Guillaume

2011-12 Inbound from France

Sponsor: Rotary Club of Rueil-Malmaison, District 1660, France

Host: Rotary Club of Ormond Beach, District 6970, Florida

Guillaume's Bio

Hi, my name is Guillaume; I’m from Paris, France: I come from one of the most beautiful cities in the world thanks to the Eiffel Tower, The Louvre, the Triumphal Arch and many others monuments. I am 17, I have a very loving family with one brother who is 20 and many funny friends, because I like laughing. I am in a High School near Paris, I play basketball since I am 6 years old, and drama since one year. I like joking and I am always happy (except the morning: Who is happy the morning?!). I am also a cinema enthusiast. And when return to France (even if I don’t want to go back) I would like to work in the film industry.

Up to this year my life was quite good, but it lacked something, even if I didn’t know what it was. But one day my mom talked with me about the Rotary Youth Exchange, because she knew that my dream was to go to the USA (thanks to movies and basketball). So she told me that the daughter of one of her friends did it, and she went to the USA. So, without hesitating, I took my chance, but they didn’t select me … I was so sad.

Two weeks later the phone rang and a woman from the Rotary told me that the girl who had been chosen can’t go and that I will go at her place!!! Now I can say I am very lucky. And that’s how I became an Exchange Student. And won’t speak about the day when I knew that I will go to Florida, I was so excited that I’ve never jump higher.

So thanks to the Rotary my dream came true and it’s the first time I crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Now I am in Ormond Beach in Florida, and I’m going to a High School in Daytona Beach. So, I’m going to try out for Basketball and act in a school play. Here, in America it is like the movies, the same, it’s amazing. I’m looking forward to see the Orlando Magic play. My host father is so cool and funny, he makes me laugh a lot. I love this place !

Florida is so awesome, everybody is nice to me, and it’s so hot! Life is so good and so fun. Thank you Rotary for that, thank you from the bottom of my heart. All the Exchange Students including me, are so lucky, it will be the best year of my life for sure. The most beautiful and fun experience I will ever have. And it has only just begun!! There so many things to do it’s like a dream!

Thank you Rotary!

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Awesome! This is how my exchange is going. It’s been now more than three months that I am in Daytona Beach, Florida, and all is going very good for me. Let me summarize my three first months by three subjects: host family, rotary and high school.

Primary, my first host family was just a host dad, and it was so funny, we were having fun a lot and he made me laugh a lot of time. But he could be serious also and helped me when I had difficulty in English. I went with him and his daughter to Universal, it’s the best park ever, and to Disney to watch the firework. All was very good with my first host family but I changed three weeks ago now, and my new family is also awesome, I am very lucky to have again a funny family. They make me laugh all the time, they are as crazy as I am, and we have a lot of energy! This time it’s just a host mother and her daughter, she is the same age as me. I will do a lot of things with them, and I am very excited about that. Daytona Beach is an amazing city, there are a lot of things to do, the beach is beautiful, there is NASCAR too, and I will go soon. It’s a city I love living in!! Fast food are everywhere, hamburgers are so so so good!!! But I stay in good health because I do a lot of sports; I go to the YMCA three or four days a week to work out and to play basketball. That’s all I have to say about my life here in Daytona and my host family.

My Rotary club is just amazing, there’s a lot of young people, and they are very nice to me, I go to their meetings once a month, and soon I will present my country, France, to them, I’m excited about that. Almost every Wednesday night, I play basketball with some members, that’s a lot of fun. They take care of me very well. There 80 exchanges students in Florida with the rotary, and I am friends with many of them. Some weekends, we hang out together, and we have really a lot of fun every time. We take care of each other, we are like a family. It’s so amazing to be friends with people from all over the world, it’s incredible, I am living a dream. With some exchange students I went to Jacksonville and St Augustine. I hope one day, I will see some from another district and go to Miami, Tampa, and it will be awesome! I signed up for the trip to Hawaii and the West Coast also; it’s going to be LEGENDARY and unforgettable. I love all the exchange students; I want to thanks the rotary without them I wouldn’t be having this experience, thank you.

My last part will be about my high school, we have the best football team ever, GO BUCS! Besides that, I already did the two plays in drama with my school, and with one we went to district to be judged and we got an excellent, this is very good. I am very proud of what we did. But we didn’t get superior so we will not perform our play for states. However some of my friends are going to perform their monologues and I will try to follow them and go. In addition one of the other exchange students from France may go, so it will be awesome! Thanks to these two plays, my English is much better, it helps me a lot, I can even say that I am pretty fluent right now. Here it’s so cool to be a foreigner, in the high school; I become to be known by a lot of people, and even people I don’t know speak about me. It’s so extraordinary to be like the attraction of the high school, everybody is nice to me. I needed that so much; I have gained a lot of confidence in myself that I didn’t have before coming here. A lot of my friends here call me Frenchie because they can’t say my name, that’s really funny. I am also in the French, drama and rotary club of my high school and this has helped me a lot to make friends quickly. My grades are good I have 3.6 out of 4. I have a class I love its TV production, we make video and every month all the high school we broadcast our videos. I am hanging out a lot, in fact every time I can hang, I hang, because one year is short and I don’t want to waste time doing nothing. A lot of my best friends here are from drama because they are as crazy as I am. I am living a dream. My high school is the best ever. Go Mainland! I wish I will come back in America for college!! It could be legendary!!!

I think I summarize good my three months, thanks Rotary again, I love you all! Life is so good, SWAG!