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Stella Schlösser
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2004-05 Inbound from Germany
Date of Birth: November 29, 1988
Hometown: Munich, Germany
Sponsor: Munich International Rotary Club, District 1840, Germany
Host: Palatka Sunrise Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida USA
School: Orange Park High School
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| Bio |
| Stella meets a
presidential candidate |
| September 12 Journal - "What I
really like about American schools is the relationship between teachers and
students ... teachers are so friendly and always try to help you as best as
they can." |
| October 15 Journal - "The worst thing for me was
getting up and ready in the morning at school days without light. I realized
again how much I actually depend on electricity and especially light." |
| January 2 Journal - "I think I
experienced the typical American Christmas with celebrating on Christmas day
in the morning, stockings hanging at the fireplace, cinnamon rolls for
breakfast, presents, Christmas dinner." |
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Stella's
Bio
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Hi everybody!
My name is Stella Schloesser and I am an exchange student from Germany.
In Germany I have 3 brothers (Reinhard 14, Fabian 8, and Benjamin 2) and 2
sisters (Leisa 12 and Kristina 8), my parents and of course my grandmother
who is very important for me. My hobbies are skiing, moving arts (juggling,
unicycling,…), reading, riding, taking pictures, meeting and getting to know
new people, learning languages , doing sports, listening to music and many
other things!
How I became a Rotary exchange student:
My father suggested an exchange year pretty early to me, but first of all
I was really afraid of leaving my family, my friends, my country and all the
things I know behind me to spend a year abroad. But when I came in 11th
grade I was interested in an exchange year because of some brochures in
school. I started finding out more about this topic and about different
organizations because first of all I didn’t know that Rotary has an exchange
program. I started signing up for 7 different organizations who took me. But
I don’t really like the reasons this organizations are doing these exchanges
and I also didn’t like that most of the organizations didn’t care about
where their students are going to be or which host families they are going
to get. I had problems to choose one of these, but then one of my fathers
patients started talking about the Rotary youth exchange program. I was
really excited about the opportunity to join this wonderful program.
What I hope to gain from this year:
I think being an exchange student and having the opportunity to join the
Rotary program is wonderful because you gain so much from this year! In my
opinion every exchange student has to have the following personal traits,
but I hope to grow in these capacities. As an exchange student you learn to
be open-minded, flexible, adaptable, introspective, grown-up, independent,
but you also learn to make compromises and to accept challenges and changes
in your life. It gives you the opportunity to meet and get to know many new
people, even from many different countries all over the world, and you will
make friends who will be there for you forever. To be a Rotary exchange
student gives you the possibility to get to know the other inbounds from
many different countries all over the world. I also hope to improve on my
English and to became fluent in it. Of course I want to get to know America,
the American way of life and its different cultures. This year is going to
be the best year of my life! |
Stella Meets a
Presidential Candidate
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He's not named George, or John, or even Ralph, but he is
running for Commander-in-Chief
Stella had a busy first couple of days in Florida. While
getting settled, she attended a meeting of her host club, Palatka Sunrise
Rotary, and then went with her host father to the neighboring Hastings
Rotary Club. There,
she met
the United States Presidential Candidate of the Libertarian Party, Michael
Badnarik, who was the club's speaker for the day.
Neither one seems disturbed by the fact that
Stella has about the same chance of being elected US president as Mr.
Badnarik does!
Thanks to J. R. Redlitz for the photo. |
September 12 Journal
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Hey guys! Wow, I can’t believe it but here finally comes my first journal! I read
some journals from other exchange students and I really have to say, you did
a great job and it’s really hard to write a journal which is as good as
yours, but I will try it!
As you know from my bio I am Stella from Germany and I am living in
Orange Park and going to Orange Park High School. I am here for almost 6
weeks now (unbelievable! J ) and everything is
so familiar as I would have grown up here!
First of all everything was so new and exciting and I met so many new
people that I thought I would never get used to all these new things! I
especially was afraid of going to my new school because it is a huge school.
My school in Germany has just 620 students so it was a real shock for me on
the first day when I saw all these students walking around on the campus. On
my first day at school I was afraid of getting lost, although my host
brothers (Chris and Aaron) who are going to the same school showed me where
me new classes are. I was really surprised how helpful and nice all the
teachers were to me! I am in 12th grade there although I am just
15. I always wanted to experience the graduation at an American High School
and I am really happy that I may experience it. At first it was really hard
for me to find friends there or just to start a conversation with somebody
because it took me a long time to get from one class to another and I
couldn’t talk to anybody during the periods. But after a couple of days I
got used to the American school system and I was brave enough to start a
conversation with somebody. But also the projects we started to do in class
helped me a lot to get to know people and to find friends. Drama class was
the first class I started to talk to people and made some friends because
you are always working together with different people in your class.
What I really like about American schools is the relationship between
teachers and students and the fact that the teachers are so friendly and
always try to help you as best as they can. My favorite classes are Drama,
English and American Government because I have the best teachers I ever met.
My school has 6 exchange students from Germany, one from Denmark and one
from the Netherlands. You could say that it is not good to have so many
exchange students -especially Germans- in the same school who you see every
day, but I think it is not too bad because I found a really good friend in
one of the German exchange students. Sarah, the girl from the Netherlands
and me are joining the cross country team at my school and it is a lot of
fun! It is really cool that all the people are supporting and encouraging
each other like I never saw it before. I went with Sarah and her host
parents to the local Cummer Museum of Arts and we all had a lot of fun
there.
When I first arrived at the airport my host dad wasn’t even there because
he was in Haiti with his Rotary Club for his international project. I have 4
host brothers here and not to forget of course their dog “Brownie”. I have a
really good relationship with them and we did many things together until now
like playing Scrabble or Careers. I also spent a lot of time on the soccer
field watching my host brothers and their teams play (and win!).
One of my first experiences of Florida was of course one of the many
thunderstorms which are really strong here. I experienced my first
thunderstorm when I was shopping at BJ’s with my host mom and my little host
brother. I was really shocked when I saw all the water coming down and all
the small lakes at the parking lot - for me it seemed almost as much water
as it is coming down at the Niagara Falls.
So far I have twice been to my host club in Palatka. The first time I
went there was still during the holidays, so I decided to spent the whole
day down there to see where my host father is working. I attended some
meetings at my club in Germany and I thought it would be pretty much the
same here, but it wasn’t. All the Rotarians who were there knew who I am and
where I am from. They were all nice and friendly and were really excited to
meet me. I gave a little speech and told them who I am, who I am staying
with and what I experienced so far. Before that I was afraid of making a
speech in front of many Rotarians but they all encouraged me and it went
pretty well. After the meeting I went to see where my host father is working
and it was really exciting to see and to meet all the people who he is
working with. After we spent a couple of hours there, we went to another
Rotary meeting from the club in Hastings because the presidential candidate
of the Libertarian party would speak there. As you can see under my bio I
met him and a day after my trip my host father brought me the newspaper of
the Palatka Daily News and the picture of me and the presidential candidate
on the front page.
As you can see I had many really cool experiences in my first 6 weeks!
That was my first journal - I hope you enjoyed it!
Bye
Stella |
October 15 Journal
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Hey guys!
Here comes journal number two! Since I wrote my last journal many things
happened. But before I write about all that I have to correct a mistake I
made in my last journal! Last time I wrote that there are 8 exchange
students at my school, but I unfortunately forgot two of them. There are 10
Exchange students at my school: Gokhan, another Rotary exchange student,
from Turkey, a girl and a boy from the Netherlands, a girl from Denmark and
3 girls (including me) and boys from Germany. Gokhan, I am really sorry that
I forgot you last time! I didn’t mean to - it was already quite late and I
was really tired…
I know that all the other exchange students already wrote about
the Hurricanes we had here, but it was such an overwhelming experience for me
that I also want to write about that. As if we didn’t already have had enough
Hurricanes this year, there was another one coming- Jeanne. As I found out about
this one I wasn’t really afraid of it any more because I already had some
experiences from the last ones and I also didn’t think that this one would
effect us that hard. This time we lost power from Sunday afternoon until
Thursday. This time we only got school off on Monday, so I had to get ready with
a flashlight on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. ( I stayed overnight at a friend's
house from Wednesday until Thursday) It might sound funny- and it actually was
when I think back now- but when you experience it for yourself it wasn’t and I
truly hope that won’t happen again too soon. Although we got around that power
outage pretty good, there were of course certain things we couldn’t do or use,
like the fridge or taking a warm shower. But still the worst thing for me was
getting up and ready in the morning at school days without light. I realized
again how much I actually depend on electricity and especially light. But
fortunately my host dad bought a generator on Wednesday, so we could have some
things like a fridge and lights again. After the storm was over, although we
still didn’t have power, we were cleaning up the yard and we cut the top of our
neighbors’ tree. One of the neighbors had a tree coming down on his roof which
totally collapsed. I guess the reason why we didn’t have power for such a long
period of time was that the transformer which is standing in our neighbors’ yard
blew off and started burning. There were a lot of trees coming down in the area
where I live and I especially remember the one which came down right across the
street. All this was an experience I’ll never forget and it also made me realize
that something like this brings family, neighbors and other people together and
they all start to care about each other although they didn’t really have contact
before that.I can’t believe the first quarter of school is already over and
that I am already here for 2 months now! Although you should think that after
that long period of time, every day of school is the same and that it is getting
boring. But it is not at all like this for me. Every day is different, because I
meet new people, get to know them better and we become friends. I still think
that finding real friends here is very difficult but as the time goes on you get
to know them better and you can become friends. Tonight there is the hom ecoming
football game and tomorrow evening the homecoming dance! I will write about that
in my next journal, but I can tell you that I am really excited to go there.
Ok, that’s it for right now! I hope you enjoyed reading my second
journal.
Bye
Stella
(Picture at right shows host mom Andrea, host dad J.R.,
and Stella with Rotary International President Glenn Estess) |
January 2 Journal
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Hey guys!
I can’t believe how busy the last three months have been
and how fast it went by. For me it seems that the time I have spent here so
far just flew by…Christmas is over and we are already in 2005! I can just
say that I really enjoyed my time over here and that I am looking forward to
a good next year, 2005! I hope it’s going to be as amazing and exciting as
the last year! But now to my experiences:
Since homecoming was already a long time ago, I am not
going to write too much about it. I had a lot of fun dressing up, meeting
all my friends and of course dancing! It was a nice experience to see
everybody all dressed up and to see how the American people celebrate
homecoming.
I had the opportunity to participate in the Re-enactment
of the civil war battle at horse landing (in Palatka). I dressed up in
attire clothing, including hoop skirt, and went to a ladies tea at day time
and a ball at night. I learned how to dance the Virginia Reel at the ball
and I and my host family had a lot of fun there. I want to thank the member
of my host club and his wife for giving me the opportunity to participate
and also for the two dresses I was wearing that day. It was a unique
experience for me, I will never forget!
My birthday over here was really exciting and special for
me! When I went to school in the morning my friends gave me a whole bunch of
balloons to walk around with and everybody said “happy birthday”. It was
really funny for me to walk around with those balloons all day long and I
experienced how it is to celebrate a birthday in America! But the best thing
was that I got to talk to my family and even some of my really good friends
from Germany on the phone. They were all calling in the afternoon to say
“happy birthday” and I really appreciated it! It was so nice to hear their
voices again after almost 4 months! Thank you guys for doing that, you are
awesome! In the evening I celebrated with my host family and even my host
grandma who came over that night. I got a really nice cake, baked by my host
mom, and a lot of presents from my family, my host family, my friends from
Germany and some of my friends here. On the Wednesday after my birthday I
went to my monthly Rotary meeting as usual not knowing that my host club had
planned a surprise birthday party for me! The room was decorated very nicely
with balloons and all that stuff. And there was also a decorated table with
a lot of presents and a birthday-cake for me! I was really surprised because
I had absolutely no clue about all of that. Instead of having a guest
speaker as usual we were all sitting together celebrating my birthday,
eating the cake and I was opening all my presents! I had a really good time
that day and I am glad that I have such an amazing host club! I really
appreciate everything they are doing for me and I hope they all know that I
had a wonderful time that day! I enjoy coming to the monthly Rotary meetings
of my host club and I am happy to be hosted by them. All in all I had a
great birthday over here and I will always remember how special it was to
me!
I was able to go to a professional football game! The
Jacksonville Jaguars against the Chicago Bears. It was a great game and I
really enjoyed it although I am just starting to understand football.
All the Rotary exchange students got to go on a trip to
Disneyworld in Orlando in the beginning of December. We all stayed there for
four days and also met Rotary exchange students form other districts, even
some from Texas. I met another exchange student from my district in Germany
and we were so happy and surprised to see each other again. I think we all
had a great time there and we are really happy that we got the opportunity
to go. We went to all the parks in Orlando: First Epcot, then Animal
Kingdom, then Magic Kingdom and last but not least MGM studios. I really
enjoyed going to Epcot and seeing all the other countries represented,
especially my own. It was interesting to see what American people think
about Germany and all the countries. But I have to say that they actually
did a pretty good job representing Germany with a few exceptions. In the
evening we all enjoyed a very special firework together.
After Disneyworld, Christmas was coming up really soon and
I still hadn’t finished all my shopping, especially not my shopping for the
package to Germany! I was really worried that all the presents for my family
and friends wouldn’t arrive there in time, but fortunately everything worked
out. I had a nice Christmas over here although it didn’t really seem like
Christmas to me at first. It was a little bit weird for me that it wasn’t
really cold and that it didn’t snow.
But I also didn’t have time to realize that it was
Christmas because it came up so fast! Although it was strange for me because
of these reasons I enjoyed all the Christmas preparations with my host
family. We all put lights on the house, decorated the tree and the house on
the inside, wrapped presents…
When I got off school the weekend before Christmas, I had
the opportunity to spend 4 days with a member of my host club and her
husband. We went horseback-riding in Daytona, to the beach, the lighthouse
and shopping in St. Augustine, decorated their house, cooked, went out to
dinner and did all sorts of other fun stuff! I had a great time there and I
hope they also enjoyed it to have an exchange student at their house for a
little while.
I think I experienced the typical American Christmas with
celebrating on Christmas day in the morning, stockings hanging at the
fireplace, cinnamon rolls for breakfast, presents, Christmas dinner…Although
this was the first Christmas I didn’t celebrate with my family, I liked it
and I am happy that I was able to celebrate it with my host parents, my host
brothers and my host grandma and that they introduced me to the American way
of celebrating Christmas!
Ok, that’s it for now! I hope you enjoyed it!
Stella |
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