u/Icy-Can-7407

I personally consider myself mixed, my family considers me mixed, and I have tribal ID and all that,

But Im only 22% native alaskan (from my grandmother) and besides the fact I tan really well and get bad ear infections like a lot of another native Alaskans, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking.

However I’ve lived more than half of my life (granted I’m still in HS) in a native rural river village where nearly everyone was native or mixed. I know way more of my native family than I do white family, and even though I don’t live in the village anymore I’d still say culturally I’m more native than I am white. Like for most of my life the native culture was just the life, and not some special thing that I was honored to be participating in, I’ve always participated in native dances, wearing traditional clothes, eating and producing traditional food etc etc. I even remember back in the day when I was really little my native grandma would call me her Indian boy and me getting really sad after my mom explained to me that I’m only a quarter Indian. Oh I’m also Russian orthodox which a very high percentage of Alaskan natives, and I get it from my native side too.

Besides that I can barely get along with white people man, like I can be good friends with native guys within 30 minutes while it will take me a month to start talking to the white guys in my classes, similar thing white native girls for me, can’t stand these crazy white girls lmao. I don’t think this is literally because they are white, but there is a very distinct village culture in Alaska and that group of people tend to be native.

Alright, so right now I’m (16yo male 15 at time) currently an exchange student and around December to January of this year and last year I was with a very very shitty host family. constantly mean, they were making passive comments about my weight I think but, whatever I have thick skin, however the biggest thing was they never kept food in the house and only ate lunch. Within about 1 month maybe a month and a half if that I lost 50 pounds, this probably could’ve been avoided but I was playing basketball pretty consistently so the deficit must’ve been atleast 2500 cal per day, as I’m 6,4 and was like 240 pounds then. I didn’t even realize how much I had lost until I got a gym membership after doing a emergency family switch, I think I became so accustomed to the hunger that near the end of my stay in their house I wasnt feeling the pain of being hungry.

They currently have another exchange student in their house and it’s a similar story, I think it’s a bit easier for her because it’s school season for her while it was summer for me so she can actually buy food, however from what I’ve heard they took a 2 week vacation to Miami without her and only left yogurt and eggs in the house.

Oh besides that during that time period they were forcing her to take pictures/videos of her making food for the dog, like wtf

I cannot use commas and periods and it’s pretty obvious while rereading this

Hello I’m currently 16yo living abroad as an exchange student but I’m from Alaska, I was baptized as a baby into the ROCOR, I usually attend an american Antiochan church and of course a ROCOR. I would like to start taking classes, if possible, before I graduate.

I would like to become a better representative of the faith, I can’t take back my terrible disgusting sins, but I don’t want to continue this path of being lukewarm and ignoring my faith.

Hey everyone, I’m currently an exchange student in Latin America, I ended up bringing my host countries flag and my grandfathers (passed) US flag from serving in the Korean War.
I brought it in the hopes people could sign their names on it for memories and adding more history/legacy to the flag in a way.

I think I heard after bringing it this would break the flag laws or something but I would like to hear the opinion of actual veterans before anyone else