A Message from Dorothea Wolf |
Inbound Student 1996-1997 |
This page was last updated on November 6, 1999
When I came back to Germany in August 97, I had a month of vacation left before school started. It was great seeing my family and all my friends again- those who were at home- and I was really happy, although I had already started to miss everybody and everything from the US. When school started, I still was just trying to have a good time, a good laugh and some fun. I was much more easy going than ever before- more selfish and superficial too, I guess. It was similar with my new friends: alot more loose connections, just going out or so, and I didn't look for anything deeper. I hadn't kept in touch with many of my old friends, so it didn't surprise me that most of them didn't match with me any more nor the other way round. With my best friend, there was a time we felt a little distant, but eventually it all got back to normal and we were talking again like we used too- probably because she understood what I was going through coming back and so she gave me some time. She had been living in the US for 4 years, you know. About my family: already during those first few weeks after returning, when we were still on vacation and did some travelling together, we noticed that we had become more distant to each other- I to them or they to me: I do not know. So this was different from what is said on this smart paper from this peace corpse volunteer( or whatever he was...). Maybe cause he wrote this paper for Americans, and in my opinion, most German kids initially have a closer bound to their parents as the American kids, so once they go abroad for a year, they "learn" to focus more on their friends. Why we had become more distant? Because I had changed. My family didn't accept it at first, or at least did not understand it fully. The thing we probably argued most about was my ... let's say... "working moral/ethic" (my what???) which had kind of vanished: I was- and still am- so fed up with this boring stuff you have to do at school that I kind of refused to work for it. There are so many things that are much more important. So, I did not want to become again who I was before I left, and my family ( meaning my parents, mainly) could not understand that suddenly I focused on such different things. Many of the other points more or less happened to me just the way they were discribed things had changed back home ( my aunt had died, my sister at first SEEMED to have grown up- and YES, she did live in my room,... :-) ) I permanently thought in English, friends made fun of me and my American accent, sometimes I even started off in English without noticing, and so on... (Remember what Karen's mom told you she thought about me after talking to me on the phone...) Especially the thing with the different perspective was strong. Almost everything was a little weird at first, and when people acted a certain way I often thought: what are you talking about/ what are you doing and why/this is not important; why do you make such a big deal of this/ how can you behave so stubborn and narrow-minded.... So I kind of rejected everything that was normal here... Seeing things from a different angle slowly faded- but I did not loose it completely, I still can feel it in a decent way many times, although more than a year and a third has past since my return- so I guess it will stay this way. Also, I got mixed up with the terms "here" and "there": just recently I wrote a report for the year book about being an exchange student, and when I talked about the States I said "here" and when I compared it to Germany I said " over there"... Talking about my year abroad and wearing out many sympathetic ears: I did not do that. I hardly talked to anyone at all- I'm just not like that. This was my year, my experiences and my memories ( of good as well as of difficult times ), and I felt people back home wouldn't understand or - worse - would not care. I didn't want to tell people who didn't care about things that had been most important to me in Miami. Indifference and apathy are the worst on earth! So I talked almost only to my best friend, and a little with my family- in a selective way, though, just like I had done with my pictures- I showed around only a few, although I have two albums by now and some slides- later on, when I was willing to tell a little more about it, they simply forgot about it. What helped a lot for re-adjusting was our Rotex group, which i joined half a year after returning. Once in a while, we do talk about our exchange year- and although everybody's experiences are unique we understand the importance of what the other person is telling and we listen to it- I mean truly listen, not just hear the words. So I did get to talk abit, in the end :-) But most of the time we most definitely live here and now, meaning we concentrate on what's going on in the present; we have meetings to clarify some formal stuff ( this is the part that's a bit boring but has to be done), we organize "conventions" and fun weekends with the current inbounds ( we have 22! this year , two from N and Central-Florida, too ) and we go out together a lot, although most of us do not live in the same city. So we just take the time to visit and get to know each other's town, we do clubbing and go to pubs or just go to the movies/café/events... To sum it up: what stayed was the different perspective; sometimes I felt farther away than others, sometimes more focused on a subject. I think I achieved more independence and flexibility along with a strong will: I know what I want, I say so, stand up for it if necessary, and look that i get it done - remember that song by Gloria Gayna "I am what I am" ? I just feel like that! Also, there's the wish/desire or even NEED to travel. I take every chance I get- small trips on the weekends or big ones when we are off for a week ( six in one year...)- as long as I don't run out of money, then it's time again for lots of jobbing... And I know that as soon as I will have graduated I want to go abroad again for at least one more year- some exotic place, maybe... Beware- I'll come back to Miami sooner or later... P.S. Keep smiling and remember Rule # 1 ... |
