What are you doing this year?
This year, from August 2009 to July 2010, I am living in Switzerland as an exchange student through Rotary's exchange program.
How does that work?
Basically I live with host families set up by my host Rotary club and I go to school here and do a lot of interesting things. There's a lot of freedom involved. If I want, I can get on a train and go to Geneva for the day. And I have. Rotary also organizes events for the inbound exchange students where we meet up for the weekend somewhere and explore a city and hang out with each other.
Are American high schools just like in the movies?
I would say yes, approximately. It's true that we do have cheerleaders and a football team and big lockers with combination locks. We even have cliques. But of course life in high school is not usually as dramatic as in the movies. At least it wasn't for me.
Is it a gap year? Do your grades in school count?
Yes, I graduated from high school last year and I will be starting at KU as a freshman next year. And no, my grades from this year don't count at all, unless my progress in German and French qualifies me for retroactive credit in college. But I am still trying to do most of what my class does here. Luckily for me, I am not obliged to do the travail de maturité / Maturarbeit, which is a big culmination project that the third years have to do. Other than that I try to keep up with my classes and I'm not doing a terrible job of it, either.
It's been a month since you last posted on your blog. Could you please update?
Yes, sorry. It's just that I get caught up with everything here and sometimes I forget to update. Or I think, "Wow, that would make a great blog post," but then when I get home I am too tired to write anything. And I am proud to say that as of the creation of this page, I have posted three times in the past week.
What have you learned this year?
It's not over yet! But I've already learned a lot. I am now comfortable, although I wouldn't say fluent, in my second and third languages, plus I can understand a fair amount of Swiss German (Fribourg and Bern dialects). I've become a lot more independent, too. But I think that the most important thing I have learned so far must be how to tape together photocopied pages of sheet music. I had tried this in America a few times but I never really had it right until my current piano teacher showed me how. Now I would consider myself a music-taping fiend. Just give me some separated pages of sheet music, and--bam!--I'll tape them together, just like that.
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