It still the same moon and sun

That June morning 2012, the breezy morning meets with warm sunshine that welcome me, it  was my first day of high school. I got up early that day, felt so excited to be a high school kid. I left my house and rode my motor cycle to wento school. It was just a common busy Monday morning in Bogor, Indonesia. Not a really metropolitan city but quite crowded since it’s a suburb city of the capital city. It took me 30 minutes to got to my school.

I finally arrived at my school. There were so many people there. I was excited and nervous at the same time. People say high school is one of the most enjoyable times in life. Because in high school you’re still young, have a lot of energy and dreams. It was a medium school with bunch of trees surrounding it and flowers hanging in the hall way on the first story. The building was also painted green that made me feel I was in the garden, but surprisingly it somehow make me feel relax. The school has approximately 1200 students and about 300 students from my class.

My first year in high school was pretty good. I made a lot of friends, I joined many activities and I did just fine at school. Day by day was passing off my calendar. I didn’t realize I get through a year already. Every day, when I went home from school, I liked to see the sky, and sometimes when I get home late, I see the sunset. I like to see how sky changes its color. Since I was a kid I like to see sky and always wondering how many people are looking at the moon as I do, “if they’re from different country that far away, would they see the moon but in the morning?” I always curious of what’s going on out of my country, what people do and how the life over there.

In 2013 to 2014 I was applying for scholarship for exchange program and went through all the selections. I wasn’t really sure that I would really got the scholarship. All I know was I believe in my dream, I want to go all over the world because I want to see the world better. Sometimes if we see something from a different perspective, we’ll see different conclusion. Finally there comes a day when I got the letter. I got to see the sky from other part of the world!

On September 2014, I was ready to leave my family, my friends and basically my life in Indonesia to 10,200 miles away to the United States. I never really think that I would be in Texas, the state that I just little did know about. All things that I knew were just Texas is in the south, cowboy, and some stuff that I know from Sandy in Spongebob Squarepants.

The first time I stepped on Texas, it was summer and the weather was somehow like Indonesia, hot, but more humid. I go to Westwood High School where there are not so many students here, but I like it because I get to know people easier. For me, American school is so interesting. They have so many events and they have different education system.

Leaving home is not the hardest part of being an exchange student. For me, make a new “life” is probably the hardest one. Live with people that I didn’t know before, go to school and meet people that speak different language. When months before I went to school with my white and gray uniform, went to Indonesian public school and just had my everyday life.

The more I think, the more it feels surreal to me, nothing is the same anymore around me. But I look up the sky once again, I still see the same moon and the sun that I used to see from Indonesia. I know I’m in the other side of the world now. If I see the moon in the early morning, people from Indonesia would see on the sunset. Yes, it is that much different. Now I know what is home, now I understand that there are so many things that I can be grateful of in my life. Now I have family and friends in here, so I could say that I already have life in here or I would say, I found my other home.

- 4th March 2015

Palestine, TX, USA