 School:
School is awesome. It’s so much bigger and of course a lot
different to my school. At my school here there are 2800 Students and at my
school at home there are 200 Students! But I started school one week later
as everyone else because we had a discussion with my school if I have to
take an English test or not so they could test if my English is good enough
for this school. Finally, I didn’t had to take it.
First day school: First I went to the Office at my school
and they gave me my schedule. After that, someone showed me around at school
and showed me my class rooms. They gave me a plan and I was walking around
with that plan at school and felt kind of lost and stupid. It took me a very
long time to find my class rooms and I also almost came to late to some
classes. But there were a lot of nice people around who helped me. I came in
class and just sat somewhere on a free sit down (I didn’t know that there
was a straight sit order and everyone had his seat). And of course, I sat on
someone’s seat and that was a very embarrassing feeling. The teacher came in
the classroom and started to read down the names from his class list. I
wasn’t on the list in every class. He asked always, if he forgot someone.
Then I raised my hand and introduced myself and after that, everyone was
looking at me and wondering. And after class some guys started to talk to me
and asked me a lot of questions and asked me if I wanna join them for lunch.
I joined them and we talked a lot. So I made friends at the first day. And
after school I had to ride the school bus back home what also a very
different feeling was. I also had problem to find the right bus and they
just waited for like 5 minutes and then they left. It was a really long and
crazy drive. Because in the back of the bus were all the freshman’s who were
extreme annoying. The bus driver drove always extreme fast, crazy and was
pissed all the time because of the freshmen’s. We also had an accident one
day. I didn’t always feel very comfortable with that.
The most different thing at school for me is that a lot of
the students come with their cars to school. A lot of them have really nice
cars like hummers and stuff what is just ridiculous with 16,17 or 18! I’m
getting so jealous of that. At my school there a lot of rich people. There
is also a big safety: There always 2 or 3 coops and a lot of Securities.
There is also a big school spirit in America. Everyone is very proud of his
school. We have a cat as mascot, called “Bobcat” and school colors (black,
gold and white). Every school has his own school colors. And we also have
school sport teams who play for the school. So it’s called Bobcat Football,
Bobcat Basketball, Bobcat Tennis,… The sport teams are very important for
the school, because they kind of represent the school. The football team is
one of the most important school team at school. Almost everyone goes to the
games and there is always a great atmosphere and cheering. We also have a
spirit shop where you can buy school t-shirts and other stuff. And a lot of
people at school are wearing school t-shirts. We also have homecoming,
homecoming dance, Cat prowl and other stuff during the year.
School food is terrible and a lot of it is fast food and
junk food. You can get the day menu for 2 Dollars what I prefer. You also
can get Pizza, French-fries, Chicken nuggets and Burgers. Or you can take
your own lunch to school.
It happened also a lot of crazy stuff at my school: We had
a really bad girl fight between 2 groups of girls what me and my friends
missed:( They got all arrested. Somebody got hit really bad by a car at the
school parking spots (He is in a wheelchair since 2 Months now). One day I
went to the school office during the class and I just saw 2 Officers who
arrested a black girl in hand claves! (I guess it was drug found). And a
Student got really in trouble with a stupid substitute. He was drawing
graffiti’s when we were working. Then she went over to him and asked him why
the hell he is drawing graffiti’s and teared up his paper. He freaked out
and screamed really bad thing at her and started to push her and get really
mad. She get really scared and called the securities and he left the class
room. He got really in trouble because of that.
There are always so many people when classes change
because there are 2800 Students who change at the same time! It’s always
very crowded and you only have 5 minutes time for change the class room.
Changing Family was pretty hard for me. I really liked my
first Family. It was just perfect. I felt like to be their own son. But then
I had to change family. Saying good bye was pretty hard. And my host mother
also cried a little bit because they really liked me and we always got along
well with each other and we never had trouble. They brought me to my new
family. I moved into my new room what was kind of a strange feeling to me.
The first night was really hard but after a week, I really adapted myself at
the new family. I realized fast that they’re really nice people too.
It’s not always nice, cool and easy to be an exchange
student, because you often come in inappropriate, unpleasant or embarrassing
situations. But most of them are just at begin. There a lot of people who
really care or are interested when you say that you are an exchange students
but some of them don’t really care.
Most people at my school don’t really know a lot about
Europe. Some of them think that Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium are together or
something. Some people always say, you’re from Sweden right? But it’s
amazing how many people already have visited Switzerland and most of them
also know the town where I’m from.
Rotary Organizations:
The Rotary Organizations are always really fun and cool. I
made some really good friends with some of them. We also try to get together
sometimes what is really complicate, cause we don’t live really close from
each other. |
Gilles Amberg