I’m leaving for Switzerland in less than two days but it feels like I was just at the RYE interviews. I’m still in shock that I’ve been able to come this far and have been granted this opportunity. For me personally knowing I was going to be gone for a year, away from all my family and friends and moved to somewhere I am not used to at all, didn’t hit me until about two weeks ago. I’ve always been a pretty independent person and before two weeks ago I strongly believed I wouldn’t get homesick at all. Sure I would miss my family and friends but it wouldn’t be so over whelming where I would miss being back home. Now that I’m leaving soon I’ve really started thinking about it and realizing that their probably will be days where I miss talking to my parents face to face, or being able to pet my dog, even just lying in my bed. It has becoming something I’ve recently started to worry about. Deep down I don’t regret the decision to go on exchange, but I have realized that leaving will be a lot harder than I anticipated. Being an exchange student has been my dream for such a long time that a bigger part of me knows that I’m most likely over thinking and that even if there are those days where I just miss my past, in the end I am going to have a great time abroad.

Though I’ve begun stressing I am also so excited. It’s like my brain doesn’t know which emotion to choose. Like I said before going on exchange has been my dream ever since I was 12. Now that I’m about to leave it feels unreal. I’m so excited to experience a different culture and live how other people live. I am also very excited to learn more German. I have previous experience with German but I was never really good with grammar, so I never really felt comfortable speaking in German. Being able to go to Switzerland feels live a sign to me from the universe telling me to learn more German. I’m really excited to become more fluent and be able to comfortably communicate in German.

The few months of preparing to go on exchange has been really helpful to me in understanding more grammar. I have had a wonderful teacher who has really pushed me to not get discouraged in learning the grammar because a lot of the times when I thought I was starting to understand it, it felt like I was also just not getting it at all, so the more I knew the less I knew. Though I am still not perfect and I will definitely benefit from constantly speaking German, I feel I am a lot more prepared and understand a little better what the German grammar rules are because of the preparation I did before leaving. Though I am extremely nervous I am also so excited to start a new chapter in my life and experience a whole new culture!