9/3/00

Homesickness


Experience with homesickness? Actually I have found that the busier you keep  yourself (or others keep you) you will not have time to think about home. It  is not the home so much that one misses, but rather those who make the house  a home. You family, blood related and those chosen (your friends.) I have  found myself missing someone, my best friend. She means the world to me, but  I stay strong because more than anything she gave me courage and strength.  So whenever I feel lonely I remember what she means to me and I find 
strength. So then I say this: Even if you begin to think about home, you have to remember what it is that you are doing. As an exchange student we  are ambassadors of our country. We are there to make or break the walls of  stereotype that so often separate nations, countries, and even people. We  have all become very important pieces in the fabric of hope. Hope that one  day there will be peace everywhere in the world. Hope that one day all 
people will accept each other for who they are and not just disregard them due to birth, skin, race, or any other pointless separation tool. One day we  will all be regarded not as French, or black, or Asian. Rather we will all  be regarded as humans, humans who were all born of the same planet. This  strangely named blue orb we call Earth.

Now I am not naïve enough to believe that we alone are going to create a  revolution that will change the world. What I do believe is that we are setting an example and giving inspiration to those who come after us. Much  like those who came before did to us. How many of us decided we wanted to  become an exchange student after we saw the inbounds from the previous  years? For me what it took was seeing one of the exchange students to give 
me the final bit of courage to do the program. Let's try our best and give  good examples to those who come after us. If next year we hear that even one  more student wants to do the program, then we know we have accomplished  something. Remember “What is today a ripple may one day become a wave”. 

So let’s try our hardest, all of us. No matter where we are.

Rolando Carlos Reyes
Roly
(Chronos)