nine months

I’m sitting in the back of my Czech language class doing what I normally do at school now, wondering why the hell I’m here.

School for exchange students is almost always boring, but I think now it is getting even worse for us. My school in the U.S. is finishing this week, with graduation scheduled for this weekend. Here in the Czech Republic, I still have about a month left.

The main thing is I can’t really do much. I used to try and keep up in class to a modest extent, but now I am gone so frequently with meetings and activities that knowing what’s going on is nearly impossible. I’ve also begun to shift my focus back to school in the U.S. I’m trying to remember how math works and English grammar and everything in between, so that I don’t completely bomb the ACT in September.

Being gone so frequently now has its pros and cons. The pros are that I get to see my exchange family which I have gotten so close to a lot more, and also get to see a few more places before I go. The downside is I’m away from my host family and my friends here, so even coming back home to the Czech Republic gives me a bit of culture shock each time.

All the weekends and activities also make it really easy to be negative. I’ve found myself overcome by bitterness in the past month, feeling like I don’t belong in this country after all. Yet, I think most of this is my own, self-induced fault. Nobody is trying to kick me out before it is my time to go. I have friends and family here, and I know my way around. I can speak the language a bit, and I have places I love to go and frequent. In the 40ish days that I have left, I am going to try really hard to remain positive, and remind myself of what an amazing time I have had while I’ve been here.

I got to spend this past weekend with my exchange family, this time with all of the kids who live in Slovakia as well as the Czech Republic. We didn’t sleep much, but had tons of fun. It was weird because some of those people I may not see again. Some will be going home before the next weekends that we have scheduled together. The finality of things like that is overwhelming, and makes me so scared to say goodbye. I have friends all over the world now, and there is never a 100% guarantee that I will get to see them again. That’s sad.

I am now entering my last month and two-ish weeks here. I can’t believe that it has gone by so fast. It feels like yesterday I was waking up in my first host dad’s car to see Ostrava for the first time. I’m going to see my exchange family twice before the end. I’ll turn 17 this next month. I’ll meet my host sister in my last host family for the first time. I’ll have to figure out how the hell I’m going to get all my stuff home, because I don’t want to let any of it go. It should be a good one.

I was really hoping that I would kill the entire 45 minutes that makes up this Czech lesson but I’ve failed pretty bad. I’ve got 22 more minutes to suffer through. I guess life could be worse.