A Year in Slovakia: Moje ciele
“What is it that you want to accomplish within your year abroad?” As an exchange student, this is a question that seems to follow me everywhere. Everyone wants to know the whys and the whats behind my choice of leaving home for a year. To put it simply: I want to live extraordinarily and joyfully. I want to be able to spread kindness with each step I take into this foreign world I am entering. That is my number one ambition, not only for my year abroad, but for my life.
Alongside this ambition are realistic goals that I want to set prior to my departure. I want to use these goals as motivation throughout my year so that I can relate back to them and track my progress. So here they are and how I will achieve them:
#1: Be conversational in the local language by Christmas.
Since I discovered my host country, I have been working on learning Slovak. As of now, I have basic survival language skills. I can say hello, help, how are you, who, what, where, and other very rudimentary phrases. Even though I have been working on the language for nearly six months, it’s hard to retain anything more advanced without a way to practice speaking. Luckily, I’ll have plenty of time speaking once I get there. I want to avoid English as much as possible in order to ensure that I DO learn the language and master it. I am very lucky that I will have a young host brother who is only 10 months because that means that him and I will be learning to speak together. My poor host parents are going to have two Slovak speaking toddlers HAHA.
#2: Leave in impact on the surrounding community by working with at least two service organizations each month.
Right now I have a pretty clear idea of what I want to do in terms of service while in Slovakia. After putting in research and talking to some exchange friends, I feel pulled towards assisting with the Roma population. The Romas live off of funding provided by the government, but it is a very small amount therefore they are living in poor conditions. They are very similar to the homeless population in America, which is an issue that I have been very involved with at home. Due to all this, I want to focus my time abroad serving for organizations which provide assistance to the Roma population. I also want to volunteer for my Rotary club, as the Rotary International community is very involved in service.
#3: Make lifelong friends by meeting one new person each week.
This goal is a very personal one. I have moved a lot before in my life and have learned how a place is nothing more than just a bunch a land without the people in it. Each location I’ve lived in hasn’t become a home until I have found friends to love. By the time I leave, I want to have people that are hard to leave behind. To accomplish this, I want to try to meet as many locals and exchange students as I can. I will introduce myself to at least one new person each week and try to make an effort to go beyond just hellos.
These are my goals for my year so far! So dear future exchange Hannah: you better accomplish them.
Dakujem a dovidenia.
