Nooruddin "Noor" Malak

2008-09 Inbound from India

Hometown: Nagpur, India

Sponsor: Nagpur Rotary Club, District 3030, India

Host: New Smyrna Beach Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida, USA

School: New Smyrna Beach High School, New Smyrna Beach, FL

Bio

Noor's Bio

Hi. I am Noor Malak and I am from India. The place where I was born in India is Nagpur. It's a city which is in the center of India. I have been hosted by the wonderful city of New Smyrna Beach and I am very lucky that my host family's house is right at the beach. I am 17 years old and I am attending the New Smyrna Beach High School as a senior.

The relations of Rotary with my family have been since quite a long time. My Great Grandfather was the Founder Member of the Rotary Club of my city, my Grandfather was a member for more than 20 years and my Father now is currently a member and is hosting an exchange student from Florida. So my family has been the 3rd successive generation of the Rotary International. My elder brother, who now plays golf on the Indian circuit, was an exchange student in Michigan 10 years ago. So that inspired me to become an exchange student too.

I specially was interested in coming to Florida and being hosted here was because of the golfing facilities and opportunities and lots of golf courses and apart from that, the sunny whether, the wonderful beaches and Disney!!!!!

I love sports and am specially interested in golf. I want to pursue a career in golf when I become older. Apart from that, I like every other sport and I like to watch movies and go to amusement parks. I am in the school golf team and so I get to play and practice golf everyday, that's pretty cool.

I'm having a wonderful time at school and I already have made a lot of friends. Everyone gets excited about knowing that I am an exchange student from India.

From the moment I have reached Florida and till now, I have been overwhelmed by the kindness and affection that I have got from my host family, all the Rotarians and everyone I have met here.

This is surely going to be the most wonderful experience of my life and a life changing opportunity.

I am very grateful to my sponsor Rotary club, my host Rotary club, and my host family, and everyone who is concerned with Rotary International Youth Exchange.

November 8 Journal

My journey began when about forty people had come to bid me farewell and when I left India. My flight was fifteen hours non-stop to the U.S. and I finally arrived in New Jersey after a long flight. From there I had a connecting flight to Denver where I went to live with my sister for a week. Then on August 5, I took an evening flight to Florida and finally reached my destination. I was excited and pretty nervous too about my year ahead and the experiences that awaited me. I don't think I felt very good when I was nearing Orlando. But then thinking that there was no way back and hoping for the best, I arrived at the airport and when I reached the baggage claim, I saw these wonderful Rotarians standing with a poster with my name on it. And when I met them, I instantly cheered up and felt much better. Then after getting my luggage, we came back to New Smyrna Beach which is my host city.

It took me about three to four days to get a little comfortable and to know about my home and the area. There were two weeks before school started and during this time I had tons of fun with my new family. We went to the beach, went out to eat, they took me around the city, and we also went to Disney.

Before I knew, it was time to go to school. So I got my classes signed up and entered myself in the school's golf team. The first day of school was very amusing and confusing. The schools in India are different in so many ways from the schools here, it took me a good couple of days to get familiar with the schedules and my classes. But then I started making friends and the teachers were very nice too and so I started enjoying school. Now I have lots of friends and it feels great to go to school.

Then the Inbound students orientation weekend arrived and I, along with the other exchange students who live near my area, went to Lake Yale Conference Center where we had our orientation. When I reached there, I saw 67 students, standing together, all from different parts of the world, a sight never to be seen elsewhere. I was amazed! It was so cool to see so many different faces and to think that I would be making friends from all over the world. This weekend was a great weekend indeed. I also met Mr. Al Kalter and Mr. Jody Davis from whom I had received emails when I was in India preparing for my year abroad.

Then school became the first priority but, in my case, it was golf! Everyday after school, I would go to the golf course and practice with my teammates. It would be great. We had a lot of fun. Then we would have matches against different schools almost every week. So I also got a chance to play with students of different schools and I made friends with some of them too. Being in the school golf team and playing for the school was truly wonderful. Lots of students in my school came to know me as I was in the school's team. So I became acquainted with more people.

A big photo of me had also come in the newspaper when I was playing in the Five Star Conference tournament in Daytona in which six schools participated. They wrote about me that I was an exchange student from India and was playing in the high school's team and other information about the tournament. Then during the following weeks, people at different places would suddenly come up to me and say, "Hey, I saw you in the paper that day." And then they would ask about myself and talk to me.

I also got a chance to give presentations to all the language classes in my school about Rotary Youth Exchange program along with my district counselor. so I had to give the presentations all seven periods, which was a pretty good experience. After that, more people came to know about me and when I would walk around the school, girls would turn around to their friends and say, "Oh! look, he's the exchange student" and some of them would dare and come up to talk to me.

After that, weeks just flew by with busy weekdays and something or the other to do on the weekends. Then, a much awaited event came by, which was the St. Augustine trip for the students of District 6970. It was great to meet the other students after the orientation and get an opportunity to have fun with them on this amazing weekend. We took a tour of the city, went to the beach, took a boat ride along the waterway, and we also got a chance to see lots of alligators at the Alligator Farm. This all was possible because of the wonderful Rotarians and the Rotary Club of St. Augustine. They made our weekend really great and full of fun.

Since the golf season has been over, I have become a member of the Interact Club in my school. This club is involved in doing community services and getting involved in different projects to help people in many ways. So it feels good to be a part of such a nice club and to help and volunteer them and to contribute to the society.

Unfortunately, the Rotary meetings of my host club are in the afternoons on Tuesdays, so it's difficult for me to attend every meeting as I am in school. Till now I've been to four meetings and I even talked in one meeting telling about how it feels to be here as an exchange student. It feels nice to go to the meetings and meet the members and to see what's going on at the club and being in the activities. Plus I get to eat delicious lunch rather than a piece of pizza at school.

My stay here so far has just been amazing. Just a few months back I was living at my home in India and now, I'm here, living a completely different life in a completely different atmosphere.

But now it actually feels that I've been a part of my host family and this city since a long time. I've been accustomed to the routines and the way of life of the Americans here.

Florida is truly the most wonderful and amazing state in the U.S.

To conclude, I would just like to thank my family, my sponsor club, my host club, my host family and definitely all the Rotarians who are associated with the Rotary Youth Exchange program. You have made this year extraordinary for me and I consider myself very very lucky to be a part of it.

March 15 Journal

Some of the interesting events going on here since winter...

There was a golf tournament which my host Rotary club (The New Smyrna Beach Rotary Club) organizes every year. It was a golf scramble, in which, four players play as a team and whoever amongst the four hits the best shot, everyone goes and plays from there. Then there were also a number of other prizes. One was a rather different one, in which you had to hit a marshmallow from the tee and whoever hit the furthest, won the prize and I, incidentally, hit the furthest and won the prize.

On Thanksgiving Day, I was invited to my district counselor's house with my family for dinner. She had also invited some of her friends and so we were a big group and we ate lots of food and had a lot of fun. The pumpkin pie, apple pie and chocolate cream pie were delicious.

December came very soon and the year's most awaited trip, the Disney World trip was around the corner. I packed my bags and got ready for the weekend. Our inbounds vice-chair had arranged a van and he was bringing about 8 students from Jacksonville, and he picked a few of us up at Daytona on the way. We reached Disney, dropped our bags in the hotel and went to Hollywood Studios. There we met all the other exchange students and some students from Wisconsin, Michigan and New York were also there for the trip. We had fun there, especially the Aerosmith and the tower of terror, the two most popular rides were pretty cool. The next day we went to Magic Kingdom, the main park of Disney. The next morning we had a special education series program arranged just for us at the Epcot center. We went around all the sections of different countries and learned about different cultures and the similarities and differences between them. After that we had the whole day to explore the park. Mission Space, Soarin and the Test Track were some of the best rides here. We had a pavilion reserved on the lake in Epcot and at night we had dinner there and then we saw the laser and fireworks show which was very cool. The next day was the last day of our trip and we went to Animal Kingdom that day. This park was very green and had trees all over. The Expedition Everest in this park was awesome. Then in the afternoon we had to leave so we said bye to everyone and left to go back to our host families.

Then came Christmas. It was the first Christmas I celebrated and it was a truly amazing experience. I went to Highlands in North Carolina with my host family. My host mom's whole family was there and so there were lots of people. We had lots of fun up there and the number of presents we had was unbelievable. I have never seen so many presents. Food was just like presents too. We had huge meals everyday. Other than that we would watch movies, walk on the main street, go to cafés and shops.

Some of the exchange students who live near Daytona, including me, got a wonderful opportunity to join a diving class and get certified and get a permanent license in scuba diving. We were given a book and a cd which we had to study. Then in January we went to the diving shop to give a written exam on it. Then the next day we went to a swimming pool in Daytona to put on our wetsuits and diving gear and practice diving skills. We stayed in the pool continuously for more than six hours that day. On the next weekend we went to Alexander Springs to actually dive for the first time. We dived two times there. The springs were beautiful. When you are under water, the world seems totally different. The day after that, we went to Devils Den, which is also a natural spring, but this one is a cave. This locale was completely different than Alexander springs as it was surrounded by rocks all over and there was very little sunlight as it was covered by trees all over. The pool of water was down below and so we had to climb down two flight of stairs to reach the water. When we went down to dive, it felt as if we were in a well. Diving here was a totally different experience. After this dive we got officially certified as scuba divers.

Then came time for me to change my host family. I was sad and felt a little uncomfortable to go to a new family. I was used to the house and everything felt like home, and I even knew all the channel numbers on TV! But I was also excited to go to my new family because I was going to have two little host brothers who are into baseball and basketball and are awesome. Also, my host father is a golf pro at one of the golf courses here. And guess where my new house is? It's right on the golf course. So I was really excited to go and live with them.

Shortly after I moved to my new family, it was time to go to Seacamp in the Florida keys. And we would also be meeting other inbounds in Florida after Disney. Everyone was excited. I, along with three other inbounds boarded the bus early in the morning which was coming from Jacksonville and going all the way to the Keys. The whole bus was filled with exchange students and we had a lot of fun on our way there. The Florida Keys was beautiful. The water was clear and amazing and the weather was much warmer than in the northern Florida. During our weekend in the Seacamp, we went snorkeling, went on boat trips, had a party and learned about the marine ecosystems and how human activity is affecting it and what we should do to prevent it.

I also gave a presentation on India and my family and my life in India in one of the Rotary meetings. Everyone liked it and it went well I guess.

The second semester has started in school and I have also joined the tennis team. So we have practice and we go to play matches against other schools.

So far it's been terrific and I would again like to thank Rotary and my host club for hosting me and making all these wonderful events possible.