From another exchange student:
''A year has passed and now we stand on the brink of returning to a world where we are surrounded by the paradox of everything and yet nothing being the same.
In no time at all we will reluctantly give our hugs and fighting the tears. We will say goodbye to people who were once just names on a sheet of paper, to return to people who we hugged and fought tears to say goodbye to before we left. We will leave our best friends to return to our best friends.
We will go back to the places we came from, and go back to the same things we did last summer and every summer before, with no idea how to proceed. We will come into town on that same familiar road, and even though it has been a year, it will seem like only yesterday. As we walk into our old bedrooms, every emotion will pass through us as we reflect on the way our lives have changed and the people have become.
We will realize that the things that were most important to us a year ago don't seem to matter so much anymore, and the things we hold highest now, no one at home will ever understand.
Who will call you first? How will you explain your exchange year to your friends? what are you going to fill your time with now? What has everyone been up to in the past few months? And how long until you start really missing how people from your host country differ from home?
We start to realize how much things have changed, and that the hardest part of being an exchange student is balancing the two completely different worlds we now live in.
Trying desperately to hold on to everything,every memory all while trying to understand what it all is we have to leave behind.
We now know the meaning of true friendship. We know how we have kept in touch with over the past year and who we hold dearest to our hearts.
We've left our worlds to deal with the real world. We've had our hearts broken, we've fallen in love, we've helped our best friends overcome heartache, stress, and death.
There have been times when we've felt so helpless being hours away from home when we knew our families or friends needed us the most, and there are times when we know we have made a difference.
Just days from now we will leave. Just days from now we will take down our pictures, and pack our clothes.
We will take our memories and dreams and put them away for now, saving them for our return to that world. The world where we learned to grow up and be our own person.
In just days we will dig deep inside to find the strength and conviction to adjust to change and still keep each other close.
And somehow, in some way, we will find our place between these two worlds. In just days.''
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