Saturday, July 28, 2012

Returning

As our plane began to land in Auckland, I was hit by an overwhelming mixture of feelings. There was excitement at being back in a familiar country and not feeling so brutally alone any more, there was sadness as I realised how ridiculously far away I now was from everyone and the amount of time it would be before I'd be able to return and there was pure exhaustion in every sense of the word. I very nearly cried as we touched down. It's nigh on impossible to try and describe the emotional roller coaster involved with returning to the land you grew up in after spending ten and a half months on the other side of the world.

By the time we actually got off the plane in Auckland, I had one thing on my mind, duty-free booze. Chelsea and I were both fairly anxious to put our new legality to good use as soon as we possibly could so we both stopped in at the first duty-free store we saw. I picked up a bottle of J.D. for my mum and a bottle of vodka for myself. Being able to walk into a bottle store, pull bottles off of the shelf and buy them was a hugely empowering feeling. At this point I was more than happy about New Zealand's 18 yr old drinking age, although it's little consolation for being so far away from everything I've grown to love about Wisconsin.

Once we had our alcohol, we claimed our luggage and cleared customs. I was extremely pleased to see that my guitar hadn't sustained any damage in transit. We didn't have much time after clearing customs before those of us that were catching domestic flights had to be at our gates. We said our goodbyes before rushing through customs as fast as we could without looking suspicious and walked the 15 minute trek from the international terminal to the domestic. Chelsea and Baylee were both stopping in Auckland, so walking to the domestic terminal with me were Lily and Laura. Lily was flying to the south island and Laura was flying into Palmerston North. 

The other two weren't sure on their domestic flight details whereas I had all my ticketing information with me so I left them at the information desk once we got there. I checked in my bags, said a quick goodbye to the other two who had managed to sort out their flights and went up to my gate, where my flight was due to board in five minutes. I was, once again, brutally alone. I'm not ashamed to admit that as I sat by myself for the first time during the whole travelling process, waiting for a flight to my final stop, I broke down in tears. Exhaustion set in and the excitement of plane hopping across the world had all but worn off, it's fair to say that this was pretty much the low point of the long trip back.

On the flight back to Wellington, I had another beer and a small packet of chips. As the city lights came into view and the plane began it's descent over Miramar, I had tears of joy in my eyes. I'd missed this place immensely and here I was, flying over the ocean, minutes away from reunion with my family and friends.

I knew it was going to be a long time before I got used to being back and that once normality set in, I was probably going to go through a relatively rough time but in  that moment, I was back after the experience of a lifetime. I was excited to have the opportunity to share the new and improved me with the people who had known the old me. I felt like a much more fulfilled person than when I left, I had found a part of me that had always been missing.

I stepped off the plane and was greeted by my mother and a group of five friends who had been at the airport to see me off back in August of last year. Emotion set in again and I cried in the arms of my mother, for want of a land I knew I would see again but would have to wait far too long to return to.

The journey back to New Zealand was physically,mentally and emotionally draining. I've never left so much, so far behind in my life and it's a tough thing to deal with. I know I'll go back, I left far too much of myself in Fort to not go back, I'm somewhat rooted there. I will also, however, make the most of this brief homecoming and take my time to reacquaint myself with the land I once called home.



The Long and Winding Road

Upon arrival in L.A. Chelsea and I found a comfortable place to settle right next to our gate and did the "you hold our place while I get food and then we'll switch" thing that we did in Chicago. The stopover in L.A. was about the same as in Chicago, we had about 3 hours to kill. We didn't have to clear security or anything at L.A. seeing we were transferring onto an international flight so that was good.

I found a burger king and bought lunch there which was somewhat ruined by my beverage choice of the worst iced tea in existence. When Chelsea got back from getting food, we found a seat outside our gate ( a flight had just left from there for London so it had pretty much cleared out) and I once again relied on crosswords to pass the time.

Around halfway into our wait we were met by another fellow New Zealander, to our knowledge L.A. was supposed to be our rally point before all flying back together through Brisbane to Auckland. Laura had spent  her time on exchange in Texas, not far out of Houston. We got talking about our different experiences and it wasn't too long before we were called to board. We were confused as to whether the other two girls from NZ would be flying home with us as they still hadn't made an appearance when the first boarding calls were made. 

On the way over to the U.S. Laura had always had the misfortune of being seated miles away from the rest of us, while Chelsea and I had a knack for sticking together. Laura's seat was in one of the areas that was called to board first so she got on the plane a good fifteen minutes before us. When the general boarding call was made for "all remaining passengers" we got into the cue and after a couple of minutes were met by none other than Lily and Baylee, the two remaining New Zealanders. Apparently their flight from New York had left late and so they only just made it to L.A. in time.We managed to sneak in a quick chat before boarding our flight to Brisbane, Australia.

On the flight to Brisbane Chelsea and I were seated either side of a woman from Virginia. She was interesting to talk to as she was part of an EF tour group that was going to be traveling around Australia and New Zealand for a couple of weeks. We were able to inform her of a few kiwi/australianisms (like lemonade meaning sprite in this part of the world) and recommend her a few sights to see around Rotorua which was one of the spots they were going to be visiting in New Zealand. We didn't get her name but she was a high school Spanish teacher and apparently this group toured a different part of the world every other year which was intriguing. 

I spent most of the flight listening to music through the in flight entertainment system and writing to keep myself busy. It was a 14 hour flight but the time passed quite quickly between sleeping and idly staring out the window at the wonderful night sky. Without ever getting to the point of being uncomfortable, we touched down in Brisbane, cleared security and found ourselves once again waiting around for a flight with bugger all to keep us busy.

Landing in Brisbane was an interesting experience. There were other New Zealanders on our flight so there was definitely a feeling of "we're so close and yet so far" with the familiar accents surrounding us. We all took a little bit of time to freshen up in Brisbane, I made use of the showers in the bathrooms and brushed my teeth which was an amazing feeling after over 24 hours of being in transit! We gathered outside our gate and had no trouble finding seats. Again my crossword book came out although at this point I was far too tired to get through any of them.Our flight to Auckland arrived after what seemed like an eternity and we boarded what would be the second to last flight of our trip for most of us and the last flight for a lucky two.

Only one significant thing happened on the 4 hour flight from Brisbane to Auckland. I had my first legal alcoholic drink, a beer of some kind, though I can't remember what. I'm thinking it was probably Steinlager which is a relatively good New Zealand beer. It was an interesting feeling being able to order alcohol for the first time, one which was somewhat liberating. Coming back from such a maturing experience as being an exchange student for a year, it definitely seemed like a warm welcome into adulthood "you've been around the world on your own, you're drinking a beer at the tail end of an epic journey, you're an adult now." 

I had intended to cover the whole trip from L.A. back to Wellington in this post but it's starting to get a little too long for my liking so I'm going to end it here. The point I've been trying to outline in these posts is that travelling home was a long and grueling experience in itself. I felt intense loneliness,  I cried on multiple occasions and I found companionship in people who knew exactly how I felt before finally being pushed back into the place I once called home. Next post will be about the journey from Auckland to Wellington, which really does deserve it's own entire post.


Monday, July 23, 2012

Leaving home

Towards the end of a month largely spent wishing that time would suspend itself indefinitely, came what is referred to in the world of foreign exchange as D-day. On Monday June 25th, I spent the day with two of my closest friends and my girlfriend, ate all the Taco Bell I could manage and said goodbye to home.

From what I remember we left the house late afternoon and headed to Horicon, a town about a 45 minute drive away, which was the meet up point for all the AFS students in Wisconsin. We stopped to eat at an Arby's along the way (Dick ate, I was full from the T Bell and very upset) and arrived at Horicon at around 6-6.30pm. We pulled up to the bowling alley (which was our meeting point), I put my stuff in the corner with the others that would later be travelling on my bus to Illinois and about a half hour later I said goodbye to Dick, my father for the past ten and a half months. 

The rally point in Illinois was Elmhurst college, a university about 20 minutes drive from O'hare international airport. Unfortunately for us, the buses weren't set to leave until 2.30 in the morning. I don't know why they couldn't have set the meeting time at 10pm and given us an extra few hours with our loved ones instead of making us arrive before 7pm but that's what happened. We were provided with a virtually endless supply of pizza and soda as well as being able to bowl for free. Regardless, the wait was excruciating. I spent most of it hanging out with Pinky (the Thai girl who was also in Fort), reading (Bill Bryson's Made In America seemed an appropriate choice) and sleeping.

At approximately 2.30, we were loaded onto our bus and at approximately 3am we left for Illinois. I slept for almost the entire bus trip and given the early/late hour have no recollection of the time in between boarding in Horicon and arriving in Elmhurst. When we got off, we took our bags and put them in an assigned area within the Elmhurst College parking lot. They were grouped based on flight times so everyone in my group was flying out at roughly the same time from O'hare. In the end our group ended up being all of the students from Spain and my New Zealand friend who I flew into O'hare with ten and half months earlier.

Our bus from Elmhurst to O'hare wasn't due to leave until around 1.30pm so once again I had a significant amount to kill. I wasn't sure if Chelsea would be at Elmhurst at this point or whether she was due to arrive later in the day. I decided to wander around to see if I could find her and sure enough, within five minutes of arriving, I found her sitting with people she knew inside the Elmhurst gym. We talked for a little while and then decided we'd sleep away the time until our bus left. They had a room set up with wrestling mats to sleep on so we checked ourselves in there with a proposed wake up time of 12.30 since we had to be by the bus a little while before departure. We managed to sleep through til just after 11, not too bad of an effort considering it was during a time when we're used to waking up and being energised, not settling down to sleep!

By the time we woke up properly, used the bathroom etc there was very little time left. 1.30 rolled around, I said a quick goodbye to Pinky and we went to wait in the parking lot. Among the Spaniards catching our bus was Luis, a boy who had also spent the year in Fort Atkinson but had been a sophomore (two years younger than me). It was neat having people from Fort around me as they had shared in the year that I had just experienced and knew more than any of the other exchange students, exactly what I was going through. 

Our final bus came to take us to O'hare pretty much right on time. We got to the airport, said goodbye to our Spanish travel buddies and checked in for our flight to L.A. After we'd cleared security we had about three hours to wait, so Chelsea and I decided we'd find our gate and then find food. We found two seats and  decided to go off one at a time in pursuit of food so as to save our spot. 

I left first and bought two jelly-filled donuts and an iced coffee (I wasn't too hungry at this stage) along with  copy of Rolling Stone magazine, a Cosmopolitan (because real men read cosmo) and a book of crosswords to keep me busy. I came back and Chelsea left, returning later with Macdonalds and a Cosmo. I spent the rest of the wait talking to Chelsea and doing crosswords before an uneventful 4 hour flight to L.A.

Monday, June 25th 2012 was one of the most emotionally strenuous days that I have ever had to endure but I look forward to returning to Wisconsin and seeing my friends and family there again. My next post will cover the trip from L.A. back to the land I used to recognise as home. 


Friday, July 13, 2012

My Last Performances With The Fort Music Department

I tried to keep everything on this blog in chronological order but recently it has come to my attention that I posted about graduation prematurely. I forgot (as one often does) about one of the most significant weekends of my entire stay in Fort Atkinson. The weekend of Jazz di pasta/ Jazz dizzert.

Jazz Di Pasta and Jazz Dizzert were two final music concerts that took place over the saturday and sunday before graduation weekend and marked the end of the musical year. The shows were run for the first part like a dinner theatre. There was a variety show  going on in which students performed pieces that had been selected for the show through an audition process. During the variety show the audience were seated at dinner tables and served food which I thought was a very cool concept. After the variety show there was a main concert in the auditorium (the variety show took place in the commons/cafeteria) which involved both showchoirs and both jazz bands as well as a brief acknowledgement of seniors involved in the fore mentioned groups and a few awards for a select few of said seniors.

I auditioned 3 pieces for the variety show and managed to get all 3 of those into the final show. I accompanied my good friend whom I went to prom with on guitar while she sang "Will you remember me" by April Matson. I also played with the percussion ensemble, we did a piece named "Ritual of the Tribe" which we had very successfully performed at the state solo/ensemble festival previously. The third piece I was involved with was definitely the most fun. I played bass and "sang" for want of a better word in a 3 person rendition of "Welcome Home" by Coheed and Cambria which seemed to go over well with the audience. On top of the variety show performances I also played with the jazz band and sung/danced with the showchoir.

On Saturday the show ran fairly smoothly, although I was really tired and the last thing I really wanted to do that weekend was spend two days at school performing. On Sunday, however, emotion took its toll. I suddenly realised when I got to the high school for Sunday's show that this was the last time I would walk into the music department, feel those nerves, get up on stage and sing, pick up my guitar, the last time I would ever play as a high school musician. Honestly it felt like someone close to me had died. I spent almost the entire day bawling my eyes out. All that had kept me going all year was the music department. The best part of my day was always the half when I had classes down there. I dreaded Cook yelling at me during jazz 2nd hour and felt invincible on the days when he didn't. I couldn't wait to get to band to see Blair because I knew every day without fail she would put a smile on my face. I complained about not wanting to sing for choir and watched the clock for lunch to roll around. I was too tired to dance in showchoir so I always hoped we'd have a singing day or that something else would come up. That department was my life and on that particular Sunday, my life was coming to an end.

I think on top of everything I've already mentioned, that Sunday also brought crashing home the reality that in a month I would be leaving Fort which is something I'm still struggling to come to terms with as I write this from the warm comfort of my bed back in Wellington, New Zealand. It highlighted everything that I was soon to lose and while I was much more ready for it when the time actually came, that Sunday I wasn't ready to cope with those feelings. It took everything I had to get up on the stage during the variety show and play my way through those feelings without losing it entirely.

Jazz Di Pasta and Jazz Dizzert were definitely my favourite performances of the year and overall a fantastic idea for a music department fundraiser. I can only hope that the community will continue to support it and the high school music department and pray that it wont be long before I am back to sit in the audience and appreciate the vast talent of the musicians at Fort Atkinson High School. The music department at Fort did more for me than I think I could ever explain in words to anyone and it will forever remain embedded in a little part of my brain labelled "The Best Days of My Life."

Friday, July 6, 2012

Graduation and The End of High School

On June 10th 2012, I graduated from Fort Atkinson High School. The ceremony took place inside the high school gymnasium around 1pm. The graduates had to be there an hour early for a last minute debrief on how the ceremony was going to go. When we got there we had to meet in the auditorium in our caps and gowns. Guys wore black and girls wore red. After our quick debrief we lined up to walk into the gym with our walking partners. My walking partner was my best friend Beckett Callan, we were seated on the end of our row about 5 rows  (halfway) back from the front.

We proceeded in, from two sides of the gym so that four of us (two sets of partners) were walking in to our seats at a time. The way the seats were set up there were about 10 rows of 15 or so students and there were two sides to each row so all in all around 30 kids per row across the two sides. A few members of the high school band and a few from the orchestra were set up in the corner playing a piece called Pomp and Circumstance which is the standard graduation procession song in the USA. When we got to our seats we had to stand and watch as the others came in, supposedly a mark of respect to our classmates coming in still.
Once everybody had arrived at their seats we all sat down as a group.

With all of us seated the ceremony began. We had an opening address from the class president followed by a presentation of gifts to the foreign exchange students done by one of the other senior class officers. I was chosen by the other exchange students to give a short speech about life in Fort and the experience of living as a foreigner in the US. I very much enjoyed having the opportunity to speak at graduation. After my speech, the other exchange students were given the opportunity to quickly thank their host families for having them for the year which I thought was a really neat idea. For the record I made it about a third of the way through my delivery before bursting into tears, thankfully I kept it together enough to keep going through the whole thing.

There were a few more speeches delivered before the presentation of diplomas including: a student-elected senior class member, a student-elected teacher, the principal, the superintendent of the school district. Dr Zaspel (school principal) presented the class of 2012 to the audience at the end of his address and then we were called up on stage to receive diplomas which involved waiting a long time to walk across stage and shake hands with a few school officials. All in all the ceremony was about an hour and a half long which is pretty reasonable.

For me, graduation was the beginning of the end so it was a pretty solemn occasion. Luckily everyone else was so excited that I managed to remain relatively upbeat and only cried during my speech. I took photos with a lot of my friends, said one last goodbye to the music department AKA my second home and walked through the glass doors of Fort Atkinson High School for the last time as a student.