My Exchange Year ✈︎

Incline, Manitou Springs - Last Time

Michael

"Every Story Has An End, But In Life Every Ending Is Just A New Beginning"

The day is almost here. Monday is just in five days, just five days. 
I've always known this year was gonna pass by fast, I've always know how the time flies, or I thought I did. Until you live it you don't fully understand it. If I think about it, it seems like yesterday, when I left my family and friends, when I took that plane, when my adventure started. And yet I'm here, almost 10 months after, and I can't believe it. Over this time I lived so many adventures, visited so many places, and changed so much. I don't know how I feel about leaving. It's weird. I'm happy and yet sad. I can't wait to see my family, my friends, everyone, I can't wait to go back to my life. But at the same time it just doesn't feel right to leave all this. This place, that 301 days ago was totally unknown, a little scary, and that didn't mean anything for me, well, today I call that place home. I now have to leave the people who welcome me in their house and treated my as a son, as a brother. What will I even say to them, I don't know. I'm proud of myself, for having the courage of doing all this, for achieving so many goals, and realising a dream. The last days of school have been really emotional and I wanna say thank you to all my friends, who helped me over this year. I now have a couple of 

days off, to rest, and tomorrow I might start packing. Saturday morning there is gonna be the graduation ceremony, and at night we'll have a graduation/goodbye party for me here at the house. Sunday I'll probably finish packing and getting my stuff ready, and my plane leaves Monday morning. The project I said I was working on it's a video about my exchange year. It's pretty much done, I just wanna add some pictures from the graduation and I'll post it on Sunday.

It'll be strange to go back, but I'm ready. This experience has been awesome and help me growing up so much. I now feel alive, I feel ready to live my live at my best and I don't wanna waste a single second of it. I learnt so many things. Not about science, english, history or math... I mean, those ones too... but most important I learnt so much about me, about who I am and who I wanna be. I learnt to go over over stereotypes, to see what people really are like. I learnt to achieve my goals, to never give up, until you reach what you want, because it's your life, and no one but yourself should be the deciding how to live it. 

Il giorno è quasi arrivato. Mancano solo cinque giorni a lunedì, solo cinque giorni. Sapevo che quest'anno sarebbe passato in fretta, sapevo che il tempo vola, o credevo di saperlo. Finché non lo vivi sulla tua pelle non lo capisci fino in fondo. Se ci penso sembra ieri, quando ho lasciato la mia famiglia e i miei amici, quando ho preso quell'aereo, e la mia avventura è iniziata. E tuttavia sono qui, quasi 10 mesi dopo, e non ci posso credere. In questo periodo ho vissuto tantissimo avventure, visitato nuovi posti, e sono cambiato davvero molto. Non so come mi senta riguardo al partire. È strano. Sono felice e triste allo stesso momento. Non vedo l'ora di vedere famiglia, amici, tutti, e di tornare alla mia vita. Ma allo stesso tempo non sembra giusto lasciare tutto questo. Questo posto, che 301 giorni fa era a me sconosciuto, spaventoso, e a cui non tenevo per niente, oggi chiamo quel posto casa. Devo ora lasciare le persone che mi hanno accolto nella loro casa e trattato come un figlio, un fratello. Cosa dirò loro, nemmeno lo so. Sono fiero di me stesso, per aver avuto il coraggio di fare tutto questo, per raggiungere così tanti obiettivi, e realizzare un sogno. Gli ultimi giorni di scuola sono stati davvero emozionanti, e voglio solo ringraziare tutte le persone che mi hanno aiutato durante quest'anno. Ora ho un paio di giorni liberi, per riposare, e magari domani inizierò a fare le valigie. Sabato mattina ci sarà la cerimonia di Maturità, e la sera ci sarà una festa di maturità/addio per me qui a casa. Domenica probabilmente finirò di fare le valigie e preparare il tutto, e lunedì mattina ho l'aereo. Il progetto, che ho citato nell'ultimo post, a cui sto lavorando, è un video sul mio anno all'estero. È quasi finito, devo solo aggiungere alcune foto della Maturità e lo pubblicherò domenica.

Sarà strano tornando, ma sono pronto. Questa esperienza è stata fantastica e mi ha aiutato a crescere moltissimo. Ora mi sento vivo, mi sento pronto a vivere la mia vita al meglio e non voglio sprecarne un singolo secondo. Ho imparato così tante cose. Non di scienze, inglese, storia o matematica... Cioè, anche quelle... ma più importante ho imparato cose riguardo a me stesso, a chi sono e a chi voglio essere. Ho imparato a superare gli stereotipi e vedere le persone per ciò che sono veramente. Ho imparato a raggiungere i miei obiettivi, a non arrendermi mai, finché non raggiungo ciò che voglio, perchè la vita è la tua, e nessuno ma te stesso dovrebbe essere colui che decide come viverla.

Michael

Wind Ensemble & Jazz Band Concerts & Contests

In the last two weeks of school we had like 5 different concerts and contests we took part of. It was really fun and I enjoyed it so much. I got to play a Solo as well in a beautiful piece called "Shenandoah"and I was so grateful to be chosen to play it. We had our last Wind Ensemble concert at school, as well as the Jazz band one. Then we took part to the Blossom Festival and we went to Canon city. They were all good experiences and I'd like to thank everyone who went with me. If you see us with the gown in some pictures it's because in the last concert it's tradition for the seniors to wear it :)

Michael

CCI Exchange Students Meeting & Plans for Next Posts

Hey people! Sorry I haven't written in a while, I've been busy/lazy. I'm finally done with school and I have 10 more days here, and I'll be home in most of them so I have some time to write. I'm planning on doing other two posts. The first will pretty much be pictures, about the last concerts we did. The second one more reflexive, I'll tell stuff about these month and some thought, also I'll tell you about a project I'm working on. 
Here are some picture of the exchange students meeting we had about two weeks ago. It was our last official one. They're having a barbecue this Sunday but I have plans with my host family so I won't be able to make it. Likely tonight I'll publish the next post about the last concerts and contests we took part of :)