no, you wouldn't. not really.


and because your goodbyes hurt,
because the thought of leaving is painful,
because this is so hard,

you realize
how lucky you really are.

three months

october's lovely links

this made me laugh: a map displaying what these countries lead the world in. 

one of my friends posted this on facebook. It's an infographic from Huffington Post which displays 50 facts about the world and its languages. Although, speaking as one who is learning the language, German doesn't actually seem THAT similar to English...

you guys have probably figured out that I am addicted to lovely quotes. Here are 20 inspiring quotes on travel (complete with pictures).

for those of you who enjoy laughing at art (or those of you who actually appreciate it) here is Ursus Wehrli. He tidies up art.

Oh, but if you don't want to watch the 15 minute video, you can read a short article about it here.

I can totally relate to the frustrated-when-people-mix-up-Sweden-with-Switzerland thing, but apparently the Swedes have taken it to another level and are campaigning so that China can tell them apart...

and lastly, I leave you with an Emergency Button. You are welcome. :)

arrival

"The plane swooped over jagged snow-covered mountains and landed without crashing in Zurich, Switzerland. A foreign country."

--Bloomability, Sharon Creech*

*this book is good. I recommend it.

in fact i recommend it so much that i named my blog after it.

you'll be seeing many quotes from it in the future, trust me. ;)

surreal

"It seemed that all around me was a smooth bubble, clear enough to see through, but strong enough to keep me inside... I imagined pores in this bubble ball that could let in streams of things from the outside, so I could examine them and poke them back out again if I didn't like them..."

--Bloomability, Sharon Creech

i've just come home from the rotary district conference, where everything was new and we were feeling the same things and learning the same things and ready to travel the world. but now, i sit here in my house with everything familiar around me, and i wonder what exactly i think i am doing.

because in less than 80 days now, i will be in switzerland.

i will be in another country with foreign languages spoken all around me.

i will be living with another family.

i will be without the friends i know now and the schedules i have here.

i will be halfway around the world.

for a year.

and yet, as close as it is, i somehow can't seem to make it feel true. i know that it's coming, and i know that i don't have much time left. as ridiculous as it sounds, i feel like i'm going to wake up any minute now. 

it's just that everything feels so distant. i know that there have been hundreds, thousands, of exchange students before me. i know that they have done this before. but somehow their world seems so far away from mine.

so very very far away.