Olof Ahlén

2006-07 Inbound from Sweden

Hometown: Olofstorp, Sweden

Sponsor: Göteborg-Angered Rotary Club, District 2360, Sweden

Host: Mandarin Rotary Club, District 6970, USA

School: Mandarin High School

Bio

Olof's Bio

And congratulations on your good decision in clicking on my picture. My name is Olof Ahlen, I live on the west coast of Sweden, in the city of Gothenburg. I am currently spending one year in Florida as a Rotary Exchange Student in the city of Jacksonville. I have brought my interests with me and Rotary is making it possible for me to practice some of them. I am interested in music, I play the piano, I am also interested in dancing and the national sport of Brazil, capoeira.

My current and first host family is Carol and Vasant Bhide, a married couple with two grown daughters who both have left home. They are very nice to me, so staying in their big house is a pleasure. I attend Mandarin High School, a huge school with 3,000 students enrolled. There I take Chorus, Latin and American History, among other things.

The weather here is very hot. Compared to Sweden, it’s an enormous change. Rain is common here and if I’m (un)lucky, perhaps I will experience a hurricane.

Rotary keeps me involved in lots of things and I constantly meet very friendly and good people that invite me to do things with them. Since day one when I got here, I have noticed that Rotary cares for me in a very special way.

September 10 Journal & Pictures

The people, wow. Everything, wow.

I just got home from a trip to Universal Studios, Orlando. It was an annual event called Rock the Universe, that is a gathering of many many Christian churches in the theme park Universal. Christian rock bands come to share the word of Jesus Christ. I had a blast. I met so many nice people, it’s incredible. I got invited to this just by introducing myself to a friend at the bus, she talked to her pastor and he decided to sponsor me on this. This is just one example of invitations that I have had. Rotary is incredible, many Rotarians have taken me doing things like kayaking, dining and seeing football games. Everything here is perfect, people worry that I’m bored, but when I don’t have anything to do, I’m happy to be able to relax.

The biggest and nicest difference that I’ve seen is the friendliness of the people. Without being unpatriotic, I actually like the people here better than my fellow Swedes in the far north. Just these first five weeks have made me grow incredibly much in personality and profile. I find myself comfortable in situations where I previously would think that this isn’t my style. I signed up for this program for many reasons, and after I submitted my application, I thought of new reasons to do it. Many of them have shown themselves to be accurate already. For future students coming here, I have one piece of advice: Meet people! Talk to people, introduce yourself. That is what’s keeping me busy, and happy.

November 13 Journal & Pictures

I will tell y’all about three major events that I had the opportunity to participate in.

First, some weekends ago I got to go the annual Stetson University Choral Festival. Every year, Stetson University hosts a big choral festival for high school students around Florida. Twelve people from chorus at my school got to go, I was one of them. We rode down there in a car and when we got there, we merged with about two hundred other high school students, all chorus singers, most of them very good.

The director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Mr. Craig Jessop was there, tutoring us and teaching us about singing. We had five pieces that we practiced for two days. I truly learned a lot about singing and really improved my voice. The music that we sung was wonderful too.

Later, we all had a concert and sung for our parents, that went really well too. I had great fun with my friends from school, getting to know them better. I felt that I made a good impression and contributed to the general joy.

The other weekend, Rotary took all the exchange students to Daytona Beach, and Kennedy Space Center. We all gathered, twenty-eight of us, I got to see my old buddies again, it had been a while. They are all so nice and so much fun to be with. Then we went to our temporary host families that hosted us for the weekend. I stayed with Mateusz in a host family of two elderly parents. One of them had been a fighter pilot and served twice in Vietnam, I had many questions for him.

The next day, we all went to Daytona USA, which is a NASCAR racetrack, and museum. I got a very clear image of what NASCAR really is all about. It was so nice seeing all my friends from around the world again, and I’m really looking forward to seeing them again, later in November in Disney.

The last big event was the Florida Georgia game. Football is a huge thing here in the United States. Football is played on three levels; High School, College and Professional. There are three major college teams here in Florida. They are The Florida Gators, The Florida State Seminoles and the Miami Hurricanes. My host parents are huge Gator fans, since they both went to the University of Florida. Every year, the Gators play against their rival, the Georgia Bulldogs, in the neutral grounds of Alltel Stadium, Jacksonville. It is a huge event. Said to be the biggest cocktail party in the world. People arrive a week in advance to party, eat tons of food and get drunk.

Half of the seats in the stadium are solemnly for Bulldog fans, the other half for Gator fans, thus the clear division of colors in the stands. My host family could get me tickets for the game, I was thrilled and it was a really cool experience. The Gators won, it was a close one though.

Time rushes by, I hate to think of the little time I have left, even though it’s more than half. I have some goals about what I would like to have accomplished this year, it’s hard trying to achieve them but it’s rewarding just to try. I want to come home to Sweden and be fully satisfied, feeling that I did all I could to have the wonderful year that I had.

January 31 Journal & Pictures

I have moved away from my first host family, with whom I’ve lived up until now. I decided to spend Christmas with another family, one with more kids and things going in that area. It was convenient for me to then move down the street, to another Rotarian, one who actually even had suggested this to me, before I presented my thoughts to him. This is a family of two parents, one working father and one stay at home mother. Together, they have four children, varying in age. It was very nice spending the holidays with a family at a different stage in their lives. It truly is amazing how Rotary can arrange these things. You really do feel that there isn’t just one big person or thing called Rotary that does this for you, but rather it is the working spirit and the willingness of all the people, participating in the organization, called Rotary that makes this happen.

I’m also very happy how things more and more, as time goes by starts to fall in place and really work out smoothly, like friendship, adapting to new routines, finding out how things work out in school and so on.

Recently, I moved to my third host family. She is my Latin teacher from school, it was more or less a coincidence that I ended up staying with her. A Rotarian in my club used to work at my school, therefore they know each other. I signed up for taking Latin in school, and everything emerged from that. When this nice opportunity came up, I didn’t hesitate to take it. I am very excited about living with her. I am getting such a good, varied view of American families, having spent time with an older couple with grown kids, another family with their characteristics, and now a third one. I feel privileged, and it’s easy to return all the good favors brought upon me to the people that are around me.

Some weekends ago, I helped out at the outbound interviews, that is an event that Rotary holds in preparation for sending out new students for a year abroad. There I spent much time with the parents of these students. One of the families that had applied was Swedish. The parents had both gone to the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, which is where I’ve planned to go. My conversation with them changed my life. I got my first dream ever, a plan for future college studies. That was one thing that I had hoped to solve during my year, I had hoped to figure out what I would like to study after high school. After talking with these Swedes, I figured out that I will attend University of Gothenburg for my undergraduate in Technical Physics, and after that come to the United States to get my masters.

A few days ago, I came back from the Seacamp trip in the Florida Keys that the exchange students here went on together with exchange students from two other districts, and also some High School students from Michigan. I made very good friends there, learned a whole lot and had an overall excellent time. Another thing that happened down there was that I finally felt secure when dancing at a disco. Previously, I had been a bit insecure and not feeling like I fit in at disco environments, another thing I had hoped would change during this year. After being exposed some to dancing, and after trying to adapt a new attitude, I managed to change my attitude in the direction that I had been hoping for.

I recently turned eighteen, my wonderful host family had things planned for me that day, which felt very nice. They had a cake, sang for me and that evening we all went to a German restaurant, where I got to practice my German also.

What makes a year abroad possible like this is the care that people have for you. Rotarians and host families show that they care for you and help you whenever you need assistance, therefore a year away from home comes easier that one might think, and also better, nicer and more rewarding.

March 28 Journal and Pictures

Prom! Oh yes, that was a very interesting event. Even before I started my exchange year I knew that the prom was one of the events during the year that I was looking forward to and that I would attend. So came the time to find a date, rent a tux, buy a corsage and so on. I enjoyed that. I went with a very nice girl from my chorus class with whom I had a lovely evening. When I was faced with the question of what color my tux should be, I decided to try something new. In fact, the tux I rented was the first tux that I ever wore but the fact that I’m renting the tux, I think made me eligible to try something different. I decided to go with a white tux, gold vest and gold bowtie. My gosh I was thrilled to wear the outfit. Gold was the color of my date’s dress and it all went really well together, see picture.

Spring break just ended. Mine was very unique, unlike any spring break I’ve had before. There’s nothing like spending seven months without your parents and then all of a sudden seeing them again. That’s right, my Swedish parents visited. The moment I saw them again for the first time for so long, it felt almost unreal. It was lovely.

A Rotarian from my club loaned us his beach condo for the first part of spring break. We had a terrific time on Jacksonville Beach. Next thing that we did was to move to a cottage kind of place in a state park in Georgia. We took a trip to a place called Okefenokee Swamp, where we took a boat ride and saw surely a total of about 35 alligators, within 10 feet from the boat in a couple of hours. The last place we stayed at was a hotel in Jacksonville. From there we went on various tours, such as to St. Augustine, Daytona Beach and Disney World. We did a lot of shopping too, some good buys. A store had 75% off, plus an additional 30% off on those items (a total of 82.5% off). The last day, my host family arranged for us all to go see the Broadway musical Lion King. We had a lovely evening. When me and my family finally said goodbye, it wasn’t as hard as before. This time it was only for three months, a time that when it’s over I’m sure I’ll be surprised at how fast it went.

Coming up this weekend is a concert with the Jacksonville Symphony, they’re playing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, I’m just dying to go. I’ve asked a nice friend from school to go with me. It’s so nice to arrange with all these things to do whenever I have spare time. It’s a bit difficult though but the challenge is well worth it.

I’m very happy to see that I’ve advanced very much in my piano playing. All the practice that has been available to me during my exchange year really has paid off. Thank you Rotary!