Dear America

Dear America

By Radiv Annaba

Sometimes I blame the time why it goes so fast like an airplane. I feel these merely 9 months I’ve been through my exchange year, its going so fast! However, I have been experiencing many things and I’ve been learning many things as well.  Being an exchange student is such an unforgettable moments in my entire life. Being an exchange student for me, its like you represent your home country, its like a journey of finding who you actually are, its like you are going to have so much adventure, its like you can see the world more widely!

Let me ‘time travel’ back to the time before I came to the United States as an exchange student.  My English was not really good specially in speaking skill, I couldn’t play any music instrument, I couldn’t dance, I couldn’t interact with people that well, I never flew with such an airplane, I was only dreaming about having many friends throughout the world, I never won any precious competition.

Then we come back to ‘now’ time.  I’ve done many things during my exchange year in the USA. There are some examples about what I’ve learn so far and most of them are something new for me and really beneficial as well

Learn How to See the World More Widely

Living with the host family, American family pretty often makes me learn how to adjust with different kind of people. Then go to American High School and met new friends and exactly with different kind of characteristics. I’m not only meeting new people from America but also all over the world. It is when the group of exchange students gathered, i meet new friends from many different countries! And I can tell now I have friends from every continent in the planet! In this case, I’ve learned that the world is large and many other different things out there, different people, different culture.

My English Becomes So Much Better

By speaking English every day, I’ve upgraded my English skill specially in speaking. Now I don’t need to put caption or subtitles while I am watching Hollywood movies. And I’ve dreamed in English multiple times!

Art

I am taking guitar class at my school. I didn’t know how to play guitar that well so I take this guitar class. I really love this class and now I am so good at guitar and I’ve performed some songs in front of the class and got really good appreciation from my guitar teacher, he says “Radiv, the song you played made my day, I smiled all day long”.  Guitar is not the only one in art section that I like, since 2 weeks ago I’ve been taking hip hop class. I am taking 4 classes of hip hop which is I believe it is also part of American experience to dance hip hop.

Tour Guide?

I live in such big city, Portland, Oregon. Portland is a metropolis and the biggest city in Oregon. One thing I like in Portland is the public transportation system. They have really good public transportation and I’ve learned so quickly how to go to anyplace I want by bus, MAX (electric train), and streetcar (electric train for short distance). Even when I have friends come visit to Portland, I take them to go around city of Portland with the public transportation. I’m kind of being tour guide, huh?

Leadership

My leadership skill is eventually built so much better during my exchange year. More over when I won the BUBW conference in Orlando, Florida. There, during the conference, I’ve learned many things in leadership and I got so much new knowledge that I have not known before. And at that time I’ve promised to share whatever I got here, my experiences, my knowledge, and everything beneficial to the others specially the youth so they can be inspired and given the energy of what I call, The Indonesian Dream.

I think that’s pretty much I can share for now. However, there are many others I really want to share but I believe those are the best ones. I really enjoy my exchange year and I want to be the part of the World Changer!

D