Not Your Average Twentysomething

The United States has launched what it is calling a ‘major operation’ in Afghanistan, but all we hear about is Michael Jackson’s death.  North Korea tested another four short range missiles, but a celebrity has died and that is far more important.  It makes me ask, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH OUR MEDIA??????????

Maybe there is something wrong with me, but I just can’t understand why news in America is so celebrity centered.  Honestly, it makes me sick. The war though, and all important news that actually affects peoples daily lives, has not only taken a backseat to Michael Jackson’s death announcement, but real news has taken a backseat to the same rumors and speculations being reported over and over again.  I might not be as angry if every time the news interrupted a show, or every time I turned to a news channel, the information was different.

On Sunday ESPN broadcasted the USA Eagles vs. Canada qualifying match for the World Rugby Cup and it was interrupted for the announcement of Steve McNair’s death.  I understood it being ESPN and this was a big deal, but then for the next 45 minutes they continued to say over and over again that all the information they had was that he was shot along with an unidentified women in an apartment.  I am not saying that this wasn’t important to know, or that it should have been reported on, but do we need over 45 straight minutes of the same information. (being that he was shot along with an unidentified woman)

There are tons of shows for celebrity news.  Do celebrities really need to be the focus of CNN and the like?

I say no, bring back real news.

There are few things which irritate and disappoint me more then someone who acts as if the world owes them something just for being themselves; those people who exert a sense of entitlement, frequently referenced as a negative trait of my generation.

I recently read a post which is a perfect example of this. The post is titled “Successful Old People Should Stop Being Selfish And Retire” and asserts that young people “can’t find jobs not only because this recession sucks, but also because old people are choosing not to retire…and now: they don’t want to give it all up after squandering away our environment and screwing up our market. So next time when you can’t find a job, don’t blame the minority for filling some quota (that is extremely rarely the reason why you don’t get hired), just go ahead and blame the people at the top.”

After reading that I had to sit back for a moment and consider what I had just read.  If I have trouble getting a job it is because some older person at the top (of the company) is refusing to retire.  It has nothing to do with me, its only because someone won’t retire.  Do people really believe this?

People do not get promoted within a company because there is simply an open, they also have to be qualified to handle the position and its responsibilities.  John Infante put it perfect when he commented, “If there’s a post where the fresh blood is being told that they have everything they need to be in that post, except an available post, then I see your point. Especially if it’s conceded that the old guard is able to do the work, but the younger workers in waiting could do it better. The company should be prepared to move that person aside.”

The author argues that older people are not retiring because they are a, “new generation of “old people” think they will never die due to modern advances in medicine. They are ambitious workaholics who are also too selfish and egocentric to step aside and believe that a younger person could do just a good of a job, if not a better one. They are the first generation who have received so much: peace, propsperity, and technology.

I may be incorrect, but I believe OUR GENERATION was described as, up until Sept. 11, as the first generation which has lived in peace, prosperity, and has experienced life only with technology.

In many instances upper level corporate employees will choose to stay on with the company when they could have retired because it is what is best for the company.  They postpone their retirement for the benefit of the company, which seems selfless to me.  If there is no qualified person to replace them, or the company opts to retain them during a transition period when their successor gradually takes over their duties.  If the person was that easily replaceable they would have been fired a long time ago.

If you showed this post to a group of people who have worked their way to their current positions I think they would share the sentiment that JRandom42 expressed in his comment, “You’re supposed to be the best and the brightest, given every chance, opportunity and edge that I never had. You just want me to hand over my success just because you think I should be put out to pasture? I’ll laugh in your face and tell you to grow up and quit whining like my 4 yr old granddaughter. You can have my success and the fruits of it when you pry it away from those I find worthy of it and choose to bestow it on.”

Pushing out older workers does not transform a company into some Utopia full of ‘fresh blood’; it creates a company of unexperienced workers.  Money can buy you an education and just about anything you could ever need but it cannot buy you experience.  Only time can provide you with the opportunity to gain experience, and experience doesn’t mean anything unless you embrace it.   Emily Hill hit on this point in her comment,  “Age and experience has its benefits. Once you stop seeing the older generation as the impediment to your success, maybe you’ll see it to. And figure out a way that you can benefit from it.” You can’t learn from experience unless you get off your soap box and embrace it.  These people who you are so quick to push out are the ones who formed the industry as it is today, the ones that put the foundation in the ground for companies to be what they are today, and the ones who are wrote about in your text books.  They are the ones that you need to be learning from, but you can’t do that until you admit that you can learn from them.  There is not a single successful older person who was working in the mail room one day and told their CEO that they could do the job better and was sitting as CEO the next day. They used opportunities they had to showcase their skills and to learn from the older more experienced employees.

I  witnessed what I believe is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen last weekend.  It was so amazing it restored my faith in humanity.

I was shopping at a store the town over when the electricity went out.  After hearing that the power would not be restored for a few hours I decided to head home.  Pulling out of the parking lot I realized that the stop lights were not working and my mind immediately recalled images I had seen on television of towns in complete transportation chaos with no functioning stop lights.  My day dreams were broke by a horn behind me and then the sound of sirens in the background.  I took a deep breath and pulled out expecting the worse as I merged onto a four lane road and then onto the overpass of a major highway.  To my amazement the other commuters were treating the non-functioning lights as stop signs.  I sat waiting my turn to go with seven other lanes of cars as yielding right of way to a station wagon.  I was genuinely impressed that there was no ass hole drivers taking the lack of control as a sign they could drive however they wanted.

I spent the remained of my drive home trying to figure out why I had lost since trust in humanity that I had expected everyone to go as they please and feared pulling out of that parking lot.  It was the first time I had ever experienced driving in a larger town when the stop light were not functioning, my perception of the event was formed by what I had seen in the media, which had only been negative.  When you are only exposed to the negative aspect of something, or only see the downside of an event or issue it is hard to look at it in a positive light until you experience it for yourself.

I arrived to my town where the stop lights were properly working and I was rear ended when stopped at a red light.

Call me crazy but I miss the days of getting up at 5 am to go to work and not getting home until 6 pm, when I sat down at my computer and continued to work on side projects (suck as this blog).  If there were a certification program for work-aholics I would have made it with no effort.

After 6 months of working 40 hour plus work weeks and having absolutely no social life I returned to college where I find myself nearing the tail end of one of the hardest majors on campus and unable to find a job which allows for me 30 hour a week schedule of class, lab, and studying.  I also find myself completely burnt out, lost, unmotivated, and confused.  Is this what some call a quarterlife crisis?  As I sit at my desk creating my to-do list for tomorrow I can’t help but wonder if there is some sort of to-do list I can concoct to help me rein in my life which feels like it is in shambles right now.

When you life is breaking into pieces and it feels like you might loose control what do you do to make it feel like it will all be okay?

I recently took a brief hiatus from blogging to concentrate on work and Rugby.  I sprained my ankel at March Madness and Mayhmen Rugby tournament one month ago and then sprained another area of my ankle the next weekend.  Thanks to a misdiagnosis I wore a walking boot for two weeks which made my ankle worse and will not be able to start running again for another four to six weeks, so my season has ended my shorter then expected.  Taking a break from blogging, which use to consume a lot of my time, has allowed me to gain a new perspective on it.  There are three big things I feel that I have learned from my break:

1. Balance is important.  With anything that one is devoted to it is important to have a break once in a while in order not to get burnt out.  Before my break I found myself getting writters block frequently, and instead of taking a break and going for a run or out with friends I would I find myself spending more time trying to force the idea flow to come, and ending up more frustrated.
   
   Make time for yourself.
   
2. Recognizing what motivates you.  When I first started blogging I was motivated my coworkers who I felt were not ideal employees.  As I changed career paths and was no longer around those employees it became difficult for me to generate topics to write about that really ignited a passion within me.
   
   Recognize what drives you.
   
3. When I took my hiatus I left the blogging world completely.  Upon returning I felt a bit overwhelmed and as if I had been under a rock for the past year (even though it was only months)

   Stay connected.
   

Blogging is a powerful median which can expand your world, provide a new outlook on situations, and help you through your own situations.  I strongly suggest it for anyone who is interested!

Thank you for your readership!

I am a big proponent of using Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of online networking and communications; I’ve written about it before.  But, like all good things, there is to much.  There is a point of diminishing returns where social networking devices stop enabling us to better our network and relationship with others and begins to hinder them.

I have 769 friends on Facebook.  I have met all of them (at least once) and have benefited from being connected with them on Facebook many times (for example, before I went to Italy I checked Facebook to see if any of my contacts were going to be there also). I am not trying to bash Facebook or any other online communication format, it just appears to me that the value of actual human interactions has somehow been overlooked by many people.

It is easier and cheaper for me to take a few seconds out of my day to write, “Happy Birthday” on a friend’s wall then to go get a card and give it to them.  But there in lies the problem, it is cheap.  While Facebook allows for us to enrich our ability to connect and stay connected to others, but its utility isn’t really that beneficial beyond the connection stage.  It almost cheapens the value placed on the relationship.  In ten minutes I can call my friend up and find out how she is doing and what is new in her life, or in ten minutes I can write on 15 people’s walls and find out how they are doing.  It seems more productive on the surface, but the relationship I have with a friend who is 8 hours away that I talk to one the phone once a month is much stronger then the one I have with my friend who is one block away and I only converse with via Facebook because the person who takes two minutes to call me is spending two minutes of their time on me.

No matter how many different emoticons are developed or how advanced technology becomes it is still almost impossible to catch the emotional aspect of humans and to relay ones body language.  Some people find this to ease the process of delivering difficult messages, but with that comes a lack of accountability.  My friend was recently diagnosed with cancer, and she was very upset.  She physically could not say the word without collapsing in tears so she sent me a message because for her it was the easiest form of communication, and the only one she could handle at the time and I understand why she used it.  There is a lack of accountability that comes with using social networking tools for communication purposes though.  A friend of mine was on a dart team and one day received a message that she was off the team with no explanation.  She called her former teammates, who all ignored her calls and never returned the messages she left on their voice mails or Facebook.  It creates a situation with no closer and lots of questions which can be easily ignored on a digital medium.  If they would have told her to her face she could have asked why without them logging off or blocking her immediately, and they may have felt more obligated to provide an answer for her since she would be in front of them instead of a monitor.

Social networking tools are powerful and beneficial but when they are used to replace human interactions and communication they can be detremental to the networks they maintain.

Andy is currently doing a three year Leadership Development Rotation at Principal Financial, a Fortune 250 company.  He writes about Marketing, Millennials, and Technology on his blog at www.andydrish.com.

—– 9:00 p.m. at the Berlin train station —–

Me:  I’d like a train ticket to Krakow, Poland please.
Ticket person:  Actually… that train is already booked.  I can get you on another one tomorrow night.
Me:  Crap. Um… What other overnight trains do you have departing tonight that are headed East?
Ticket person:  Well, you could go to Budapest.  The night train has a transfer tomorrow morning in Vienna, Switzerland.
Me:  Perfect.

—–  10 Hours later at the Vienna train station —-

Me:  Excuse me… where is the 8:00 a.m. train to Budapest?
Ticket person:  Sir, the Hungarian train conductors are on strike.  There are no trains going to Budapest.
Me:  Crap. Um… Where else East would you recommend going?
Ticket person:  There is a train departing for Bratislava in 30 minutes.
Me:  Sounds good to me.  Thanks!

That’s just one of the many scenarios I ran into while backpacking in Europe.  Traveling has given me a ton of great stories… like being accosted by Gypsies, sleeping in the homes of completely random strangers, and making money teaching card tricks to cocktail waitresses in Amsterdam.

But stories are only a byproduct of what traveling is truly about.  The stories are the “head fake,” if you will.

Traveling is actually about learning. Learning about cultures. Learning about yourself.  And, most importantly, learning how to problem solve.

Everyone knows that you’ll learn about different cultures when you’re in a different country. (Duh.)  And when you step outside your comfort zone, obviously you’ll learn more about yourself.

But problem solving skills are a hidden benefit of traveling.  Our education system doesn’t teach students to problem solve.  It teaches students to do the least amount of work possible to get what grade they want.

That doesn’t work with traveling.  It’s not about a grade.  There’s no text book.  There’s no right answer.  There’s simply a scenario and a decision to make.

Above everything else, traveling teaches you how to make things happen.  And no matter what you do or where you go, that’s a skill that will stick with you for the rest of your life.

I am a 20-something German university student with a passion for literature, languages and traveling, among other things. I am an American and Spanish Lit major and have spent one year living and studying in Oklahoma and another year in Barcelona, Spain. Usually I blog over at Earth to Bella. I’m glad I got the chance to guest blog on here about my experience living in the US as it really was an amazing time and it is always great to reflect on and share my memories with others.

I started studying American Literature in the fall of 2002. In 2003 I decided that I wanted to spend a year at a university in the US. A few months, some research, an application and an interview later, I received a letter congratulating me on having received a spot in the exchange program of my university. A lot of paperwork followed and in July 2004 I finally flew to the States a couple weeks before classes would start. I moved into my new home, an apartment in a university-owned apartment complex, only knowing that my roommate would be the other girl from my home university. We had met up a couple of times before going to the States and decided to room together. I was the first one to arrive, but within a week, my other roommates arrived. They were J., the girl from my university, A. from Japan and A. from Bolivia.

I was very thankful for all the support and help that I got from the staff at the international office, as the first few days proved to be quite the adventure what with trying to find a building, enrolling in classes, and many other things. And all that in the scorching heat that is Oklahoma in August. There were also many volunteer students who helped us international students with settling in and getting around, because none of us owned a car. Not owning a car is not an issue in Germany but in Norman, Oklahoma? You can hardly get around town without one. There was a basic bus service, but it made any trip to the grocery store an event that took several hours. There was that one time I tried to walk to a store and not only did it take me forever, I was also sweaty and thirsty when I finally got there (turns out it was over two miles away!). I ended up having to walk on the green along the street because there was no sidewalk, not to mention the looks I got from people who passed me in cars, probably thinking I was mad. I guess that was one of those moments when my German habits clashed with the reality of life in an American town. Needless to say, that was the last time I tried walking anywhere further than from my apartment to campus and back.

I met people quickly, meeting most of the people I would later be friends with in the first week of classes. I kept in mind that it was me who wanted to make friends, that likely they already had friends, so I knew I would have to reach out to them, but my (now) friends made it easy for me by being really nice and outgoing. Most of the friends I made I am still in touch with almost four years after I left. And even though everyone has busy lives, I try to stay in touch with them and catch up every now and then.

University in the US is quite different from what it is like in Germany. In Germany, our grades all depended on either one paper or one exam at the end of the semester. I liked the US system better, and I did a lot better, having to study less at once, but more regularly, really worked much better for me. But the differences don’t end there.

College life in the US really is a unique experience. In Germany (as well as in Spain, by the way) we don’t really have a school community as US schools do. Basically, here, we go to class, and then we go home. In our leisure time, school doesn’t really play a role. College sports are so important in the US, here no one cares how school teams do, except maybe the teams themselves. I was able to attend two games and OU won both (as they did every other game that season except for the national title), and wow! Norman on game day was an experience in itself. The atmosphere in the stadium was amazing!

Another difference is in the service, equipment and amenities provided by the university. OU (and every other university in the US) is a university funded largely by tuition, fees and donations, it is run like a business, the student is the customer and is treated as such. In Germany, up until a couple of years ago, universities were funded entirely by the state, and the departments had no money. Tuition has now been introduced and things have gotten a little better, but it is still only a fraction of what US students pay. Don’t get me wrong, I love the concept of getting a university degree for next-to-nothing, but I loved being able to enjoy all the amenities of a school where I would have had to pay $12,000 for the year I spent there, hadn’t I been an exchange student (we didn’t have to pay any tuition at all and were waived most fees, except $50 a semester I think).

Besides school, there were so many differences between Oklahoma and Germany. The weather - tornadoes and the shortest winter of my life being one of them. I really loved being able to wear flip flops at the end of February, but in the summer months, all you could do was walk from the air-conditioned apartment to the air-conditioned bus to the air-conditioned classroom to the air-conditioned car to the air-conditioned grocery store … you get the idea. The people - much friendlier and open to meeting new people. I used to think that this superficial friendliness was fake and annoying (as do most Germans), but really, in everyday life, at a store or elsewhere it’s much more pleasant to deal with a fake nice person than a genuine grumpy person.

I loved how Walmart was open 24/7. I loved Sonic Drive-Ins, ranch dressing, Hot Tamales, Old Navy flip flops, Cosmopolitan, pizza at church, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, spending Thanksgiving at a friend’s house, Thanksgiving food (I could die for some Thanksgiving food right now, turkey, sweet potatoes, deviled eggs, and did I mention the pies?), OU football games, Lucky Charms, Mexican food, the school community, and so many other things.

There are many more things I could write about, but I am not sure anyone would want to read that much. I have so many fond memories of that year, so many small things that I treasure.

Living in the States for a year was a great decision. I learned so much, I met amazing people, I was challenged to be more open-minded about people who have different opinions (who are not hard to find if you are a liberal European in conservative Oklahoma, USA). Of course my English improved, and I was able to travel a bit during spring break and after classes ended in May, I loved San Francisco! I saw and experienced so much. I am still in touch with my roommate J. (who would have thought we’d become friends despite having to share a room for almost a year), and several of my friends there even though I haven’t been back in the States since.

I am finally going to be back in the States in March. I’ll be spending a week in New York City and I cannot wait. I will not be able to meet any of my OU friends, but I am so excited about getting to spend a little while in the country I love and miss. Despite all the differences I have written about in this post, I never felt a culture shock, I always felt comfortable living in Norman, I felt welcome, I genuinely felt at home. Of course there were things I disliked about my year in Oklahoma, some bad memories, many tears shed, and not everything is perfect in the US, and I love Germany too, but I feel a connection to the country, people and language that is hard to explain.

If you ever get the chance to study or work abroad for a while, take it! It is a challenge, but it is a great experience. I know many people who have studied abroad and I have never talked to one who regretted it. Even though my year in Spain was not as easy as the year in the US, I don’t regret it, and I would make the same decision again if I had the choice again. Even if you end up not liking the country as much as you expected, you’ll grow, gain confidence, expand your horizons, experience extraordinary moments, and improve your language skills. And that is something no one can take away from you.

JR Moreau is a Worcester, Massachusetts native and takes great pride in being from Worcester, a very different city than Boston. Educated in the ways of Public Relations at Suffolk University in Boston and Literature Philosophy in Univerzita Karlova in Prague, JR diversified his working interests after college to include, but never to be limited to marketing, copywriting, creative writing and sustainable economic development projects. While holding a day job at a media analytics software company, JR is always looking for new and interesting clients to work with on a freelance basis as well as other writers, entrepreneurs and adventerous people to trade stories with.

In the Winter of 2005 I sat in my Boston apartment watching foot traffic walk by my noisy North End location when I heard my roommate mutter to himself “what the fuck is this?  Why would I go to Prague? I don’t even know where that is.” I got up and expressed my curiosity at the letter he held in front of him. He said he had been invited to attend a semester long study abroad session in Prague, Czech Republic because of him being on the Dean’s List. My roommate was smart, almost too smart for his own good. He was able to stay up late, party hard and barely try at school and still managed to keep a 4.0 grade point average his first two years of undergrad before transferring to Georgetown in Washington, D.C. I was silently jealous of him, but my silence was broken when a burst of frustration came forth as I shouted, “you’re not even going to consider it? What the fuck is wrong with you John? I’d kill for something like that to be offered to me!”

He shook it off, I did not. This was my first year in Boston after I had barely completed two very unsuccessful years at UMass Dartmouth. I had opted to change my life around as much as a 20 year old could by getting in great shape, cutting back on the booze and taking a new lease on academic life by placing myself in a great city like Boston. However, I knew that I was going to be in great debt due to Suffolk U’s high cost of tuition and Boston’s high cost of living. I accepted that I wasn’t going to be spending any time abroad during my undergrad and that I was going to be as grateful as I could be for living in Boston.

As I went and sulked on the futon after I watched John scoff at my outburst and throw the letter aside, my cell phone rang; my mom was calling her usual once a week call. I answered and immediately answered her question of “how you doing?” with my story about John ungratefully disregarding the letter about studying about and how I wish I was on the deanís list and got invited. I also complained about how I wish I had thought about studying abroad because I couldn’t afford it. After about 5 minutes sitting through my self-pity monologue, my mother interrupted me and said, “Well by the way, you have mail from the dean’s office. Do you want me to open it?”

My heart sank and I went cold and then my heart rebounded off of my stomach and jumped into my throat. Excitement, denial, elation and nervousness all came over me as my mom read off the contents of the envelope (which she had clearly already opened and read before calling, typical mother). She said she thought I should do it which helped quell some doubts I was having. She also was the one who gave me the idea to move to Boston. I was going to ride her lucky advice again.

I went to the information session and it didn’t take much to sell me on this trip. I was told that everything would be drastically cheaper than my current living situation and that I would be among the “elite” intellectuals in Prague taking graduate courses at the Philosophy faculty at Charles University (up until that letter, I had no idea I was carrying a 3.7 GPA, imagine my surprise). So, I eagerly agreed to go as soon as possible, knowing that if I put it off for too long I wouldn’t go and I packed my bags a short 3 months after signing up.

Choosing to study abroad in Prague or choosing to study abroad at all is probably among the best decisions I have ever made in a lifetime. I have no reservations in telling you that there were some pretty rocky moments when I was over there, such as having things stolen in my dorm room, blacking out from excessive drinking and being extremely homesick during Christmas and Thanksgiving. But, even with such things happening to me, I’d say it took my experience from 100% down to maybe 98.5%. Barely even worth mentioning.

I couldn’t begin to start listing all of the great things I was able to do while there that meant so much to me because I would likely go on all night. Just to name a few memorable moments, I sat in on classes with the first person to ever translate Shakespeare into the Czech language. I found a cafe where nearly no one spoke English and spent most of my free time there drinking beers, espresso shots and searching for native conversation. I was invited to a film school party and had an amazing time with some of the most talented and creative people I’ve ever met. I traveled to Vienna, Austria, many small towns in the Czech country side, saw the grim and sobering Terezin concentration camp and missed my train to Dresden, Germany when I came down with a bad case of the flu (or the Czech common cold, as my boarding mates teased me). I wandered through the dark cobblestone streets late at night with friends I made for life talking about how we were going to figure out a way to stay and finish our degrees there. At some points I wanted to come back more than anything and for the last 2 months of the 5 months total I spent there, I swore I’d never leave.

I’m over-come with emotion and fond recollections when I think about Prague. I don’t quite know if I’ll ever be able to go back or spend significant time there or anywhere else in Europe for that matter, but the memories I have won’t fade from my consciousness for a very long time I don’t think. For me, faces and names fade, but the sense of place that I am able to achieve so rarely leave my bones and heart no matter how hard I try to move on.

For anyone looking to study abroad and is doubtful about how they’ll do independently, financially or socially, I say just take the jump. It’s not for everyone, but if you’ve considered it a few times, it’s probably for you anyways. Prague, because it is not on the Euro (yet) is very cheap for Westerners. I suggest you go while it stays that way.

Looking back on the life I’ve lived thus far, I can say without a doubt that participating on foreign exchange was the most life changing choice I have ever made. My foreign exchange experience was horrible, but I would do it again in a heart beat.

I decided that I wanted to participate in foreign exchange when I was in eighth grade. I can’t say exactly what drove this idea, whether it was just a desire to get out of Wisconsin and experience another culture or a hair brained idea I got from watching a special about Italy on the Travel Channel, but I set my mind to it. I started learning Italian on my own and by the end of my freshman year of high school I had fundraiser enough to pay for half of the program. I applied for the program through AFS and been excepted, all I had left to do was convince my family that they should allow me to go.  They had never been outside the United States, except for one accidental trip to Canada, so they decided that it would be a good idea to host a girl from Italy for a year named Giulia, who to this day I still consider my sister. The year went fantastic, we had our sibling spats, but we became best friends.  I left for Italy two months after she returned home, but I didn’t stay with her family. I was placed in Benevento, which is in southern Italy near Naples.

The trip began with all of the American students who would be in Italy meeting in Washington D.C. for a pretrip orientation. The staff, who had never lived in Italy, read information they had gathered off the internet about Italian culture and told us it was okay that we didn’t speak Italian because everyone speaks English in Europe.  There were 51 students from American going to Italy, and one along with myself who had studied some Italian before leaving. On the plane from Washington D.C. to Frankfurt I gave Italian lessons.

When we finally arrived in Rome we had another orientation with all of the foreign students who would be in Italy, except we were really welcomed. The American students were placed in a separate hotel because the hotel where the orientation was held was “full”. Since none of us spoke Italian our chaperons spoke freely about how we were placed in a separate hotel because they were concerned about our safety.  We arrived at the main hotel where our orientation meeting was held in English because that was the most common language. The president of AFS Italy went through all of the countries who sent students and everyone applauded until he got to the United States where we were booed. Dinner was no better. Students from other countries would say the table was full and we weren’t allowed to sit with them, even though there was obvious space. We all ate standing up. The next day for lunch we decided to to listen to them and just sat down where the conversation topic was all the atrocities the American government has ever done. We then boarded the train to be sent off to our host families.

My host family had no interest in learning about another culture, or opening their home to a foreign student to show them Italy and the Italian culture. They decided to host me to show off that they were hosting a foreign student, apparently it was a status thing. I was suppose to go live with another family in January because my host sister was taking her graduating exam in the spring and she didn’t want ‘the distraction’ around. I had to buy my own food in the house and left the town once, on a school trip to Naples. School was another story.

There was another AFS student in my school named Haruka who was from Hiroshima. Everyone enjoyed asking her, in front of me, how she could be friends with an American. The school didn’t know what to do with us, so we were basically told to choose what classes we want to go to and go. I was fortunate enough to find an English teacher who enjoyed my accent and ended up helping teach English. The other two teachers taught British English and did not appreciate me ruining English for their students. One failed me out, and the other asked me to not attend. I was in Italy in 2003 when 18 Italian soldiers were killed in Iraq and I had to answer for their deaths. I went to school with ‘Death to America’ written on the walls in the classes I attended and was confronted at least three times a week with hostility. Ironically, the only people who really embraced me were those belonging to the fascist party because they saw President Bush as a great man. I also took philosophy, chemistry, and drafting. My host family would forget to pick me up from school when they picked up my host sister and brother, and would often not be home if I would end up sitting outside for hours waiting for them to return because I wasn’t trusted with a key.

When January came there was no other host family for me. The local AFS agents were suppose to find another family and couldn’t locate one, so I was pretty much told I had to go home. I was originally suppose to stay in Italy until July and my time was cut in half.

Overall the experience was horrific and no where near what I expected. I did make friends that I am still in contact with today, and I would do it again in a heart beat because you really can’t grow until you are out of your comfort zone.  Participating on foreign exchange, studying, or just visiting a foreign country can be an extrememly fruitful experience because it allows for you to explor a culture different then the one you are use to, and ulitimatley forces you out of your comfort zone.  Even though I had a horrible time I would do it again.