Notes from Abroad by Tabatha Pilon in Denmark – The 4 D’s & 7 B’s of Being an Exchange Student. November 3, 2011

CFN –As an exchange student, I am constantly reminded of the rules: “The 4 D’s”.    No Drinking; No Driving; No Drugs; And No Dating.   More importantly, I am reminded of the 7 Be’s.   BE a Person of Action

BE Curious BE Purposeful BE Grateful BE Respectful BE Accountable BE of Service  And the ‘‘Be’’ that didn’t make the official list, yet I am told more than half the time when I meet someone new is “Being Brave”.

People will always tell me how brave I am to come to a completely different country, where they speak a completely different language, have different laws and where the school system is different.   The only thing is that I have never seen this as brave. I would call this being adventurous. Regardless, no matter where I am, or who I am meeting, if my host parents are with me, they will portray me as this brave girl that I do not see myself as, and one of the main reasons they do, is because of an event that occurred in my first week in Danmark. My host dad had been working late, so my host mom, two sisters and I all went out on a walk. Along the walk they had been discussing scary situations and what they would do if they occurred(which I was unaware of at the time, since they were speaking in Danish, but they told me so afterwards) so, when we climbed the stairs through the back gate and entered through the backyard, they were so ready to be in the comforts of their own home.

What they weren’t prepared for though, was when they rounded the corner to the door, it was open already. My sister, Signe’s, first instinct was to reach for her cell phone. My host mom’s was to check if the car was here (silently creeping of course) and when they couldn’t see it, they began to go into panic mode.  My first instinct?    It was to walk into the house. I couldn’t say that I didn’t know what was happening, because I did, but in my mind, we wouldn’t be accomplishing anything by standing out in the chilly evening air. So with my heart pounding in my ears, I entered the house while my family stayed outside by the door.   I don’t know exactly what I was thinking, but in my mind somebody had to do something. Nothing would happen by just standing in the front yard.  And that was when I heard it: movement. Strangely enough, I still kept moving forward and didn’t let the “you’re gonna die!” mantra in my head stop me. I silently crept forward, when all of a sudden, a figure rounded the corner of the living room, and my heart nearly jumped out of my chest.  And then, with one huge gust blowing out of me, I sighed with relief. For I knew the man standing in front of me: it was no other than my work clothes cladded host dad. I smiled with relief and walked back to the door.

“It’s only Jørgen!” I called with relief, a little laugh in my voice. They all piled into the doorway, laughing with relief. And of course, as we looked out to the front, nestled under the carport was no other than our car.    Thinking back to this, all I can wonder is why I entered the house. I’ve watched enough horror movies in the past to know that the one to enter the house always dies first.  But to me, that is being brave. Acting out on a spur of the moment impulse. Not planning things out; waiting months for something to take place. Those months gave me the time I need to prepare myself; to talk myself out of it; to talk myself into it; to think it over many times; to imagine what it would be like.   To me, coming to a country where I cannot speak the language; cannot begin to fathom some of the laws or understand what I’m supposed to do in school, is not brave. It is going out on a limb; living my life to the fullest; doing something that makes me happy.

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Something done on a whim, though, that is brave. If I had put no thought into this, just waited until August and thought to myself, hm, I think I’m gonna purchase a plane ticket, fly half way across the world and live there for a year…just to see what it’s like… then that would have been brave. Having months to think it through: not so much. Getting my host parents to agree with my logic though, is another story, as they never fail to tell of this adventure; never fail to tell people how brave I am, even when I try to say that a person cannot be described as brave until they have thrown themselves into something as a last minute decision.I think that there are certain things in life that you just have to experience, and I think traveling is one of them. Whether it is considered to be a brave thing or not, it is definitely one that is worth it. One of the best things that you can do while traveling abroad, is make friends. These are friends that, with time, can become lifelong friends; people who tie your traveling mind to the earth, tethering it in places that you’d never thought it would be.   And so, now when someone tells me that it is a brave thing to come to another country, I will then tell them that there is so much more to being an exchange student than just being brave. There are the friendships and the relationships you will create; the maturing that you will do; the curiosity of the world that you will be able to pursue; the lessons you will learn; the goals you will achieve.

Being an exchange student is so much more than the title it has. It is about being grateful; purposeful; a person of action; curious; respectful; accountable and of service. Being an exchange student is about being; about doing; about living. It is about learning; maturing and about failing. It is about lessons learned and accidental mistakes and barriers that with time you overcome. Being an Exchange student isn’t a brave thing; it’s a BE-autiful choice.