almost half of the year over // #32

Hi!
So I thought since almost half of my exchange year is over now (It's actually sometime next week but I can't even really tell if that's true because I might stay a little longer but whatever...) I thought I'd write a post in English to kind of look back. There's two reason for writing it in English. First of all I thought it might be nice for people I met here to be able to read it and also for other exchange students but I also just noticed a few days ago I've literally no memory of how good or bad my English was 5 months ago when I came here. I mean of course I know it's better now but I also can't really imagine it's a lot better than my German friends' and classmates' English. What I'm trying to say is that I might read this post again in half a year to maybe notice some improvement. That's why I won't look up any words or read it again when I'm done and I'm also gonna try to write in a way I would talk to people, too. I'm not planning on writing more posts in English though because I guess some people that usually read my blog won't be able to understand it. Okay, I should probably get started.
Today is January, 13th and that means I've now been here for pretty much 5 months which actually is a really long time. But it totally doesn't feel like it, sometimes it even feels like I just got here a few days ago but then I think of all the things I've seen and learned since I'm here and I realize it's really been half a year. It's so weird how different everything turned out to be compared with my expectations from half a year ago. Everybody is always like "Oh, no, I don't have any expectations, I'll just see how everything is once I get there." but I'm pretty sure everyone that says that is lying. I feel like one reason for having high expectations is that all those exchange-year-YouTube-guys (Wow, okay, that was really German.) seem to have a perfect life and just excactly what everybody thinks of when thinking of an exchange year in the US. Like a huge and awesome really American house, a beautiful room, a great hostfamily, a lot of good friends and school seems to be so much fun. It's not like all of this is completely unrealistic but what you don't see in those videos is that most of the time you're just a normal student, you go to school, you get home, you eat, you do your homework and then your go to bed. Of course there's still fun stuff to do on the weekends and sometimes even during the week but it's not like it's a year of vacation or something. It's not like I'm saying an exchange year is total shit or something but it kinda bothers me that nobody (or almost nobody) ever talks honest about it. Also you have to expect to feel really bad sometimes. Some people might not be homesick at all during their exchange year but every exchange student I know has at least been homesick once so far and besides that there will be more situations you feel uncomfortable.
Nevertheless I'd definetely say this has been the most special time of my life, I've seen so many new things and met a lot of great people from all over the world. I've realized how lucky I am to be able to be here and to have so many people I love and that love and care about me, both, here and back in Germany. It's been a few days ago I realized how sad I'm gonna be the day I leave and that was such a weird feeling because to be honest it's not like I have tons of best friends here I'll miss, there for sure are some people I will feel weird and sad about not seeing them anymore and there's my hostsister I will really really miss but it's also just things I've gotten used to, like taking the train to go to school, my classes at school, even my teachers, seminar days and all that stuff.
When I skyped with some friends a few weeks ago I asked them whether they thought I changed at all and they said I was basically the same. I've been thinking about that a little bit and I don't know if I said that before but I think it's more about the way I think about things now (too many 'thinks' I'm sorry). All that kinda is what I was writing about a few posts ago so I'm not gonna say as much about it again but probably it's just meeting all those new people and seeing how different things can be that made me appreciate a lot more what I have and maybe it's also the fact I worry about way different things now. When I was in Germany my biggest worries usually were about school. Now it's more about all that stuff I just found normal to have like good friends without needing to "work" for it and the ability to pretty much always say what I think and there's other stuff, too, but I don't really want to talk about that as detailed.
To look back a little: Only a few days after I came here we already went on our first vacation that was at the Apostle Islands and a week later we went to Michigan for my hostfamily's family reunion they have once a year which was a lot of fun. I've done so much stuff I never did before like tubing or riding a Go-Kart on my own. The next week school started and at first I found it pretty hard since Payton has higher standards than most high schools and also everything being in English was a big challenge. After a while it got way easier and now I'd say that even though it's in English school is less hard than at home. I was really glad when I realized how many days off there're since I wasn't sure if I could handle only having two real breaks (winter and spring). For Thanksgiving we even got half a week of and I'm pretty sure I've never had so much food at once before. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas there only were a couple of weeks which was great. I really thought I'd get homesick for Christmas but I was fine and I'd maybe even say that I had one of my best Christmas (what's the plural of Christmas??) this year. For New Years I was in another hostfamily but I spent that night with some other exchange students and altough it was weird not to have any fireworks it was a lot of fun.
It's so funny to remember how little I knew Chicago when I came here and to see how familiar a lot of stuff is now. I really like Chicago but, I think I've said that before, I don't think I want to live here for the rest of my life. I'm probably just too much of a country person, I still get scared when I'm waiting for bus outside the trainstation and an incoming train above me makes a lot of noise. (In my defense: CTA trains are really loud!!)
For this second half of my exchange year I hope I can do more stuff with my friends outside of school, I'm also really looking forward to joining the Frisbee Team next month and one of my goals is to try to do something after school before going home at least once a week.
So, now I've written a lot and I actually have now idea how to name this post because I didn't even think about what I was writing but I hope it was at least a little interesting. (I feel like I always say that, do I?) I might write one more post in English at the end of my exchange year, we'll see.