Kevin Murphy

2007-08 Inbound from Argentina

Hometown: Pergamino, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Sponsor: Pergamino Cruce Rotary Club, District 4820, Argentina

Host: Mandarin Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida, USA

School: Mandarin High School

Kevin's Bio

Since I arrived here my life became an ups and downs feelings, maybe I feel so sad and in the next 10 minutes I'm laughing without stopping.

It's wonderful to feel how another family accepts you like a son. I am starting to have another completely different kind of life. It's hard too to accept that in your home country there are many people missing you and here teenagers don't care about becoming your friends, but it's one of the most difficult obstacles, to start to have friends.

Also almost everything is different when you travel to another country, the food, the weather, the rules, the pets, the families, the technology, the clothes, the jokes, the language, the cut hair, the views, the animals, the times, in conclusion: the culture. I hope that I get used to this culture soon so I can start being an American citizen, and until now, I believe that everyone should try the exchange, because that makes you growing up faster than usual. It's a fact.

October 23 Journal

The most important part of all this trip along our life is that we have to realize: every one lives the exchange in his own way. Last week we spent the whole weekend in Daytona Beach, a city near Jacksonville, where I'm staying now, but, anyhow, in the life it never matters where do you go, what matters is who do you spend the time with, and I can say that the best time in this exchange so far, was to spend time with all the exchange students that are in my district.

The first Friday night me and a couple of friends (exchange students also) went to Oktoberfest Night where we found some rides to ride, scary ones, and we had so fun there despite that the games weren't the best things, the important is that we were together and we have friends and we are able to make friends in another lenguage and place that the one that we always have been.

Next day we get up early and we went to NASA, an amazing place where we learned about the first and the following important rockets along the history. Again, we were 31 friends from different countries laughing and surviving together this strange adventure called Exchange Year. After hours of taking pictures with everyone, and after hours of sharing cultures, and after hours of feeling the persons most fortunate on the Earth, the night came over us and everyone left NASA for to go with our transitory host parents to our respective houses.

It's amazing how you can feel that you know these people since you were a little kid and, really, you know them since 1 month ago. I believe that the exchange year is, mostly, so far, an exchange with ourselves. Discovering who we are certainly, and who are the people that we will want to have with us in the future, and other excellent discoveries that I wish, the person who is reading this right now, can discover for him or herself.

The next day, Sunday, we ride a big train which took us to Winter Park, a little city where we could watch and, some of us, buy stuff. But, once again, the most fun part of that day was when we bought some ice cream and just sat on the ground and keep talking about us and things that happened to us in this short time and giving each other advices. What else do we want for our lives than to have someone who shows us that he cares about what we feel?

Next month we are going to go to Disney World all together again, and I bet that everyone is waiting so excited for that time, and is not because is just Disney World, do you know why? I'll let you guess!

This is just a little bit of the best part of my life, I'm gonna write again, but right now, I have to go to enjoy this experience, another thing that i learned here is that EVERY SECOND COUNTS IN OUR LIFE! So, see you soon!

To the exchenge students: Thank you all for making my life different. I'll never forget you, never...

December 16 Journal

Closing a chapter, a chapter of this exchange year. I'm changing families, and right now I'm packing. And I'm not talking only about clothes, shirts, pants, sweaters. I'm talking also about memories, feelings, laughs and experiences. 4 months had passed so fast, so quick, so unbelievable, and now my story with my host family is starting to be only a part of my memories. Fall in love, what is that? Is it for real that it only can happens with one person? I don't think so. This family had showed me that they love me and they already know that I love them. Because we lived together, because we solved problems together and because we helped each other to survive in this problematic world.

I'm just one kid, one child living in a world with billions of people, and how many times are we taught that we can not change realities? Well, let me take the challenge of being one more in this society that says Yes, we can change, by loving and by trying our best to make other people happy. This is not a sad journal, this a journal full of happiness, because I really want you to enjoy the life and look at the nice things that happens to us every day.

We went to Disney this last weekend, we had a wonderful time, by talking, by sharing, by laughing, by living, by being. How important it is to be someone and not to imitate somebody, how important is to take decisions by our own and make mistakes, so we can learn. Nobody is perfect, nobody WILL be perfect, but we can try, don't we? We can try to talk, to forgive, to teach and to be taught by someone else that it doesn't have to be someone better or worse than us. Because there is no such thing, what exists is differences. In the way of thinking, in the way of living the life.

I m not a material person. I mean, material stuffs are for me not so important, they are, but not as much as knowledge. I'm having the best time in my life not because I'm going to certain places that many people would love to go, I'm having the best time of my life because I'm growing up. I'm starting to know who I am, who I want to be. Growing up its the denomination of having the skill of making good choices.

I'm not trying to be a prophet, its just that I'm starting to be proud of myself, I'm starting to be self-esteem without being selfish, even though I keep doing mistakes, now I learn of it and I really try not to be doing it again.

That's all that I have to say in this journal, and I would like to add that I'm really excited about having a new family, because I'm really looking forward to having more people to love.

Best wishes to all and I wish you a merry Christmas and a wonderful new year.