WATERMELONBURST

I’m officially a little bit more than four months into my exchange year and I can honestly say that i couldn’t be happier, really. I’ve met some great people, been fortunate to get a great host family, and everything else along the way has gone perfectly. I’m happy with my school, my town, everything. Like I said, things couldn’t be better.

This upcoming weekend I’ll also be going on the first YFU trip of the year, to Tallinn, Estonia. I have to admit that I’m really pretty excited for this trip. Had it not been for my initial obsession with Estonia I probably wouldn’t be sitting in Finland right now.

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I cannot even begin to believe that is has already been a little more than a month since coming to Finland. It feels like it has been one of those things where you realise you’ve done so much and met so many people so quickly and time is just flying, but when you look back at everything you’ve already accomplished in that one month – it’s insane. I think about how fast the weekdays go by and on top of school, hanging out with friends, the weeks have seriously been going too quickly to fathom.

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After patiently waiting for months now, I have finally received my host family! Thankfully they’re a permanent family and not a temporary family that some students get as the time grows nearer! Since receiving their information, I’ve communicated with them via-email, Facebook, and of course their host family letter to me! They honestly seem like such a great fit for me, I couldn’t be happier!

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Yesterday was the YFU Orientation in Germantown, Wisconsin for the students that will be leaving as foreign exchange students in the 2012-2013 school year. The orientation was a LOT of fun and I have to say that for being six hours long, it didn’t nearly seem like it was actually six hours. It went by really quickly and our presenter, Thayre, was extremely nice and shared stories about hosting foreign students of her own as well as stories from when she was a high school student in Japan.

Throughout the day we started with lectures about the importance of things such as blending into their culture, not having high expectations, being safe, what not to do, etc. It sounds bland, but the way Thayre presented it was very good and wasn’t dry and boring to listen to.

At the beginning of the day we started by introducing ourselves by sharing our name, where we’re going, how long we’re going for, what we’re excited for and what we’re worried and/or concerned about. It was one of those ice-breaker activities to get to know each other, but Thayre wrote down what we said and throughout the day she addressed them and what to do if certain situations arise. There ended up being six students going to Germany (One being an alternate), six students going to Japan, one student to going to France, and the other being me, going to Finland.

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Moi ja Tervetuloa!,

For starters, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Cameron Bingham, I’m 16 years old, and this is my blog. I’ve had blogs, online portfolios, LiveJournals, among other things, in the past before, but coming up in August I’ll be leaving my small town of Jefferson, Wisconsin to Finland for 11 months as a foreign exchange student. I’ll be going through the YFU (Youth for Understanding) year program. Not only did I want a blog to post my thoughts about school, life, books, movies, music, etc., but somewhere where, once I begin my 11 month journey, I can document my life as a foreign exchange student. I know that when I was contemplating whether or not I really wanted to take that next step and become a foreign exchange student it was the blogs written by either past or current exchange students that gave me that push to really want to travel abroad. And, I may be the only crazy one, but I’m sure others do want to go to Finland and finding information from past exchange students to Finland online is quite tough. Seeing what it was like from the months prior to leaving to the day they were already going back home, I want to be able to give back and I hope that other students, or people in general, thinking about travelling abroad can benefit from this journal.

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