8 months have already passed…
According to the U-curve, the 8th month is considered when the exchange student advance their understanding and become more accommodating. The same process has happened with me. At last, one month ago, I bought my own bike: it is not necessary to borrow from anybody, phone and make an appointment to pick it up and give back. On that day I was the happiest person in the world. As John Lennon said, “As a kid I had a dream – I wanted to own my own bicycle. When I got the bike I must have been the happiest boy in Liverpool, maybe the world. I lived for that bike”. Now Jay (my bike’s name) accompanies me during my night rides, helps to open my mind and my heart to what happens with me every day. You would not believe that I am scared of biking on the road when there is a lot of traffic. However, the wish to fly is more than fear because “the bicycle is a curious vehicle. Its passenger is its engine” (John Howard) when you move it moves.
During our orientation week in September 2015, I remember that Julie told us about the U-curve. Then through my fellowship experience at YFU, while preparing materials for the Orientation Coordinators Training, I read more about the youth exchange as a U-curve, student’s adjustment to the school and family. Sometimes, I felt like an YFU exchange student inside the big YFU extended family. In particular, I understood more about this process while cooperating with the Quality Assurance Department and taking interviews with YFU students across the US and asking about their experience. These conversations helped me find out the answers to my own questions.
8 months have already passed…
I attended the baseball game with my incredible host organization, Youth For Understanding and had fun,
I was homeless in Annapolis with La belle тройка ruso-mexicolombiana and I was stuck on the high-way between Maryland and District of Columbia. There are so many things I did every month that I can write a book about it…
8 months have already passed… and I have some weeks and days more…
I do not know what will happen, but I am opening my heart and my mind to everything new, making a step, and ready to FLY!