Malte Smoor

2009-10 Inbound from Germany

Hometown: Meppen, Germany

Sponsor: Meppen Rotary Club, District 1850, Germany

Host: Trenton Rotary Club, District 6940, Florida, USA

School: Bell Middle/High School, Bell, Florida

Bio

Malte's Bio

Heeeeellllooooo! My name is Malte Smoor and I am from Meppen Germany. And I decided about one year ago that I wanted to leave my rural hometown and see the world. After the (sometimes really complicated) Application and Visa process I ended up in Bell, Florida. A beautiful even more rural and smaller village in Gilchrist County. I live together with my host parents, 3 Cats, and 2 dogs next to the Suwannee River. It gets never boring, because on the other riverside there is a small slide park that I can use for free. My first two weeks in school have been great, though I had no clue where I can find my classes.

In Germany I lived together with my 2 [older] brothers and with my mum and dad. My Family was a very great help during the application process and to prepare me for my big trip over the great Atlantic Ocean.

I am so thankful that Rotary let me experience this year in Florida. I know right now, though I am just here for 2.5 weeks that this is something I will never forget.

October 31 Journal

Writing a journal over all that’s happening here is really hard, because I could fill pages with every single day… I just gonna have to try to sum up all of the most important events for you:

After the Inbound Orientation a Rotarian invited me to go to the first UF Gator game of the season I was really impressed by the UF Marching Band and I think I never saw so many people dressing up in the same two colors before!!! Another fun thing to do here in Bell is going tubing with friends or just hang out at the river. I got wiped out several times but it was still fun, though I got bruises on my knees now… Some weeks later my church youth group had a lock-in at our church what was really amazing. The day after the lock-in me and my host father headed for Tallahassee to meet the three other exchange students from my Rotary district to watch a USF Seminoles game. My host father was all excited, because he is a huge Seminoles fan.

After the game me and another exchange student stayed at the house of a Rotarian, where I could finally could get some sleep, because of course I didn’t sleep at all the night before at the lock-in. On the next morning we took a trip to a spring and a had lunch afterwards.

Back home I went to the audition for the play of my neighbor high school and got the lead male part, which made me really really happy and proud.

To give other kids the opportunity to be an exchange student, my host father, a Rotarian, a Rebound, a Rotex, and myself went to two schools to advertise the Rotary Youth Exchange. It was amazing how many responded and it felt really amazing to see that you can inspire other people for an exchange.

Now it's Halloween and a quarter of my year is almost over. I can’t believe how fast the time passes here! It seemed like yesterday that I stood at Jacksonville Airport and didn’t know where I could find my luggage.

Tonight I am going to my third haunted house and I am really excited, because everyone says it's the best in the area!

January 24 Journal

So, Halloween was over and the date for the premier of my drama play came closer and closer. Before I realized it the day of the play had come and it was so, so great!!! In the plays I was involved in in Germany, I always just had smaller parts, never such a big part like I had here, and this time everything was in English. The whole play went by so fast, that I was kind of sad when all the performances were over and I realized that I wouldn’t spend time with all the friends I made from the play. Halloween was gone and the next [to me] new Holiday was there:

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was also the time for my first move to my next host family, that live only 50 yards away from my old host family. Moving at Thanksgiving had the great advantage that I could meet a big part of the family. Which is a lot, if you consider that my host mother has 11[!] siblings, who all have husband or wife, who all have children. So you can picture that my first Thanksgiving was enormous. We were all together 54 people, which is why we had several turkeys.

Because my host parents, and the rest of the family are huge Gator fans, they took me to the last Gator home game of the Season: Gators versus Seminoles. It was a pretty weird feeling, because my old host family were diehard Noles fans, and it just felt weird to suddenly stand on the other side of the stadium while my old host sister was cheering on the other side.

Then on December 5th the Criminal Justice Program of my school did their annual pancake breakfast, for which you have to get up for at 4:30am, to set up tables and other things. Later that day there also was the Christmas parade of my town, in which I was marching, because my host parents are involved in the “Toys for Tots” program of the Marine Corps, that helps poor parents to give their children some presents for Christmas. My task in the parade was to pass out stuffed animals to children under 14 that were standing on the sidewalk. That sounds easier than it was, because some kids were really greedy and tried to trick me so that they can get more than just one stuffed animal. On the evening day we went to the Chiefland evening Christmas Light parade, where we did the whole thing again.

Some days after that my Host parents took me to Jacksonville to see the Musical “Fiddler on the Roof” which I totally enjoyed [I didn’t even know I like musicals]. After that we had a look at the city.

On the 10th the day I waited for since the orientation in August:

Disney

I wanted to go to Disney since I was seven after we visited the one in Paris and I wasn’t tall enough to go on any of the rides. Now I am 6 foot and 3 inches which makes me more than qualified to go on the rides. What made the whole deal even better was that all the people I met or didn’t meet on the orientation were also there and this time I could spend a lot of time with them. Unfortunately I got sick two or three days before the 10th which is why I had a lack of energy that caused me to go to bed the earliest out of my room every night.

Then Christmas was there, to be honest I was kind of afraid how it is going to be to spend the day away from home in such a different climate. In Germany there was snow everywhere and here, I went swimming in my host brother's pool. In the end I didn’t mind it at all to be away from home, it was like I was spending Christmas there since I was born, and getting the presents on the morning of the 25th and not on the evening of the 24th was a pretty new experience. I was a surprised and a bit embarrassed how many presents I got for Christmas.

I spend New Years with my friends from church in the house of our Youth Group leader.

On the first day of school my American History teacher asked me if I would like to play the school mascot at the next basketball game. Because Rotary and my brother who was in America with Rotary also for a year always told me to “smile and say yes” I smiled and said yes. Two weeks later I was in a Big Bulldog with temperatures that felt like 100 degrees. It was such a unique experience, because I could have never done something like that in Germany and that is in my opinion what this whole year is about.

March 10 Journal

My new year in the United States began with a circus visit! Because my Host family took my to the Circus - The Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus in Jacksonville, that advertises with the title “The Greatest Show on Earth!”. If that is the truth I am just going to leave open, but it was for sure one of the best circuses I have ever seen. The show concept reminded me kind of on “Cirque du Soleil”, because there was always more than just one thing going at a time in the ring.

Then there was of course the unforgettable Trip to the Keys. Although I got sick on the first day I still had such a great time just seeing all the people that grew on my heart so much in the [way too short] time we spend together. I wish the Keys would not have been the last time that I would have seen these kids before the West Coast Trip, but that’s just the way it is I guess…

Because my old Host brother [who is already over 45] works at Epcot, he could get us into Disney for free. And I could spend, for the second time in just 3 months, a day in the happiest place on earth, The Magic Kingdom. Because we had one day at the “Magic Kingdom' when we stayed with Rotary, I did not have time to do all of the rides I wanted to go on. So next to all the rides I already did the last time I could do several that I didn't have the opportunity to do the last time. [I really enjoyed “The Laugh Floor” and “The silly jungle tour”]

Right at the end of my stay at my 2nd host family I had a presentation at the “American Legion”. The [mostly elderly] listeners were super interested and ask a lot of [sometimes pretty hard] questions about Germany and it was pretty cool seeing people getting so interested in my culture and my country. Just a week ago I held my presentation to my English III class and the kids in there were on fire for my slide show. It seems like that people get more and more interested about my slide show when I am holding it.

Then I also moved to my 3rd [and probably] last host family. For the first time since I have been here in Florida I finally have host siblings that are my age. The youngest one I had yet was 24 years old. Last Sunday my first Host father took me and my new Host sister to Tallahassee where we could enjoy a Basketball game. There I also met my first Host sister who is a College student at F.S.U.. I also go to meet Grace [I am pretty certain you all know who that is ;-)]. It was great seeing her again and spend at least some time with her.

A week after the game I had a competition that I participated in. The “Science Olympiad” was held on the community college campus near my town and my school team contained all together 3 people. Other schools came with A and B teams and had at least 40 people in their teams. We were supposed to be more then just 3 people, but a lot of people quit right before competition [I think they were scared...]. Altogether I competed in five different competitions:

• Forensic Science [Analyzing Data from a Crime Scene and Relating to that determine the culprit]
• Anatomy and Physiology [Everything that goes with the Body and its structure {bones, muscles}.]
• Picture it [Pictionary with Science terms {how do draw ultraviolet rays?}.]
• Dynamic Planet [earthquakes, volcanoes...etc.]
• Protein Modeling [Build a protein with a long hose-like-thing and a bunch of wires {our protein and how it was suppose to look like are on the bottom of the page.}.]

All of the competitions were for teams of two except for “Picture It” were we had all of three of us competing.

And then; the big Moment: The presentation ceremony!!!

I won bronze for: Protein Modeling and “Picture It”

And Gold for: Dynamic Planet

It was a great feeling winning stuff especially when you don't expect it, and when the other schools are really snobby and mean to you. After the competition was over we went to “IHOP” [soooo goood] and then bowling. All in all the perfect day!!!

		Science Olympiad <----   ---->