... please be full of joy. Make my friends and family happy. I want to travel and live a new life again because I feel like that's what I need right now. I learnt a lot about myself this past year, I wonder how much more I can learn if I leave again..

My wishes for 2016 aren't a lot, but they are big ones. I don't ask to be rich and famous (yet), but I wish I get to see my exchange friends and family again because they are far away, and distance sucks. I also hope I will be an international student in college and that I will find my way in a foreign country.

Last year I had champagne at midnight with my american family, this time I get to celebrate New Year's Eve in my home country again. The company will be different but the situation will be the same: a bunch of people making toasts and counting down the minutes for the start of a, hopefully, wonderful year.

I read on the internet that for someone 2015 has been a crappy year. The purpose of this post is to share positive thoughts. My year has been actually pretty good, at least for the first half of it. Your year will come soon and you will get to show who you are to people. You need to work on it and to be patient, time is the key. I remember complaining about the fact that I had to wait a year before I could go on exchange: It was 2 years and a half ago, now I already came back and I've got just 6 more months of high school. There are just a few days left of 2015, live them up the best we can!

2015

- I traveled somewhere I've dreamt of visiting for years.

- I met a lot of international students.

- I went on a road trip.

- I tried new foods.

- I learnt new languages.
- I caught 17 airplanes.
- I spent the 4th of July in America.

- I went to the MTV EMAs.

...

2016 ?

- Coming soon.

Share your 2015 with me in the comments!
What would you like to achieve in 2016?

- Cris

Hello guys, I'm going through a tough time, but I know I am not the only one. I see a lot of people talking about homesickness during exchange, I want to talk about the one you feel post exchange, because according to me it is the worst kind. You know you will never live the life you lived in your host country, you scroll down your camera roll and you think "Was this real? Was I there? And were they there for and with me?" yes, yes and yes. It was real, but it felt like a dream, and not even a long one, but a really short dream.

I remember when I was getting into the plane from my home country like it was 5 minutes ago. I remember crossing the gate and receiving a text message from my dad saying "Do you want to meet? Maybe if you enter this shop we can meet again". I responded "Dad, I just saw you" and I kept going forward because I was ready to go and I wanted him to be too. Even if I came back to say goodbye one more time, eventually I'd have left again and it could have been harder for him and my mom.

My adventure ended, forever. By the time everything was getting so perfect in every regard, I had to go home. It is like I paused my american life, but I know I cannot resume it.

It is hard to move forward because everything here is the same, same school, same roads, same habits, same crap. The only thing that changed is the level of difficulty of school, and it changed badly.

But we need to keep our adventurer soul alive, archive the past and live the present. I have so many plans for the future that I do not even know which one to choose. I am thinking on studying abroad again, as an international student, so basically I will be out of my home country for my whole college career. Also, I wanna try to do my internships elsewhere because my goal is to travel as much as I can while I am young and to meet amazing people from all over.

While abroad I found out who I really am and I want to keep on doing what I love. People will think you are crazy if you leave again, they will say you don't care about them. The truth is they don't fully understand you. They don't understand that you don't want to take just a vacation but traveling is your passion, you do it because you love it and maybe you need to. I feel like I can't fully express who I am at home because everyone knows me, everyone think they know my limits, the truth is they don't. I would do so many things if I could.

I'm gonna stop here, I don't want to lose the point of the post:
After exchange there is another step: depression. But after that there is you and your decisions. Make good ones and live again. Exchange was just a chapter of our book and we need to keep writing it. Remember, we left once, we can do it again. Exchange is gone, but something else is on its way.

- Cris