Tag: experience

May 29, 2025 – Doing My Duty

May 29, 2025 /

We have probably had more than the average number of exchange students. Since I have been married, we have hosted four. When I was a kid, we had two. I guess that I cannot technically count those two but I can add those to the numbers that I have been exposed to. With the exception of one, the rest have been very positive experiences.

My very first exchange student was Japanese and he was a year or two older than me. This was a short term exchange which I think that it lasted three weeks. One of the things having a short term exchange does is kind of move you to bring out your best. That means travelling to see the local sights, festivals and all the things that you wouldn’t normally try to do in a condensed time frame.

I distinctly remember going to visit my grandfather. He was going to be in the local parade with his 1957 convertible Ford Thunderbird. We didn’t visit that often and we rarely went to the local lamb festival. I think that we went twice in my lifetime, both of them as a child. But, we happened to have our exchange student with us when we went.

As I said above, we didn’t visit often maybe once or twice a year was pretty typical. His house happened to be adjacent to the main North/South rail line. Consequently, my most favorite thing to do when we visited was to put pennies on the rail for when the train came by. Most of them flew off somewhere never to be found again but usually we would get a couple smashed flat.

My grandfather knew how to show a good time. Our exchange student got to drive his Thunderbird in the pasture for ten minutes. Then he broke out his 22 revolver. We all got to shoot a couple of shots but none of us got to shoot much. That was my first time shooting a handgun. My father did not own any, nobody did as far as I remember. Come to find out that those were all violations of the hosting rules.

I knew better, so that when we went to the informational meeting for our year long student (2019), I asked. No risky behavior is permitted and shooting is considered risky behavior. That was the year that I got involved in trap shooting, so that was going to be off the table.

In my experience, that general rule of no risky behavior is pretty par for the course with most exchange programs. Ironically, it is not the case with Rotary. They allow culturally acceptable alcohol use and shooting as examples. Many of the students end up going back to their country and going back to school with this year not counted whatsoever in their education pathway. My experience with Rotary is that they don’t even really get involved when the student is failing classes.

We have had a very busy spring. Myself, I didn’t even get to the range for the first time this year until late April. It is not like I didn’t want to go but I was hyper-focused on my hiking earlier so I deprioritized potential range time. But, we are staring down the barrel of my exchange student’s departure within less than thirty days. So, I wanted to take him while there was still time.

One thing that is quintessential American is recreational shooting. Many countries have some sort of mechanism to own firearms. In most cases, owners need to fulfill very stringent requirements such a by permit only. Firearms need to be stored at a range or hunting club that you belong to and to be used at said facility. To top that off, many have a quota for the numbers that can be in your possession.

At least there is a way but lets say that you were a target shooter, it is not likely then that could both target shoot and hunt. The freedom to have 22LR for target shooting and a 22LR for small game hunting and a 22LR handgun for shooting cans in three different settings is almost impossible. Hence, I have not been exposed to an exchange student that comes themselves from a ‘gun culture’. Even if I did, I would still probably take them to the range just so that they see the differences.

We had a fun couple of hours. I had made some repairs to a revolver from my last trip. I wanted to see how I did and I am happy to report that the repairs were solid. I also took a rifle to get just plink away at ground spinning targets just for fun. There were a lot of smiles and a lot of videos that got made that day. One thing that I didn’t want to do was punish with a lot of recoil.

End Your Programming Routine: I guess that I am getting older. I enjoy going out and shooting but it is almost more fun to introduce someone to something new. Since I can shoot almost any time, I just sat back on a chair and watched as he and my son shot and reloaded and shot and reloaded. Don’t get me wrong, doing stuff repetitively can get a little boring. This is why I have introduced the chronographs and testing that I do. But when I get a chance to watch someone have some fun, maybe for the only time in their lives, that is priceless.

May 15, 2025 – The Luck of the Draw

May 15, 2025 /

It definitely remains a fact that we had a great experience while hosting an exchange student in 2019-20. We have subsequently been to Spain as a family and in a few weeks we are hosting his family here. I don’t know how many times we will go back and forth here but I am sure that the invitation is open for years to come. In a chance of fate, our former student will meet our current student in June.

It is also no secret that my son was an exchange student last year. One thing the Rotary strongly encourages is a one for one exchange meaning that we are on the short list to host given that our child was in the program. Due to many extenuating circumstances, including cancer we did not host last year.

One of the things that we have been wary about is that not every exchange experience is a good one. I have stories, trust me. I won’t go into at this time. But, then sometimes you have to take a chance. We did and it has been another good one.

For the sake of privacy, I won’t use his name or show his face. I will call him David as an alias. The photo above is on the way to prom. His date is a class mate that they have several interactions a day with.

It is weird from the standpoint that I have a high school Senior that chose not to go to the prom and then I have an exchange student that really wanted to go. Here I am being a father to a kid that I really don’t know that well. He was dealing with emotions and things that I am not really the best with and nobody else to really get advice from. My wife was in Las Vegas for a girls week, I was all alone in this.

Apparently, there is a little bit of a spark between the two. The first time I heard her name was several weeks earlier from another teenager when they were talking amongst themselves. David decided to go for it. But, he was extremely nervous. He didn’t sleep at night. He called his parents for more advice and then the next day she wasn’t at school. All that played over again and she said yes the day after.

David was on cloud nine. That night he was running around the house yelling and throwing his shirt around. He even poured himself a glass of milk, set it down and jumped up and down promptly spilling his milk (Sshhh… mom doesn’t know, we cleaned it up).

Trying to communicate courting norms to a person that does not speak the language perfectly is challenging. For instance, it is customary to match your accessories to the dress. Not knowing the young lady, we had to rely on him to interpret our message and communicate with her to get this ironed out. It was also very late into the game so we had two days to get the flowers ordered. And because he was gone the rest of the week on a Rotary trip, I had to pick up the flowers and go get David early so that he could get back to prom on time.

There were a number of other things that we had to work our way through to make prom happen. That being said, we did it and he was happy, very happy. Truth be told, I am glad that everything went right and I feel more appreciated by someone that was grateful for the kind of help that we provided. Had it been my own kids, I would have definitely expected some kind of attitude to go along with the preparation. I have a feeling that they would have wanted me to pay for everything and stay out of the rest.

Prom aside, David has taken to doing something that I would consider odd. If I see him when he leaves to go somewhere, he walks out the door saying ‘Love You’. The first time I heard it, I was taken aback. Part of me wonders if he knows what he is saying or at least the context. My boys don’t do that so that makes me wonder if he really does know what he is saying.

It really did get me thinking about things. To host an exchange student really does require a love. It is of course not a romantic love and it is not really an unconditional love that children get. But it is a love a kid that is totally vulnerable and largely alone navigating a foreign land out of faith alone that some people are looking out for his best interest. I have to say that it is totally humbling.

End Your Programming Routine: There is no doubt that we are on the hosting hot sheet. I always imagined that that hosting was a family activity with kids in the home. But, the truth of the matter is that most Rotary hosts are empty nesters. It would seem a little strange to me given that all of my exchange experiences have been with minors in the home but maybe that is what keeps us young. I know that we will probably take a break but I wouldn’t be surprised that this isn’t the last.

December 3, 2024 – Off Season Investigation

December 3, 2024 /

You probably have gone on vacation and fallen in love with the place you were at. I know that I have. But, vacationing and living are two different things. First, it is likely that you are visiting at the ideal time of year. Can you deal with living somewhere on the less than ideal time of year?

September 16, 2024 – Right For Me

September 16, 2024 /

***This was last week’s podcast. It published on Castbox and all the usual platforms but I am having a technical problem with Castbox. I have an open ticket, but for now, I cannot copy the code from my host to my site and sync everything as I normally do. I may temporarily move podcasts to later in the week so I can use one of the other players while I sort out the technical issues. Bear with me as things are getting back to a more normal schedule,***

I hit on a lot of different subjects today. This is probably a topic that could have gone on for several more hours. I kept thinking of additional things and different applicable examples that fit in with what I was trying to say. I found that I got results that I didn’t expect both negatively and positively. But, I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t try different things.

October 17, 2022 – Revisiting Hardware and Software

October 17, 2022 /

I knew that I wrote about this once. I looked it up and it was April 13, 2020. In that context, I was talking about spending money on things that accessorize my shop equipment rather than another tool. Today, I am taking about having experiences versus stuff primarily. I some ways, the two are closely related.

End Your Programming Routine: This is something that I battle with. I am stuck in the ‘how can I use this’ mentality of what would make this experience better the next time I do it. The challenge is tempering the exuberance of getting better with the reality of investing for future experiences.