The End of an Era and the Start of a New Year

Around this time, most people (in the West, at least) start getting really sentimental and try to say profound things about the year that's dying and the imminent birth of a new one. Usually, I couldn't care less. I might get a twinge of loss when I realize the symbolism, but it's never really been that much of a big deal for me. Life keeps on going, with new things to experience and things to forget, and no matter how you look at it, the past is in the past and you can't change it.

But there's something about this year coming to an end, my friends. This year my life changed in a way I never thought I would be blessed enough to experience. This year, I became an exchange student. I would be lying if I said that there wasn't a part of me that regrets the end of such a year. I'll never stop being an exchange student, even after I've gone back to the States. But I'll never get back to this point - the year that I became what I'll always be.

It's hard to put this feeling to words. I'm sitting here in my living room - the third living room I've called home this year. Music is playing - music I probably would never have picked in the States, and music that wouldn't have been playing in my first host family's house. But that music is in my ipod, and I've rocked out to it on the train in the last week. My host sister is playing monopoly on the wii, and my book and ipod are sitting on the coffee table. I just made some ramen-equivalent and I'm at home.

For the first time in my life, I wasn't with my family (my biological family) over Christmas. I didn't sing happy birthday to my mom and laugh at the cards that my aunts and uncles got her. I cried myself to sleep more times this year than any other year of my life. My heart has broken, and been pieced back together for more than one reason this year.

But, this year, I also flew across a ravine screaming in glee with my host mom, brother and sister right there with me. I stood on top of a mountain in the ruins of a thousand year old castle and looked out across the Rhine. I drank champagne on the banks of the Rhine. I introduced myself and gave a presentation about my home and family in German, after only a month of speaking the language. I climbed the Eiffel Tower with a girl I never would have met without Rotary. I walked through Versailles with a Turkish guy, a bunch of Brazilians, an Argentinian, and some Taiwanese girls. I saw and heard the Berliner Philharmoniker rehearse, and walked through one of the most beautiful parks in the world.

This calendar year is almost over. My exchange year is not. Sometimes it's hard to remember why I should stick it out. But then I think about the cello sitting in the other room, and the orchestra that I'll be joining the day after my birthday. I think about the Eurotrip, and going to Barcelona with my host family. I think about all the wonderful things that I've seen and done this year, and all the unbelievable stories I have to tell. Exchange is so much more than just living in another country for a year. This is the only way I can think to accurately describe and show this:

This was my life before exchange.

And this is my life after exchange happened to it.

You see, maybe my life is a little bit messier now, but it's certainly more colorful, and more interesting. :)

Happy New Year, everyone. :)

On the Courage of the Human Race

Though we may not all realize it, we all have courage. Sometimes we don't see it behind the fear and uncertainty, but courage is in every one of us. Whether it's the courage to stand up against something we think is wrong, or the courage to risk something dear to us to help someone else, we all have it. It's part of being human. In extreme conditions, courage is brought out of us in an extraordinary way.

An explanation as to how the idea for this post came into existence: I've been reading Connie Willis' Blackout. It's about Oxford University in 2060, after time travel has been invented. It focuses on a few of the 'historians' who do the actual time-traveling, particularly those working on assignments during World War II. One of my favorite points-of-view is that of the girl who is observing the attitudes of those who lived in London during the Blitz. She's posing as a shop-girl and does her observing in a small air-raid shelter under a church which she shares with a varied group of Londoners including a mother and her three children, the vicar of the church under which they're hiding, and an as-yet unnamed elderly man who seems to come from noble roots.

As I'm reading, I am continually struck by the courage of these people, who, although fictional, are inspired by the millions of people who did live in London during World War II. Everyone who payed any attention during history class knows that Hitler tried his hardest to take England. His plan was to invade and seize control of England through a series of calculated attacks on London from the air. What he hadn't anticipated was the courage and determination of the Londoners. His experience with Neville Chamberlain had obviously left him underestimating the Englishmen. You see, they had decided that Hitler was not going to be allowed to win his war, nor was he going to be allowed to take their homeland. So they worked together and built air-raid shelters and huddled in them every night - rich noblemen sitting beside their servants, neighbors who couldn't stand each other, complete strangers sharing food and comforting each other. And then there were the thousands who volunteered to risk their lives to make sure people knew where shelters were. They would patrol the streets during raids to guide people to safety. There were the people who manned the anti-aircraft guns, and the people who saved St. Paul Cathedral by entering the burning landmark to pass pails of water to put out the fires.

Although it's rarely thought of or mentioned, the German pilots definitely had courage too. They knew that the Englishmen had anti-aircraft weapons, and they knew that there was a chance that they were going to get shot down. More than 5,000 were either killed or wounded. This number is nothing compared to the 40,000 English civilians killed, but it's still a pretty big number. They knew the risks, but they did it anyway.

Continuing, think about the Germans who knowingly hid Jews during the Holocaust. They knew they would be killed if they were found out to have been harboring Jews, but they didn't think about that. Or if they did, they didn't let anyone else see it. They knew what they had to do, and they did it.

There was the Evacuation of Dunkirk, in which over 300,000 French and English soldiers were evacuated from the shores of France to escape the approaching force of Germans. Who did it? The primarily-civilian owners of about 800 "little boats" on the southeastern coast of Britain. They all banded together and crossed the Channel to France to save their countrymen. It took nine days - any of which might have been the day Hitler's forces arrived.

I realize that I'm on exchange in Germany and that this is a touchy topic. So is the Civil War in America, Apartheid in South Africa, Pol Pot in Cambodia. Every country on earth has a point in history they can look at and wish they didn't have to. It's part of being human. What we need to remember is that it's in the past, and that mistakes should be learned from. I can't speak for the South Africans or Cambodians, but I know that I am proud to be an American, even with the Civil War and the innumerable other mistakes in our past, and that I'm also exceedingly proud to be an exchange student in Germany and therefore (I hope) an honorary German.

I think I'm rather courageous too. No, I never risked my life to guide someone to safety with bombs falling all around. I didn't pilot a plane in any war, I never hid someone the government wanted to kill, I don't own a boat, nor did I use one to help soldiers escape from Dunkirk. I've never stood up against the government, and I've never saved a life at the risk of my own. I haven't done any of these things people would call courageous or heroic. But I did leave my home for a year without knowing anyone in the place that was bound to be my home. I decided to give up my ability to communicate so I could learn a new language and become a more aware person. It's not that it's not exactly on the same level, but to me, what I've done has required some amount of courage. It's impossible to go into a school of strangers speaking a strange language and not think that you're at least kind of doomed. I think that exchange students are a pretty brave part of the human race.

Atticus Finch from Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird said the following regarding courage: "It's knowing you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."

I mean absolutely no offense by this post. If you are offended, I apologize greatly.