The kid from New jersey looked up at the vaulted ceiling of the eight-centuries-old church and ran his hand along the back of a pew. »The accoustics in here are great,« Jonathan Proulx says, reminiscing about a Christmas Eve concert he took part in. »And the people welcomed me like you wouldn?t believe.«
Sending his voice soaring through an ancient cathedral isn't how Jon usually spends his holidays. Once in Germany, though, he threw himself into the exchange experience - joining choirs, playing soccer, studying German until he could speak it like a native. It took a few bouts of homesickness and a period of adjustment to get the routine down, but for the 17-year-old from Audubon, N.J., making German life his own was the key to growing up, becoming independent and finding a direction in life.
John came to Germany as a high school junior, which made him the youngest person in his program; most other students had already graduated and came to Germany for a year before heading to college. For those students, life was a bit easier, with more time for socializing and goofing off.
With a year to go at high school back in the States, that wasn't an option for John. »I just can?t afford that. They?ve already graduated,« he says. »I have to do my senior year still. I still have to figure out what to do next.«
Not that buckling down and working hard has been easy. Arriving in Germany with just a basic knowledge of the language, John had to spend four or five hours a night on homework, paging through a dictionary to make sure he understood what he was reading. »I just finished physics in German,« he says. »It was the hardest thing I've ever done.«
Learning the language, focusing on schoolwork and trying to make new friends took a lot out of the American, who thought, at times, of giving up on the experience. »It was very hard at first,« he remembers. »The stress level was killing me.«
Despite coming from a small town in New Jersey, John also had some trouble adjusting to his German home. After a month-long language course in Frankfurt, the exchange student moved to Beienrode, a tiny village near Königslutter, which isn?t that big itself. »It?s hard here sometimes,« he said. »There?s nothing around. I had problems when I first came here.«
Eventually, he says, he »made the mistake of relying on home.« More phone calls to his parents, more e-mails to his girlfriend - it seemed, he says, like the best way of dealing with homesickness. But after a too large phone bill prompted his host parents to sit him down for a chat about finances, he cut back on contact with family and friends back home - the best decision he says he could have made.
»The point of going away is to learn about yourself, to become independent. If you rely on home, that doesn't happen,« he says. »The more contact you have, the more you rely on the people who will always be there for you, the less you accomplish. If you do that, you end up stuck in the middle. You don?t belong here or where you came from.«
Instead, he began to get involved in the same sort of extracurricular activities he did back home: playing sports, making music, getting involved in church activities. »I use music to express the things I?m dealing with in life,« he says, listing the church music groups, state choirs and musical theater he?d been a part of in America. »Over here I?ve tried to do new stuff, but I?ve also done stuff I already know,« he says.
When his host mother, for example, asked him if he was interested in joining a choir at the local church, he jumped at the chance to sing songs by Bach in a cathedral constructed in the 1100s. »It?s given me a chance to give back,« he says, recounting how he's helped the choir with English-language songs like »Stand by Me.« But he?s gotten far more from the exchange experience than he's given, he says, with the trip to Germany allowing him the freedom to grow up. »I realize I?m not an idiot,« he says with a laugh. »I?m not dumb. I've realized how much potential I have.« His biggest worry now is how he?ll fit in when he goes back to America. »I have a strange feeling about finishing up,« he says. »I have different views, different beliefs now. It?s been a different year for me than the people back home.«
But the personal growth he?s experienced, he says, will serve him well when he goes home. »I?m worried about the future,« he says, »but now I?ve opened myself to opportunities, to seeing what I can do.« One of those possibilites, of course, is coming back to Germany, an idea that already has him picking up job applications here. »Will I be back? Yes,« he says. »Do I know when? No.«
Timothy J. Gibbons, 27, is an editor for Oskar?s. Despite his own learning experiences, he still doesn?t know what he wants to do when he grows up
