Just in case you underestimate the horrific power of that NYC orientation, let me point out that my room mate, the one who spent that whole first night throwing up, left. She was my best friend here and the only one of my AFS family (the kids that I crossed the ocean with) that I could visit without buying a 70 euro ticket and waiting till easter. It crushed me. It crushed us. Especially because she didn't tell us that she was going home. We found it on her Facebook. But I still love Wisconsin. But I'm gunna miss her. I do miss her. Do underestimate the power your words and actions can have on people. They can take an experience like this away from someone.
Just thought you should know.
Later!
Morgan
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Ein Unten
Ok so I have now been away from home for a month and thats so wired. Time here is so strange. Sometimes I think I've already been here 6 months and that its time for me to go home, and other times it feels like I just got here. It makes everything very difficult to keep track of. Everything got easier after school started. And the sun came out. (The weather usually plays a heavy hand in how I'm feeling.) The city is now even more beautiful. I love Vienna. It has the perks of every city and is like no other city. It has that big city feel but its clean and easy to navigate, and doesn't feel dark and daunting and dirty like cities like NYC do for me.
But now I kinda hate NYC for another reason; the orientation that I had there before I left. The people were awful and unhelpful and discouraging and honestly I did not feel at all taken care of or even cared about there. Shoving me in to a ballroom in a dirty little hotel and telling me how hard and scary and difficult its going to be but not telling me how to get over the challenges. Or showing kids that were JUST separated from their families a video of kids being separated from their families, hating their experience and then being gratefully reunited with their families. I don't care what anyone says, the Kiwi Video was just awful. Or telling me how often you have to find new host families for kids that offended theirs so badly. I realize that some kids needed to be warned about such things but there are far better ways to present them to a group of anxious teenagers. There would have been 100 better ways to do that. I still want to cry when I think about how they ripped my dad away from me. I got no closure. No real goodbye. I was not happy about that. And it continues to be upsetting really. But my parents (host and natural) say that everything will be fine. And all I can do is hope to the high heavens that their right. And of course write scathingly about it in my blog (hey I have it, I'm gunna use it!!). Cause Honestly it was the worst 2 days of my life. And something that I'm really, really struggling to put behind me.
Things are better now though. With my host family sitting in my comfy chair in the sunshine in my super cute room (thanks Eva!!!) in the sunshine with my window open getting blown by a warm breeze. Its good. And school isn't so bad anymore really. I'm starting to be able to understand more and more of what the teachers are saying. Although for the most part it feels like those listening tests that you always have in language classes when you really have no idea whats going on and your just desperately listening for one or 2 words that you know in the desperate hope that you can follow the answer key. Except I do't have an answer key. But its getting a little easier. I think I've gotten lax on how much german I speak though. I'm just in so many english classes!!!! I asked to get switched out of most of them though because it is so bad for my german. And the languages get all jumbled in my memory so when my host dad asks if they were speaking english or german I'm not really sure. When I understand all the german it just kinda is assumed to be in the language that I understand and the kids try to speak english with me so often that it all just kinda smooshes together. I do kinda miss adjectives though. And having any kind of real vocabulary. Cause my german one is VERY incredibly ridiculously tragically limited. You don't think about how many words you know in your own language until your trying to speak another one. Everyone says that I have so much german training with two and a half years, but honestly it feels like nothing. Everyone is impressed with my broken grammatically incorrect german as they speak elegantly worded perfect english. It makes me feel very bad about myself really. Or at least about my language skills. But that was really expected. I'm not really sure that I speak any language well anymore really. My english is getting worse from lack of use and my german is not improving fast enough to compensate for it. So I now speak very proficient body language, otherwise known as charades.
I feel like a creep sometimes cause I spend so much time just watching people. I'm always trying to see what the other kids are doing in class, whats acceptable whats taboo, what they talk about, how my brothers interact with my host parents, whats crossing boundaries, and whats fine. Everything needs to be figured out. All the things that you don't think about doing you have to watch here. You have to be careful with everything. But that might just be my super paranoid state of mind after NYC.
The class I was put in at school has made my life much better and much more complicated. Better because they are all super nice and friendly and sweet but 100 times more complicated because there are two distinct and strictly defined cliques. That complicates everything for me. I don't want it to seem like I pick one over the other for fear of offending the other. I therefore can't make any really close friends because that would be clearly picking a side. Which means I spend a lot of afternoons (which stretch from about noon or one to six, seven, or even eight in the evening) by myself while my brothers are in their rooms and I'm in mine. I'm starting to get out with them though. I just don't really know how to like invite myself to come along though. I don't want to seem rude. But I don't wanna be alone anymore either.
There have only been two times in my month here that I have felt even mildly offended by some American stereotype and both times were this Monday. A kid in one of my english classes said that all Americans just want to sue each other too get money without working and I was called a prude by my english teacher of all people. That was a weird day. But i was assured by a girl in the english class that the teacher was only trying to prove how cool he was. Yeah. Effective method.
But I think that's really all I have to say. I have to run and get some stuff for my sisters and mom and for a party tonight. And I'm sorry if there are any grammar or spelling mistakes... Not much english practice here remember?
Thanks as always for reading!
Morgan
But now I kinda hate NYC for another reason; the orientation that I had there before I left. The people were awful and unhelpful and discouraging and honestly I did not feel at all taken care of or even cared about there. Shoving me in to a ballroom in a dirty little hotel and telling me how hard and scary and difficult its going to be but not telling me how to get over the challenges. Or showing kids that were JUST separated from their families a video of kids being separated from their families, hating their experience and then being gratefully reunited with their families. I don't care what anyone says, the Kiwi Video was just awful. Or telling me how often you have to find new host families for kids that offended theirs so badly. I realize that some kids needed to be warned about such things but there are far better ways to present them to a group of anxious teenagers. There would have been 100 better ways to do that. I still want to cry when I think about how they ripped my dad away from me. I got no closure. No real goodbye. I was not happy about that. And it continues to be upsetting really. But my parents (host and natural) say that everything will be fine. And all I can do is hope to the high heavens that their right. And of course write scathingly about it in my blog (hey I have it, I'm gunna use it!!). Cause Honestly it was the worst 2 days of my life. And something that I'm really, really struggling to put behind me.
Things are better now though. With my host family sitting in my comfy chair in the sunshine in my super cute room (thanks Eva!!!) in the sunshine with my window open getting blown by a warm breeze. Its good. And school isn't so bad anymore really. I'm starting to be able to understand more and more of what the teachers are saying. Although for the most part it feels like those listening tests that you always have in language classes when you really have no idea whats going on and your just desperately listening for one or 2 words that you know in the desperate hope that you can follow the answer key. Except I do't have an answer key. But its getting a little easier. I think I've gotten lax on how much german I speak though. I'm just in so many english classes!!!! I asked to get switched out of most of them though because it is so bad for my german. And the languages get all jumbled in my memory so when my host dad asks if they were speaking english or german I'm not really sure. When I understand all the german it just kinda is assumed to be in the language that I understand and the kids try to speak english with me so often that it all just kinda smooshes together. I do kinda miss adjectives though. And having any kind of real vocabulary. Cause my german one is VERY incredibly ridiculously tragically limited. You don't think about how many words you know in your own language until your trying to speak another one. Everyone says that I have so much german training with two and a half years, but honestly it feels like nothing. Everyone is impressed with my broken grammatically incorrect german as they speak elegantly worded perfect english. It makes me feel very bad about myself really. Or at least about my language skills. But that was really expected. I'm not really sure that I speak any language well anymore really. My english is getting worse from lack of use and my german is not improving fast enough to compensate for it. So I now speak very proficient body language, otherwise known as charades.
I feel like a creep sometimes cause I spend so much time just watching people. I'm always trying to see what the other kids are doing in class, whats acceptable whats taboo, what they talk about, how my brothers interact with my host parents, whats crossing boundaries, and whats fine. Everything needs to be figured out. All the things that you don't think about doing you have to watch here. You have to be careful with everything. But that might just be my super paranoid state of mind after NYC.
The class I was put in at school has made my life much better and much more complicated. Better because they are all super nice and friendly and sweet but 100 times more complicated because there are two distinct and strictly defined cliques. That complicates everything for me. I don't want it to seem like I pick one over the other for fear of offending the other. I therefore can't make any really close friends because that would be clearly picking a side. Which means I spend a lot of afternoons (which stretch from about noon or one to six, seven, or even eight in the evening) by myself while my brothers are in their rooms and I'm in mine. I'm starting to get out with them though. I just don't really know how to like invite myself to come along though. I don't want to seem rude. But I don't wanna be alone anymore either.
There have only been two times in my month here that I have felt even mildly offended by some American stereotype and both times were this Monday. A kid in one of my english classes said that all Americans just want to sue each other too get money without working and I was called a prude by my english teacher of all people. That was a weird day. But i was assured by a girl in the english class that the teacher was only trying to prove how cool he was. Yeah. Effective method.
But I think that's really all I have to say. I have to run and get some stuff for my sisters and mom and for a party tonight. And I'm sorry if there are any grammar or spelling mistakes... Not much english practice here remember?
Thanks as always for reading!
Morgan
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Erste Woche
So I have been with my family now for a week even though it doesn't feel like its been a week. It feel like a blink and much much longer. I'm happier now though. There were a few hours that were really tough. And I have come up with another "D" for AFS in case you don't know AFS has the 2 big "D"s that will get you sent home in a heartbeat, they are driving and drugs (and hitch-hiking and drinking if your under the legal age of your host country.) But my D is Downtime. Thats dangerous. It's in the downtime that you get homesick, when you think about your friends and family and pets and bed and all those things that you miss about home. But when I'm doing something, like walking around Vienna or shopping or "skiing" (the quotes are there because I don't think you can call what I do skiing. its more like desperately trying now to "kiss the snow") or in a museum (only spent a few hours in the natural history museum and i want to build a cot in that place!!! it was wonderful!!! Better yet, I got in free cause I'm a student =D) or doing ANYTHING for that mater its so much better. thats when I feel happy and confidant about my decision. Downtime = danger for me I think.
But I love my family. After you get over the awkward beginning, and the guys started to get used to me and I got used to them, it all got much easier. But I'm not my any means perfectly adjusted. There is a lot that takes a lot of getting used to. I could write a book. But everything is getting better. I'm not as homesick, and I really like my family and I love my room (thank you Eva!!!) and all that is good. My only real problem at the moment is that I don't really have any friends. Tomorrow is my first day of school so I haven't been able to meet anyone, and thats been hard, but I know I will. My german is getting better after that initial shock of not knowing the dialect and slang and extra r-rolling and everything is through the back of your throat which i can't do. Well ok my SPEAKING german is not much better, my understanding is. But I'll take any kind of progression. I don't know why I was thinking I would be fluent after a week. That was a foolish thought if I've ever had one.
I think I miss my friends and animals the most. And my mommy but that goes with out saying. But I think just cause I don't know anyone within 20 miles of me. I made really, really great AFS friends at the hell that was NYC orientation, but they're all miles and miles away, which sucks, but they're coming to visit this weekend! Well some of them. Which makes me really very happy. But I both can't wait and am soooo nervous about school tomorrow. But It'll be ok.... I Just have to keep repeating that.
Sigh. Bed time.
Thanks for reading!
But I love my family. After you get over the awkward beginning, and the guys started to get used to me and I got used to them, it all got much easier. But I'm not my any means perfectly adjusted. There is a lot that takes a lot of getting used to. I could write a book. But everything is getting better. I'm not as homesick, and I really like my family and I love my room (thank you Eva!!!) and all that is good. My only real problem at the moment is that I don't really have any friends. Tomorrow is my first day of school so I haven't been able to meet anyone, and thats been hard, but I know I will. My german is getting better after that initial shock of not knowing the dialect and slang and extra r-rolling and everything is through the back of your throat which i can't do. Well ok my SPEAKING german is not much better, my understanding is. But I'll take any kind of progression. I don't know why I was thinking I would be fluent after a week. That was a foolish thought if I've ever had one.
I think I miss my friends and animals the most. And my mommy but that goes with out saying. But I think just cause I don't know anyone within 20 miles of me. I made really, really great AFS friends at the hell that was NYC orientation, but they're all miles and miles away, which sucks, but they're coming to visit this weekend! Well some of them. Which makes me really very happy. But I both can't wait and am soooo nervous about school tomorrow. But It'll be ok.... I Just have to keep repeating that.
Sigh. Bed time.
Thanks for reading!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
