So, that was fast. It seems to me that the months here are going faster and faster as my departure date gets closer and closer... not fair! Okay, so anyway the month of April was pretty nice I guess, it finally started getting warm (like 70 degrees warm) and flowers started blooming, and the trees started to regrow their leaves. So that was definitely a welcome break from what I swear was the longest, most cloudy winter of my life. Besides all that, I've also been on school vacation for the past two weeks! Which of course is always a nice break from the normal routine. The end of April also marks the third month in a row where I've had general good to great relations with my host family (for once) so that's obviously something very positive. For the first half of the month, I didn't really do anything special except for going to school five days a week. The school break started the 19th of April (woohoo) and then ended the 6th May, except now I'm on re-vacation for three days so in reality I have almost three weeks of vacation, with just two random days of school in between.

During the first week of vacation I went to the city of Marseille with Isa from Brazil! (For those of you who are bad in geography, Marseille is in the south of France, on the Mediterranean coast) Most French people that I know were kind of confused as to why I was going to Marseille because here it has a reputation for having people with really ugly accents, lots of crime, and just being an ugly city. Thankfully only one person I met had the ugly accent, we never went and weren't really allowed to go to the neighborhoods with lots of crime in them, and there were really pretty parts of Marseille, but its true that parts of it are kind of ugly. So we stayed there for a week and we did pretty typical tourist things such as sight seeing and shopping, and that also included me laughing at other Americans who were having trouble ordering things, and me being the not helpful person just laughed instead of saying "Hey! Do you guys need help? I speak French!" So, woops. To make up for that, I promise that the next time that happens, I will help the poor person(s). I also made a faux pas in an art gallery where I said some not so pretty words when I spilled coke on myself and then realized I was surrounded by Australians, not French people. So that means that I will have to learn to control what I say because soon I will be home and everyone there speaks English (almost). We also stayed with someone from AFS, named Alex who was pretty nice! But he told a lot of stories that lasted like two hours at least each night at dinner, and we couldn't really get a word in edgewise. Besides visiting monuments and shopping we also went sailing! And we saw the Calanques de Cassis and I steered the boat as well and I didn't crash! Something that we did that I thought was really cool and adult like, was travel all by ourselves without adults and in another language! And besides for the fact that we accidentaly took the more expensive high speed train instead of the normal train that we actually bought tickets for, we didn't die, get lost, or miss any of our buses/trains.

Besides traveling to Marseille I also worked at the bakery again, which was just as tiring as before. Except this time I worked with the baker instead of working with the pastry chefs.. It went pretty well except I got yelled at a lot by the baker because I didn't work fast enough, I didn't put the baguettes that were still in dough form on the oven correctly, etc. So I'm not sure if I want to go back because getting yelled at is annoying, and besides that I kind of just swept during four hours. And also Fanny (my big host sister) took great joy in following me around, laughing at me, and scaring me, and I screamed like a little girl, but luckily the customers didn't hear. Which sounds kind of mean but thats just our relationship, so its like being a buttface, but in a loving, big sister kind of way. Which I'm already used to -cough- Kate -cough-.

It's also taken me a ridiculously long time for me to write this as well, so I'm going to tell you guys about how May has been so far. So basically I restarted school and that's been going okay, since I only have four weeks left at school here I've kind of decided that I'm going to make even less of an effort than before, and that's saying something That being considered I did get a 9/20 on my Bac Blanc for Science Politics (Bac Blanc is kind of like a mock PSSA) which that sounds bad, but there were people in my class who got even lower than that. My one friend went so far as to say that it was "the shame of her life" that she got a lower grade than I did. I've also been having to help my host dad out with building cement stairs for their patio, which is slightly annoying because it just involves shoveling sand from one end of the yard to the other, and oddly enough lifting really heavy doors. Unfortunately since these aren't my real parents I can't really work myself out of this unpleasant situation and I just have to grin and bear it... I guess what comes around goes around.

And other than that most of my time has been spent by freaking out over what I'm going to do when I get home, and trying to choose colleges and majors. There are simply too many choices for my 1.5 brain cell! Its overwhelming. And why do colleges just have to be so expensive? I'm just really hoping that me being able to put "exchange student" on my college applications will at least merit for something, such as a large scholarship, haha. Anyway, I might or might not write in the near future, I barely ever have time now!

Bises ;*

Well yet another month comes to a blazingly fast end here in the countryside of France. When I think about it, the month of March seems to me more like the week of March. As it is getting closer and closer to the return date (and also my 18th birthday) the time seems to be sprinting, leaping forward even faster than it already was. There are times where this fact makes me really happy because I'll be able to go home, but other times it saddens me. There's a part of me, and its a huge part by the way that doesn't want to leave this life that I have worked so hard for, to leave all of the amazing and wonderful people here (bother exchangers and french), and just recently started to really be able to enjoy it to its fullest. I guess it just sucks that at the beginning I spent a lot of my time wanting to go home, and now that my time here, which used to seem that it would last forever is now severely limited. But anyway, enough for my sappy introduction, lets get on to what this blog is really about... what almost merits as a 'life' here in France.

Okay, so I guess the beginning of March started off pretty much like any other month, except for the fact that it started getting warmer. And when I say warmer I mean like before it was 20 degrees and now it is 45. So not really that much of a difference, but still its a nice change. So that means that there is finally no more snow here, and instead of having to wear the biggest scarf I have that its pretty much just a small blanket, I can now use a small scarf to keep myself from dying of hypothermia. Also the sun started rising at 6am in the morning here which I happen to like a lot because now its a lot easier to get up at the ungodly hour of 6 in the morning. Besides the weather I've kind of been doing what I normally do, aka going to school, having an enormous amount of fries/pizza/dessert/etc and then a coffee with les Anonnéens (other exchange students who also go to school in Annonay) and yeah, that's kind of my schedule now.

Except last week-end, there was an AFS week-end at the Anjou Chateau again, and it wasn't mandatory to go for the exchangers, but I went anyway because usually I have a good time with everyone even though some of the AFS people are strict. Considering that this weekend was mostly for the French people who are going to go on exchange this year with AFS, us exchangers didn't really have to do any stupid activities like we normally do and we were pretty much left to our own devices in a room with a few volunteers to make sure we didn't kill ourselves or something. So basically we did a variety of games together, my favorite being what was pretty much hide and seek in the dark. I had the perfect hiding spots the two times that we played, the first one being under a giant stack of chairs in a corner, and the other was hiding in the space that was created in between the shutters and the french doors. The last hiding place didn't work as planned because someone had to shine their phone light in my face from the other side of the window and scare the living daylights out of me and then therefore I was caught. The first night of the weekend we ate what I think was supposed to be Morroccan style, so that means  we were all seated on the floor in little groups and all ate out of the same bowl thingy with out right hand. It was a pretty positive experience that I'd definitely do again but at the same time I felt that it was too much effort just for eating. I don't know why but I've realized that in the US we are used to always being able to eat right away when we get our dish without having to do much work beyond cutting the meat or something, but here sometimes a lot of work is involved. Like peeling the shell off of a shrimp for example, which is really annoying and takes a lot of time. I guess old habits die hard.

During the night of the AFS weekend we of course all tried to have a powow in the room of someone.. this doesn't really sound that rebellious but considering how strict my AFS chapter can be, it totally was. We all waited for about thirty minutes before we started converging all in the same room. I was one of the first one's there and in about no time, there was like 20 people all in the room. It would've gone as planned to if everyone wasn't giggling so much which I guess the volunteers heard and then they came to the room and shepherded us all back to our rooms, I did, however make an attempt to try to not be caught by hiding under the bed but for some reason that made everyone laugh so I got caught. The second day of the weekend was kind of a repeat of the first day, except that I got woken up by some girls coming into my bedroom, singing the beatles and then jumping on me. So that was wonderful.

In school related news, I have finally started getting good grades in my subjects! If you're following my facebook you should already know that because I posted screen shots of the exams earlier today. Its not really my level of French that has been the cause of my bad grades until now, because I'd say that I could speak French proficiently starting around December, but really it was because of my lack of motivation really. Like I didn't even try to apply myself, but now or some reason I want to take notes and do my homework, so that's good I guess.

So that's basically all I have to say about this month of March... I'll be writing another post again before you know it!

Exchange is change. Rapid, brutal, beautiful, hurtful, colourful, amazing, unexpected, overwhelming and most of all constant change. Change in lifestyle, country, language, friends, parents, houses, school, simply everything.
Exchange is realizing that everything they told you beforehand is wrong, but also right in a way.
Exchange is going from thinking you know who you are, to having no idea who you are anymore to being someone new. But not entirely new. You are still the person you were before but you jumped into that ice cold lake. You know how it feels like to be on your own. Away from home, with no one you really know. And you find out that you can actually do it.
Exchange is thinking. All the time. About everything. Thinking about those strange costumes, the strange food, the strange language. About why you’re here and not back home. About how it’s going to be like once you come back home. How that girl is going to react when you see her again. About who’s hanging out where this weekend. At first who’s inviting you at all. And in the end where you’re supposed to go, when you’re invited to ten different things. About how everybody at home is doing. About how stupid this whole time-zone thing is. Not only because of home, but also because the tv ads for shows keep confusing you.
Thinking about what’s right and what’s wrong. About how stupid or rude you just were to someone without meaning to be. About the point of all this. About the sense of life. About who you want to be, what you want to do. And about when that English essay is due, even though you’re marks don’t count. About whether you should go home after school, or hang out at someone’s place until midnight. Someone you didn’t even know a few months ago. And about what the hell that guy just said.
Exchange is people. Those incredibly strange people, who look at you like you’re an alien. Those people who are too afraid to talk to you. And those people who actually talk to you. Those people who know your name, even though you have never met them. Those people, who tell you who to stay away from. Those people who talk about you behind your back, those people who make fun of your country. All those people, who aren’t worth your giving a damn. Those people you ignore.
And those people who invite you to their homes. Who keep you sane. Who become your friends.
Exchange is music. New music, weird music, cool music, music you will remember all your life as the soundtrack of your exchange. Music that will make you cry because all those lyrics express exactly how you feel, so far away. Music that will make you feel like you could take on the whole world. And it is music you make. With the most amazing musicians you’ve ever met. And it is site reading a thousand pages just to be part of the school band.
Exchange is uncomfortable. It’s feeling out of place, like a fifth wheel. It’s talking to people you don’t like. It’s trying to be nice all the time. It’s bugs.. and bears. It’s cold, freezing cold. It’s homesickness, it’s awkward silence and its feeling guilty because you didn’t talk to someone at home. Or feeling guilty because you missed something because you were talking on Skype.
Exchange is great. It’s feeling the connection between you and your host parents grow. It’s knowing in which cupboard the peanut butter is. It’s meeting people from all over the world. It’s having a place to stay in almost every country of the world.
It’s cooking food from your home country and not messing up. It’s seeing beautiful landscapes that you never knew existed.
Exchange is exchange students. The most amazing people in the whole wide world. Those people from everywhere who know exactly how you feel and those people who become your absolute best friends even though you only see most of them 3 or 4 times during your year. The people, who take almost an hour to say their final goodbyes to each other. Those people with the jackets full of pins. All over the world.
Exchange is falling in love with this amazing, wild, beautiful country. And with your home country.
Exchange is frustrating. Things you can’t do, things you don’t understand. Things you say, that mean the exact opposite of what you meant to say. Or even worse…
Exchange is understanding.
Exchange is unbelievable.
Exchange is not a year in your life. It’s a life in one year.
Exchange is nothing like you expected it to be, and everything you wanted it to be.
Exchange is the best year of your life so far. Without a doubt. And it’s also the worst. Without a doubt.
Exchange is something you will never forget, something that will always be a part of you. It is something no one back at home will ever truly understand.
Exchange is growing up, realizing that everybody is the same, no matter where they’re from. That there is great people and douche bags everywhere. And that it only depends on you how good or bad your day is going to be. Or the whole year.
And it is realizing that you can be on your own, that you are an independent person. Finally. And it’s trying to explain that to your parents.
Exchange is dancing in the rain for no reason, crying without a reason, laughing at the same time. It’s a turmoil of every emotion possible.
Exchange is everything. And exchange is something you can’t understand unless you’ve been through it !

Credit- Patricia from the Exchange Student page on Facebook. 

So I've decided to really just update my blog once a month now(ish) since my life here has kind of fallen into a pattern and not everything is new here so therefore there isn't much to write about. The exception would of course be if something exciting or out of the blue happened, then I might write about it. So since February is the shortest month of the year, there will obviously be much less to write about this time around.

I guess the month started like any other month meaning that I had to drag my butt out of bed at 6 in the morning and go to school. That is really one of two things that I absolutely hate about France.. I know its not France's fault in particular that I have to wake up at 6am (as I used to do the same back home a few years back) but the point is if I were back home, I could wake up at like 8, which is much more preferable to 6. The other thing I hate about France is that if Sundays weren't boring enough, France set out on a mission to make them even more boring than they already were. When I say this, I mean that absolutely everything (besides the bakery) is closed. And sorry, but the bakery isn't the same thing as the mall. Like apparently its French Law to have 99.9% of everything closed on Sundays... needless to say that law sucks. I miss things being open 24/7!

School this month was pretty good all in all, even considering the fact that I had the 3x 500 meter in gym class, (1,500 meters or 1.5km is almost a mile just by the way). The reasons that school this month was pretty good was because it happened to snow a lot this month so that meant I got one snow day, and at least two days off of gym because of the snow. (I also took a few days off of gym for myself because one time I was genuinely sick and the other time I forgot my clothes and said screw it) oh, and also because I only had like 3 full weeks of school this month because I now am on vacations. Thankfully I only have gym class here once a week, but even then its too much only because we had running. Running sucks, I don't know why anyone enjoys it... even though I only ran three times in gym this year I really dislike it. Like the first time I felt like I was going to die, the second time I almost threw up and the third time I'm pretty sure I was starting to have a heart attack the last 250m of the thingy. But I am proud to say that I ran an almost mile in 7:05 minutes, which happens to be really surprising. I guess its because I have 22 lbs less of blubber weighing me down.

I, for some reason have the feeling that I had already made a post about going to work at the bakery, but it isn't on the blog so maybe I'm thinking about something I wrote in my journal. Anyway, I went to the bakery! I woke up around 6am on a Saturday morning and then went with my host mom to the bakery and before I know it I was with all the other pastry chefs doing things, like bringing down racks of things to be sold and praying that I wouldn't drop them.. luckily the first few things I had brought down to the shop part of the bakery I didn't drop but of course life has to be a beach and I dropped some kind of cake thing but luckily only one person saw. For the rest of the day I rolled an endless amount of croissants and pain au chocolats.

So that's about it for February... I'll post soon!

Since I haven't written anything whatsoever since like Christmas or something, I'm just going to Recap January since its finished. So lets start at the beginning of January, shall we? For the New Years I went to Roselil's house because her host family was gracious enough to have a réveillon (new years party) for some of the AFS people. The New Years in France wasn't really super different than what I've experienced in the US, but there definitely were some differences. First of all, we had a giant meal all together which I've never done on New Year's for whatever reason.. it felt wrong. In my opinion New Year's should consist of a lot of boxed food, sugary beverages and Kathy Griffin on CNN and probably falling asleep before its actually the New Years. Don't ask me why, but that's what I consider a good New Years. Anyway, we ate couscous with various meats and vegetables and for a dessert an ice cream buche (basically an ice cream log). Which besides for the buche I felt like it was a very unFrench meal... WHICH by the way I have had like no really stereotypical French food yet... except for an escargot kiche. The rest of our time was spent playing pool (I actually played and I think I got like one ball in the hole or something) dancing (do I even have to go there?) and playing 'Never have I ever'. Now, most of those who are reading this who knew me before my AFS adventure started are probably thinking 'since when does David dance?' and I'm thinking the same thing too...but for whatever reason France seems to make me less shy than before. So yay. I would say that the dancing stopped around 1:30 or 2:00am and after that we kind of just talked and played never have I ever until like 6 in the morning.. Needless to say I was tired as f*ck and I only got a few hours sleep because everyone else just had to be snoring. There was also fireworks and some stupid game where we spun around in circles and then someone shone a flashlight in our face to make us fall. Génial.

A few days after the AFS New Year's party I went to my friend Orlane's house (she's French!) where I stayed for like three days or something like that. We kind of did what people in the US do together... so that means the movies and shopping! We went to go see De l'autre coté du Périph (I feel as if I'm missing some accents there... whatever) which was basically a french comedy/action movie. I thought it was pretty good but some of the French comedy went right over my head. I don't know if its because I don't understand things like expressions (I'm getting better!) or if French comedy sucks but in the end it was pretty good. We also played wheel of fortune or something, in which I did nothing because I usually don't know the names of things in French when I'm under pressure. We also went to the two malls that are in Lyon where I bought Starbucks! I literally never thought I was addicted but no lie, I felt better emotionally, mentally and physically after I had that Starbucks. It was kind of like something that was really bothering me for four months that I didn't really notice went away. So now I would like a talk with the CEO of Starbucks.. what the heck do you guys put in that stuff??? The weekend after that my host sister's host sister for Uruguay came to the house... and she was super nice! Like seriously everyone from South America is the nicest person ever.

Luckily I got to talk to her a lot because she speaks English. Which really almost everyone (besides French people) speaks English perfectly (especially Scandinavians) which is sometimes a good thing but usually just makes me feel stupid because I can only speak like two languages... almost. Which by the way I'd say that I now speak French proficiently BECAUSE I can usually say the "r" correctly except in words where there is a vowel at the beginning and then 'r' immediately after.. for example I cannot say the verb 'arriver' (which means "to arrive" btw, but most of the time people don't use it to say "arrive".. like after a test in school someone will ask you "tu es arrivé?" which basically would translate into "did you do good?/understand/etc) correctly no matter how hard I try. And even though my vocabulary isn't 100% I now know enough words to explain the meaning of another word that I don't know.. Although there are times where my brain refuses to work and I forget the word in English too.

So after the weekend spent with Orlane I started school up again. Which kind of was a welcome break of not having anything to do everyday. I don't know what's wrong with me but two weeks of Vacation for me is just too much. One week would be perfect. Anyway, I'd have to say that I don't really try that hard at school, I just can't find the motivation to, mainly because the majority of my classes are Economics and Economics makes me want to cry and go hide in a hole for the rest of my life. I have no idea why my high school put my in the Economics track (because usually they place you based on classes you have already taken in your home country) but seriously the majority of my electives were languages/literature classes in the US... so why am I not in the L track? Whatever.. and the other exchange student in my class (Andres) just has to be an overachiever in everything.. I'm pretty sure he probably has a better grade than me in our English class but I really just blame that on our one English class being at 8 in the morning, which is way too early for my brain to function in French, let alone my native language. Anyway, I definitely feel that I will be speaking fluent French by July with the amount of progress I've made in 4.5 months.. and when I say fluent I mean fluent in how people actually talk in person.. not fluent book wise. So that means I'll probably be taking up some classes to refresh my grammar or something.

This month I also got to meet some of the other exchange students who go to one of the other high schools in my city! Unfortunately two of them left just days after I met them, so that was kind of disappointing because they're super nice. By the way, now that I'm talking about the other exchange students.. I just simply can't imagine my life in France without them. Like seriously how does anybody get through a whole year being the only exchange student at their school? I know that if there wasn't like 9 other exchange students at my school I probably would have already gone home.. They're really the only people you can talk to about being away from home and problems you're having. Sure, you can tell your French friends about it, but they don't really understand and AFS usually just tells you to 'try harder' or something stupid like that. Also, by the way in two weeks I'll be here for five months! That means I'll be halfway done with my year hear.. and it also means that I'll have spent five months without some of most important people in my life! I honestly can't believe how I've managed to do it,but in the end I'm super grateful that I've done this because even though its so hard to be away from home it really made me realize how much I took everything for granted. I also had a party with the other AFSers this month and when I say party I mean making kiches, playing just dance (I dance a lot now) and playing never have I ever. Again.

As for this week, it was pretty normal. I went to school and everything except 20 euros was stolen from me and it pissed me off. I swear if I ever find out who you are I will do something terrible to you. I needed that money to buy myself food because there was yet another strike at the cafeteria. So dear thief I hate you and I hope that whenever you use that 20 euros the cashier will think its fake or if you happen to buy food with it I hope you get diaherra, however you spell that. Seriously, I've been to numerous big cities and I even fell asleep on a bench in Paris with a few hundred euros in my bag plus my passport and nothing has ever been stolen. And now I come to middle of nowhere, France and someone steals my 20 euros while I'm outside in the process of dying because I had track. Fuck you. Anyway that pretty much sums up my entire January 2013. Maybe I'll post more often.... maybe.

So as everyone knows Christmas was just two days ago. This Christmas was especially strange for me because it was the first one I've ever spent without my family and the first one I've ever spent in France.  So obviously even in western culture, there's going to be a difference on how each country celebrates Christmas, and that difference further divides by region of that country and eventually by family. So that means this French Christmas blog will be about how I spent my French Christmas, chez Roux, Satillieu, Rhône-Alpes, France, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy, The Universe. If I missed any details about that address just let me know. Unfortunately the majority of what means Christmas to me doesn't happen in France, or at least where I am. So that means no waking up early to open presents, have breakfast and watching a christmas movie, which would most likely be the Grinch. Instead I woke up at around probably 10am and did absolutely nothing Christmas related until about 5pm, except for watching a few christmas movies on the TV which my host mom so aptly called "conneries" and/or bullshit, ha! At around 5pm we started preparing the appetizers which consisted of Salmon Roe (salmon eggs) and some other kind of fish eggs, various savory puff pastries, and of course  Boudin Blanc and Boudin Noir. Also everyone dressed up nicely even though we were all at home and no one came over, it was just us. I thought it was kind of weird.

The fish eggs were absolutely terrible and evil and gross in my opinion. It tasted of really fishy fish and dead babies. Not only that but the texture was terrible and each egg popped inside of your mouth as you ate it which in turn released more of the fishy fish/dead baby flavor. The puff pastries were really good and consisted of kiche with escargot, pizza, pigs in a blanket, and some other stuff that I forgot about. The Boudin Blanc and Boudin Noir are sausages and in spite of sharing similar names, are quite different. The boudin blanc is white and is just made of pork and sometimes includes gross things such as livers and hearts but I guess not always and its actually pretty good. The boudin noir is a blood sausage and therefore I have no idea how it tastes because I am not that adventurous and I don't want to eat blood. To accompany the appetizers we had rosé champagne, fake champagne and cherry coke, of which I tried everything and it was all good, haha.

For the main course we had raclette, which is basically potatoes, various forms of charcuterie (sausages and the like) and the raclette cheese. Apparently the name for this dish and the cheese is the same. By the way this cheese smells SO bad but it tastes really good. So what this consists of is your potato, your meat, the cheese and a device in the middle of the table which melts the cheese. You put the cheese in a little triangle shaped thing and then the triangle into this device which is kinda like a grill, and then your cheese melts. Once your cheese is melted you scrape it out of the triangle with a wooden scraper thing and onto your potatoes and meat. And then you repeat until your done. The one thing I really don't like about this dish is that the cheese used is so fatty! Like when you melt it, there is also some melted fat next to the cheese. We also had really cool rolls that had each of our names written on them which turned out to be written with cocoa power mixed with water on the prebaked dough. We didn't end up eating them (I didn't really want to anyway, because its not everyday you get a piece of bread with your name on it) and frankly I have no idea where they went.

For the dessert which we for some reason ate the next day for lunch (I guess we forgot? idk) it was a Buche de Noel which probably every French family eats for Christmas Dessert. Basically its a cake that is made to look like a log and traditionally it was accompanied by little meringue mushrooms but I guess they don't do that anymore. To make the log shape, what's basically done is they bake a really thin sponge cake, put the filling inside and then roll it up and apply icing which is then made to look like bark, sort of. Sometimes there are extra features, such as a branch or something added on to the log but not always.

French Christmas Tree + Presents

After we finished our meal, it was time for presents. That was pretty much the same as it is in the US except it was like 9PM. I am happy to report that I got everyone a present and everyone seemed to like what I got them. Which if you know me, I'm not always the best at giving gifts. Ok, I suck at it, but at least I own up to it. And I promise that for Christmas 2013 I'll at least try to give gifts, maybe. I guess I've always sucked at it because I always felt that getting gifts would be this terribly hard and frusturating thing to do, but in reality it isn't at all. I guess my fear of "what the fuck am I gonna do if I got them nothing and they got me something?" overwhelmed my misconstrued conception of buying gifts. Anyway, that kind of wraps up my french christmas experience. My next post will probably be about new years. Happy Holidays!

So this isn't really a post or even original content but I just have to post this because I believe it 100% accurately sums up what an exchange actually means. So without further ado... 

Exchange Students: 

Its going to be awkward when we aren't the foreign kid anymore when we go home,

nor will they care about us being exchange students. 

For a month they might comment on it, 

but our awesome stories will be forgotten to them, 

we will fade in with the others at school.

Family gatherings might bring it up or the curious teacher,

but our eventful life will be forgotten, 

except to us. 

The way we live from the day we return is influenced by our host country, 

with our self esteem boosted, amazing confidence, worldly humor,

and all our barriers broken. 

They may not see it but we will always be exchange students,

kids who actually grew up and saw the world. 

I would give credit to whoever wrote this awesome quote, but there wasn't anything to give credit to. So.