Ivan Ralisch

2008-09 Inbound from Brazil

Hometown: Londrina, Paraná, Brazil

Sponsor: Londrina-Cinquentenário Rotary Club, District 4710, Brazil

Host: Daytona Beach West Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida, USA

School: Seabreeze High School, Daytona Beach, FL

Bio

Ivan's Bio

Hey! My name is Ivan Ralisch and I come from Londrina, Brazil, but now my home is in Daytona Beach, Florida. My Rotary Club in Brazil is the Londrina Cinquentanario, and the club that is hosting me here is the Daytona Beach West.

Now it's already 1 month and 2 weeks that I'm here, and I can't even believe. Time has passed amazingly fast these days, and it's been a great time. I attend Seabreeze High School, and love to go there. In the beginning it was hard, but now I'm making a lot of friends and people are very nice to me.

I wanted to be an Exchange Student because I knew by my brother and sister that is an amazing experience, and I wanted to learn about another country and different culture. Now I'm really glad that I'm here, glad that Rotary gave me this opportunity, and know that my siblings were completely right!

October 25 Journal

It's amazing how time went fast, and I didn't even notice. It's already October, and have been awesome. I'm making a lot of friends at Seabreeze and people are really nice and friendly to me, which is great.

My host parents, Hal and Jackie, are an awesome couple. They help me with everything I need, and I appreciate everything they are doing to give me a good time. We've been on their boat a couple of times, we've been riding bicycles, playing tennis, going to games. We are having a good time together. Jackie's son, Marc Beach, is the football coach at Seabreeze, and he lives in Ormond Beach with his wife and kids, Barbi, Jacob and Hailey. I really like to be with my host family, and it's great when we all have dinner together.

I'm trying out for the soccer team at school, and I'll get the results this Monday. I'm really confident about it and I'm sure it would be great to be in the team.

I've been really busy last weeks, going to school during the week and traveling during the weekend. I went to Atlanta two weeks ago with Joonas, from Finland, and Tom, his host father. Tom had a 50 year wedding anniversary, and took us with him. We went to the Stone Mountain, the largest granite stone in the world, and had a great time. The following weekend I went to St. Augustine with all the exchange students from this district, and we all had a great time. I really appreciate my then host dad David opened his house for me. Me and Borna, from Croatia, had a great time with David's son, Dominic, and his friends.

Next weekend is the homecoming dance from my school, and I think it'll be great. I'm really looking forward for that, and I'm sure I'll have a good time with my friends.

May 21 Journal

Hi! Too many good things happened since I wrote my last journal, and it's hard to recover.

Homecoming dance was a blast, I had fun with my friends and made more friends.

I enjoyed a lot the high school football season, and Marc is the coach for Seabreeze, so Jackie always took me to the games, and I loved. The best game there was, against Mainland which is a bigger school near us, we lost. But it was still a lot of fun, me and my friends painted our body red and had such a good time. I also went to a Jaguars game, in Jacksonville, and a FSU game, in Orlando. But high school games were much more fun.

My Dad came visit me a few days before Thanksgiving, we had fun and enjoyed ourselves. Then Thanksgiving was new for me, a lot of turkey and other traditional foods. No school for 5 days.

On the first weekend of December Rotary took all Florida Exchange Students to Disney. We had a great time, visiting the four parks, and just having a good time together.

Tom (Joonas' then-host father, and who would be my second house) took me and other exchange students who live around Daytona to have Scuba Diving lessons. I really like being in the water, and it was very nice to be able to learn those skills. I really liked to do that, and I appreciate the opportunity Tom gave us.

The Holidays were good to have a break from school, but it was hard for me to be away from my family. But I had a good time with my family here, and it was great. New Years was a lot of fun, and worse for me to be away from home than Christmas. A bunch of the exchange students and Rotex went to a very nice river house to spend the night, and we had fun.

In January 22nd we all went to Seacamp, in the keys, for 3 days. It was so freaking good to be with everybody again and we had an awesome time together. It was cool to do the snorkeling and stuff, and amazing just to be with all my friends. On the 5th of February, I went to Colorado with Jackie and Hal, to spend a week in Breckenridge. I don't have words to describe how much I loved skiing, and I know I'm eventually coming back. I'm really grateful to them for giving me this opportunity, that I enjoyed until the very last second.

My Mom came up to visit me for two weeks, right before spring break started. I showed her around and we had a good time together. I've been going to a few baseball games, to support Seabreeze, and it has been fun. A lot of my good friends are in the team and I like to go see them play. School has always been great, because people are fun and nice to me.

Prom just happened in end of April, and it was nice to get a tux and go with all my friends for dinner and pictures, just like homecoming. I had a good time at the dance, it was different because in Brazil people don't take it that serious. It's just a party, and I wasn't used to all the formality. Yearbooks arrived a few weeks ago, and I've been taking it to school so people can sign. It's really sad for me when I read what they write, but makes me happy that I've built such good friendships.

I've made very good friends outside Daytona too, like Jacksonville. Alex is going to Finland next year, and I've been going to spend weekends at his house to also hang out with Jesse, who is going to Brazil.

May 8th was my 18th birthday, what would be a big deal and Brazil, but here it doesn't change anything. I still had a good time with my friends, and Jesse came down from Jacksonville just to see me, what I appreciated a lot.

I am having the best time of my life, with all my friends and people I met here, and it's sad to admit it's coming to an end. I am very thankful for all the great people who are making this happen, and its heartbreaking that it won't last forever. But I know that the bonds I created with people from Daytona and from all over the world won't ever change, and that's the best I could have.