For the ESSEX Inbound - Fun Facts

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Some fun facts about being an exchange student in the US:

You know you’re an exchange student when:

·                you automatically introduce yourself with “Hey. I am______. From ______.”

·                you have a 80% chance that people you talk to will not exactly know where your home country is situated.

·                you call people your family with who, some month ago, you’ve never even talked before.

·                you really have to concentrate to speak your native language; English just feels so much easier right now.

·                you wonder if your clothes shrink in the dryer or you’re just gaining weight.

·                you have experienced that you say something and all people around you start laughing and you wonder what you just said.

·                people in school ask you the funniest questions about your home country.

·                you sometimes miss food from home more than everything else.

·                you have become an expert in packing and unpacking suitcases.

·                you already pretended not to understand something your teacher said about homework just because you were to lazy to do it

·                every second person asks you to say something in your native language and whatever you say, they think it’s awesome.

·                you’ve finally learned in the last months how to make your laundry on your own

·                you watch all kind of trashy shows on TV and still feel good because you heard it helps your vocabulary.

·                you know curse words in 20 languages because that’s what exchange students teach each other.

·                you sometimes forget that you’re host family is not your real family.

·                you have to start looking up words on Google translation (but not from your native language to English but from English to your native language!)

·                you feel like your stomach has grown twice its size.

·                in your dreams people of your home country start to speak English to you.

·                you are better than your teacher in your foreign language class.

·                people keep forgetting where exactly you are from: “Oh, aren’t you the girl from Russia/ Australia/ Germany/ Denmark/ …?”

·                you’re sick of America’s public transportation system and you would love to ride the train or bus that back home you’ve always hated.

·                you get packages from home just filled with food you liked back home and can’t get here.

·                wherever you go you keep looking for pins that you can put on your blazer.

·                people nearly beg you for speaking more with them just because they love your accent.

·                you can’t imagine how life will be without refrigerators that dispense iced water and ice cubes, refills in the restaurant, garbage disposals, pancakes for breakfast, American “trash-TV”, people bagging your groceries, American football and so on.

·                you have 8 parents, 20 siblings and 15 pets.

written by Inbound Student 2010-2011