Merry Christmas!
A little story
Welcome, aspiring polyglot! This will be a short post, but I wanted to tell you all a story about when I was living in Belgium as an exchange student. One of the most difficult, yet enriching experiences I have been blessed to have. Breaking through the language barrier was one thing, spending the holiday season away from my family was an entirely different challenge. It is perhaps one of the reasons I am so unrelenting in my desire to spread bilingualism. My host family saved me then, but only because they could communicate with me.
A dark winter and a shining light
Growing up in Arizona, there are a few things that I never experienced. The first being daylight savings time, it doesn’t exist in Arizona. Waking up late for school because I’ve never experienced DST before was one of the most jarring experiences in my early days living in Belgium. What I failed to recognize at that time, is that the time change marked the last day I would see the sun until after the new year.
In Arizona, we famously have “300 days of sun” and in Belgium they infamously have “300 days of rain” which, to the human body adapted to high levels of Vitamin D, can cause terrible depression. Now, after 2 months without sun, at age 18 I had to spend Christmas away from my family for the first time ever. The family I was living with didn’t speak English and I had only been living there for a few months so our communication was still strained.
However, they saw me trying. I talk a lot about effort because I have seen the fruits of the tree that is effort. Simply trying to communicate was enough for them to try to communicate with me. Over time, we grew into a real family. One that communicates 10 years later, discussing life changes and, soon, introducing new family members.
As an exchange student, you have a choice. Enjoy the year, get blasted weekly, and make friends with all of the other exchange students or integrate into the new country in which you live. I am grateful every day that I chose the latter, because those relationships are so much stronger than any I ever made with other exchange students. My host families, too, were grateful as they had experienced the former several times.
All of this to say, the holidays can be difficult. Seasonal depression is very real. But with a strong mix of communication, concerted effort, and the occasional Vitamin D pill, they can also be extremely rewarding. Whether you are with family, abroad, or somewhere in between this year, I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a happy and fulfilling New Year.
There is a lot coming your way from my end this coming year, I look forward to having you all along for the ride. I am grateful to each and every one of you for choosing to use this material in conjunction with whatever else you may have. There are countless options available to you and it means a lot to me that you choose to be here. Thank you and cheers to another wonderful year of language acquisition.
Sincerely,
BtOdin
