FIVE THINGS I'VE DONE FOR THE FIRST TIME ON EXCHANGE

Everyone tells you to go on exchange and be yourself, but they also tell you to get out of your comfort zone and say yes to (almost) everything people offer you. Right? Well, I think this is a good point. People need to experience new things in order to talk to others and not bore them. They need to do things before that is the only way they can know if they enjoy doing them or not. They need to do things to be able to write about them. They need to...

The list is long and I could go on for hours trying to convince you that the right thing to do is to get out there and just have fun, but now I will just give you concrete examples. When I was younger I used to be very shy and used to care what people might have said about me. I was not really believing in myself and I did not think I could have gotten where I am today. So, what changed? I went on exchange! And I did these five things for the first time:

1. Played Tennis

Sounds silly, but this, kind of helped me to get out there. It was not just a game for me. I was actually playing a competitive sport for the first time. I was out there and I had to put an effort in what I was doing because, otherwise, my partner would go down with me as well. I was not hiding in my room the whole afternoon after school but I was out doing sports. I have always been the guy who loves TV series and stays in. I do go out but not for sport, and there I was, playing and having fun (sometimes haha).

2. Went skiing

This might sound dumb as well, but I never skied before and I was quite worried I could get hurt. I mean I went skiing for the first time one week before the Rotary Ski Weekend because my American family wanted to get lessons for me so that I would be prepared, a bit, before going out and ski with my friends. I did feel very awkward standing there and not being able to move without having the feeling to fall, actually falling, and then getting up feeling exhausted... but at the end of the day, I realized I did it, and I skied two times after that day, got better and better. This helped me realized I just needed to believe in myself a bit more than I actually did.

3. Been the Vice President of The Interact Club

Being the Vice President of anything would have helped me, I guess. Let's face it: as I said earlier, I have always been the guy who stayed in and watched television instead of getting wasted every night. I was not the most social teenager in the world, but I changed from being one of the exchange students of the school to being the Vice President of the Interact Club. During the few meetings I was the one in charge, I was delivering speeches and discussing things with the other team mates. I was one of the leaders, and I have always seen myself as a follower rather than a leader, but maybe I was wrong.

4. Delivered my First Public Speech.

A shy person is the one that shakes when they have to meet new people. They get anxiety over something so easy as getting to know someone new and feel uncomfortable around a crowd. I was not at the worst stage - meaning I was able to survive a social event - but still, sometimes I wished I was elsewhere because that is just who I am. Anyways, in the USA I had to deliver speeches from time to time. I decided to be a Rotary Ambassador, and this meant that I had to go to events a couple of times per month, and sometimes to intervene or even have my own program to discuss in front of one hundred people, As soon as I started to speak with the microphone close to my mouth, I felt like I could not breathe, but somehow I managed to introduce myself and I sped it up to the point that twenty minutes after that I was laughing in front of these people who showed interest in me and my program. I saw that they enjoyed seeing me and they understood my English accent, so that was all I wanted and I achieved it.

5. I discovered new passions of mine

To start off, I would not be here writing and owning a blog if I did not go on exchange. Prior to departure, every single exchange student opened a blog. Everyone started to write about their wait, their placement, their excitement, etc. And I was one of them. During my exchange, I had my own journal, but I also took some interesting classes at school. As in Milan I could not choose the classes to take and I did not have much free time after school either, I did not do many of the things I always wanted to try, but in America it was different. I took some art classes, I joined a play because I missed being on stage and... I bought my first camera. So my passion for photography was born the same way my hobby for writing came to life. I kind of felt obliged to take pictures because everything was different or looked weird through my eyes. Nothing was the same way it was back home, and so I started to capture everything with my brand new camera.

Here it is then. Going abroad is not only trying to be cool or traveling to check countries out of your bucket list, going abroad is basically giving yourself a second chance. It is giving yourself some space and concentrate on the things that matter the most to you. These are just a few reasons, then there are all the other ones like "you will learn a new language", "you will catch a yellow bus for the first time", "you will get to know new people" but first of all, you will get to know yourself better. Which means that you do not have to be a tennis player or to ski down a mountain because I did it, but it means that you need to do the things that will help you grow as a person.

- Cristian

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