Gülten Çakiroğlu

2005-06 Inbound from Turkey

Date of Birth: January 12, 1988

Hometown: Gelibolu/Çanakkale, Turkey

Sponsor: Gelibolu Rotary Club, District 2420, Turkey

Host: South Jacksonville Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida USA
School: Wolfson High School

Bio

Gulten's Bio

I am Gulten CAKIROGLU from TURKEY! I am a long term exchange student hosted by South Jacksonville Rotary Club. I am seventeen years old. I graduated from high school and when I go back to my own country I will attend college. I have an elder sister. She is nineteen. She was a long term exchange student in Mexico last year.

I like any kind of sports but especially archery, windsurf, snowboard. But I love basketball matches although I am not good at basketball. I have been in Jacksonville approximately 20 days and I really like here, my host family and my host club. I like my exchange student (whom I met) I mean up to now everything is perfect. I hope it will go on like this...

October 4 Journal

I have been in Jacksonville almost 50 days. But for 12 days I had to go back to Turkey because of my college enrollment. When I came here I was a high school graduated teenager, but now I am officially a college student.

Up to now I went a few wonderful places - first of all I went to St. Augustine, which is the oldest city of America, with Pond from Thailand. That was amazing and wonderful. I saw the oldest house, the big, actually the huge, cross and interesting shell castle. We had a tour around the town with a little train; we had fun.

I went to something like a rally, I mean car racing practice with Gabi from Brazil. We saw their clothes in order not to burn in case of an accident and I decided not to rally. Otherwise I am gonna faint because of those clothes but as you all know it is so hot outside and I think they were cotton and they all have to wear them just in case.

Last Thursday I went to my Rotary club's meeting. That was nice. I met with a lot of people and and thanks to Ken I had a few appointments with the other members of my club. For example Martha. I went to my first Jaguars game last weekend with Larissa from Brazil and Miss Martha - she is one of the members of South Jacksonville Rotary Club. She took us there. That was my ever first game. Actually I went before but that was my school's game and that was so complicated I could not understand. Last Sunday we went to the game and Larissa explained to me the rules. I started to understand. Although it is really difficult to understand I had fun there. I mean that was really interesting. That is the most common thing in United States I have to understand much more. And I will study for this :)

My only problem is still American kids in my school and the school. School is really different from Turkey, because in Turkey we had special classes for 20 students and teachers were changing their classes while we were having a rest between classes. And we used to have 8 classes during the day but they all lasted 40 minutes, then 10 minutes break. Our lunch break was an hour so here after a one and half hour class, I have to hurry up in order to get in my next class. I can not even talk with students except for lunch. That is the worst thing for me because it is getting harder to have friends in school.

Apart from my school problem everything is so well. In other words awesome...and finally I wanted to send (one more time) regards especially Ken & Sarah Weiss, Oday, Martha, Fred & Claudia Page and many more Rotarians.

Gulten

November 5 Journal

I have ups and downs since I wrote last. First of all I felt really bad and I wanted to go back to my own country. I was not homesick though. I was so depressed and unhappy. Since my first day I was trying to get used to school but those two weeks were horrible, although everything was the same. I was going to school everyday with the same schedule and I used to have just a few friends. I was feeling so lonely and I began to think that I had a problem to communicate with the people or I was dumb. The more I thought the more I got depressed.

I spent the weekend with Pond and then we went to Jaguar game. I spent one more weekend with Pond, then we went to Olga's birthday party, and we had a lot of fun. We played laser-tag, go-cart, limo,dinner. When I was with my friends I was feeling better but still upset. And we had a picnic with almost all of the exchange students. We were all together. The day before the picnic I was in Larissa's house. We watched movies just like normal American kids do. The picnic was great. Actually that was the day which made me change my sad mood to happy. Because I mentioned that I had friends I could not meet with them often though.

After the picnic we went Daytona for bike fest. I am sure that all the craziest people in USA were there that day. We saw lots and lots of different people but we had so much fun:) The night of the picnic I went to my new host family, KEN and SARAH WEISS. :) Two days later we went to my school with Ken because he was going to talk about Rotary Youth Exchange Program. During his speech we introduced me to students. And after his speech he helped me to get into soccer team.

After that day everything began to get better and better. During the class or in the hallway kids are asking me questions or talking with me. As I am in the soccer team I have had friends in the team. And everyday after school we have a practice and I'm really having fun during the practice.

Thanks to Ken, now I am in soccer team and I have friends in the school and I feel really happy - sometimes exhausted though. Last weekend since my host parents, Sarah and Ken, were out of town I had to stay with Vicki-Lynne and Rod. We had so much fun together. We went to Amelia Island and I rode a horse by the beach, we went to the beach in order to walk, then we went shopping. I drove a car but with remote control actually mice was driving and we made the dogs scared with that car:) And during the week we had 2 soccer games, we lost both but it is ok:) And our second game was with Terry Parker, Gaby's school, and Gaby was in the other team so we were opponents. That was great! After the game we hug each other. Now I am really happy and I changed my mind. I do not wanna go back till June :)

gulten

January 21 Journal

This morning i just woke up just like other days. And I was checking my calendar in order to organize what I am going to do then suddenly I just realized I have almost 20 more weeks as an exchange student before I leave! I thought this can NOT be happening, in 21 weeks I will be in my home country with my friends and my family. I will leave my whole year behind me and go! This is so terrible. I don't even wanna think about last 2 weeks while I am packing. Can you imagine! It is not really soon but it is soon! I have spent almost 30 weeks here and now my departure day is coming soon everyday I am spending here.

I did not even realized how fast time was going because I was so busy. Last month for example I was with Darragh family for Christmas then I had Hanukkah in Weiss house. It was so cool but I had two different holidays right after each other. Soon I will go Turkish Diner with my first host mom, Aylin, and we will eat my favorite Turkish dishes. One of her friends is gonna cook for us and we will have Turkish night:) Doesn't it sound great? How can I be homesick? No way!

I have two brothers right now. This is the first time I have ever had a brother and not only one I have two brothers. My little brother is just like real brother. We are always fighting, punching each other and I like that so much. I am talking about Darragh's son Rev, my lil brotha.

School is getting better. I have really cute and nice friends. And finally I am in Latin Club (I tried to be a member first term but the teacher didn't let me but now I am a member). Our soccer season is over but we won our last two games. We were just getting better when the season ended. I am sure next year my soccer team will rock!

In my ecology class my teacher is so funny. Last week all seniors had a trip so class was almost empty and we were just doing homework for other classes anyway. Then my teacher turned up the volume of his computer and we all listened to Turkish music during the class. I thought that was really cool of him.

I have more self-confidence while I am talking or writing in English now. For example a few days ago I called Barnes and Noble book store to see if they have the book I wanted to buy, and they said they didn't have it and they asked me if I wanted to order the book. So I ordered the book on the phone not online! I was so excited because I was trying to speak on the phone less just in case I can't get what people say but it was pretty relaxing. They didn't even say 'excuse me'. I was happy and bouncing after the conversation on the phone.

Actually I was just trying to say I am having a great time. The events I was talking about were just little examples how I am enjoying my time here.

Gulten

April 26 Journal and Pictures

I haven't written since January but it is not because I didn't want to or I was lazy about that it was because most of the time I was busy. First of all I went to eastern tour with 110 exchange students which includes Dana, Amélie, Nard, Gabi and Julie from our district. And we absolutely had a blast in those 15 days. It was the best part of my exchange year with out any doubt. After that tour I had a spring break which was really cool because I was really tired and I got cold since I am a Floridian from now on.

Right after my spring break I changed my host parents. It was one of the biggest challenges I have ever had as an exchange student too. Because I had been living with Ken and Sarah WEISS maybe more than 6 months they were like my real parents by then so it was like moving from my own house to my host parents just because I got used to living with them. And I think I will always miss being a WEISS girl. But I am a DARRAGH girl right now I have the best brother ever and ever will be born. He knows all my secrets I know some of his secrets. When he comes home I feel better because I have my friend with me all the time although he is studying or sleeping (for example he is sleeping right now).

I went to my school's prom with Jose. It was fun to watch people dancing in the prom with fancy clothes. And I cooked for him since my host brother had his school prom too. I decided to cook, so I cooked for my parents and Jose ate as a first and maybe the last time. It had a few accidents but it was so yummy. But I didn't tell my cooking teacher what I did - if she heard me she would take my points off from my grade. Because I forgot to crush the potato chips which would be on the top of the casserole but I put them as whole. So the first 5 minutes my host mom was laughing since she laughed a lot tears were coming from her eyes it was scary at the end. I wasn't sure, is she crying or laughing because of me. But it tasted good - isn't it the important part of cooking? No one died or got poisoned - everyone is still alive.

We had Easter weekend in Jose's house with Dana, Amélie, Carole, Taka, Viola and Zsolt. That was my ever first Easter. We painted eggs and even we had an Easter egg hunt which has money in them. I spend almost all my weekends with Dana. I will miss her so much too. One day I said I can't go to her house because it was during the week and I said it is far and her response to me was 'it is not as far as Turkey-Argentina Gulten!!' and she was so right. Maybe I will never see these people ever again but I will remember them all the rest of my life and even little things will make me remember them. Everything will change except for the memories.

And I am getting sadder and sadder day by day while I am happy that I am going back to my own country and own life, which I will not fit in anymore because I have grown up and changed a lot since I left my own house.

And we figured out that me and Olga are going together till Frankfurt; after that I have less than 2 hours for my own country so will be with an exchange student till the last moment. I am hanging out with Evan a lot since he is going to be an exchange student in Japan. It is funny that he just started living the excitement I had before I came so I can see how I was before I came. And at the same time I can feel how hard to admit that my year is almost over and everything is gonna be just memory after that and I don't want it to end but there is better future in front of me than it used to be last year because I changed so much. And I am so grateful to everyone that helped me and supported me to make my best year even better.