Grand Rapids

First Post! I’m still in America, but I did an important Rotary thing so I thought I should probably mention it.

For four days exchange students  in the central states area went to Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. While there (I should probably mention that this is from my outbound perspective as I don’t know what the other students did) we went to several seminars to learn how to be a good little exchange student. A lot of them were really redundant and told you the same thing over and over and over again. Culture Shock, Ethnocentrism, and Making Your Life About Rotary being the main topics.

There were a few seminars that were REALLY useful, like Group Discussion, where all of the outbounds and inbounds  for the nordic countries got together and discussed what it was like to live in those places. There weren’t any inbound students from Sweden, but the picture the Danish kids gave was pretty clear, so it was still useful. I met three other outbounds who were going to Sweden there: Sabrina, Andrew, and Connor/Conner??????? (I didn’t get his name, only his email. oops.) Sabrina is going to Lapland and Andrew, Nacka. They were all really cool, and I’m glad to have met them.

The best part of the conference was the end of each day. There was dancing until 12:30, and on the last night until 1. I don’t dance because I can barely stand without looking awkward or falling over, but it looked like a lot of fun for everyone else. I spent a lot of my nights in the pool, jumping off the diving boards and talking with strangers. When everything closed down my district headed back to our dorms and we hung out in each other’s rooms. The first night all of the boys were screaming and playing bad music out of their windows and on the second night we made “polite” conversation and listened to semi-decent music. On the third night we all hung out in the basement and signed each others shirts until three in the morning. Then we went back to our dorms and everyone stayed up all night.

This is feeling like a laundry list. I’m still really tired from yesterday and my head is pounding from lack of caffeine. (I may or may not have become addicted while there. Every morning consisted of several cups of coffee, cappuccino and tea. Nothing could keep me awake.) I don’t know how to end these posts.

Tah dah. Glad to be home with my cat and more than one sheet for my bed. Sad to be away from all of the wonderful people I met. Can’t wait to get out of this country.