Finding myself on exchange

As everyone says, traveling makes you richer, in many ways. It can change the way you see things, people, and countries. It can teach you things and it can help you find yourself. While I was studying in America, I realized that all these things were true. It is cliché to say these things, but they are truly what happens to people when they travel with their hearts open. I loved being an exchange student because I was not a tourist and I was not doing (only) touristy things, but I had the chance to find myself and connect with the American culture.

When I was not traveling somewhere, I was at school, where I had the opportunity to take interesting classes apart from the stuff I had to take for credits. Among the interesting stuff, there are art classes like:

• High School Play (Theater);
• Ceramics I and II;
• Drawings and Paintings I and II;

The Great Pandemonium

The first mentioned is an extracurricular activity rather than a class for credits, and I joined it because I always had fun when I did theater in Milan, but I quit a long time ago because I did not have time to pursue it. When I was little I was in elementary school plays, and I guess that is why I always felt interested in acting. When I was in America I wanted to give myself a second chance, and I tried to act for the first time in English. Everyone loved my accent and even though the play was composed of few people, I still loved being part of the team. I felt like I discovered, or remembered, a part of me which I previously forgot existed.

The play we put together was called The Great Pandemonium and it was basically the story of a crew who was rehearsing for a play. So it was a play in a play. Pretty confusing, but so much fun to put together. During rehearsals, we would laugh hard and I miss those times now. Every member was quite different from one another and I was surprised that we could all work so well together. They never treated me like the foreigner. Once we went for a smoothie and we all fitted in one big van, we looked like a big family of a single mother, since one of the girls was driving, lol.

(This is the cake our Drama Teacher ordered for our celebration which followed our premiere. It was an amazing party, full of memorable laughter).

Art classes

Back to school classes, by doing Drawing and Painting I realized that I enjoy making art pieces and that I would love to get more into it, but I never have the time to do everything I am interested in, so it was good for me to take those classes while I was there. One of my pieces was even hanging on the wall in the art hallway, I felt important. I liked Drawing and Painting I so I decided to extend it to level two, which was more about painting than drawing. I liked it because it was one of the classes where I could listen to music and my hand would just do its thing.

Ceramics was also really nice to take. I, in fact, took level one but also level two. I took it because my American brother was taking it while I had a free block, so instead of staying home, I went with him to school. But then I also liked it. Can not say that I was a professional in making clay pieces, but I gave it a try and maybe if I continued I was now selling vases, lol. Seriously though, these classes give you an opportunity to be creative while you are in school, getting credits and learning.

When I asked if I could graduate everyone at the school seemed far from even letting me even try, so I simply decided to take every single class I thought was fun to take, without thinking about credits too much. I just wanted to take everything I could not in Italy, I wanted to live my exchange up with no regrets. And now that my exchange is more than over, I can tell you I took the right decisions, and so should you if you are thinking about going on an exchange. It can be a sport, a class or even just spending time with your host family. If you truly believe in this experience, you will also find yourself somehow.

- Cristian, a former Rotary exchange student in the USA.

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