James Coleman
America Inside Out
Trip to Washington D.C.2/25/2018 Hi guys! Here I am with my third post…
Today I want to tell you about my trip to Washington D.C. I was away from school for the whole week as I won a workshop for FLEX exchange student. This workshop was sponsored by the American Councils, so I didn’t have to pay for my trip, but to get the invitation I had to do a lot of work. I had to write a loooooong essays and ask my teacher for the recommendation letter. In October I spent several weeks working on my application and wait till December for the answer, but that effort definitely worth it! When I arrived I met 99 other students from all over the world including Ukraine. I was so happy to meet somebody from my homeland who could speak my native language. We talked, joked, and sang in Ukrainian during the meals, in the bus, at the airport. The workshop stuff always complained about our singing and called us "that crazy Ukrainians". However, we also made some new friends from Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia, Montenegro, Poland, and many many other countries. That was an amazing opportunity to learn more about American culture, history, and government. We visited all of the most famous landmarks in Washington, like Lincoln’s and Jefferson’s memorials, Capitol Hill, the White House, National History Museum, and many others. Although I had already been in D.C. before, I really enjoyed these excursions and found out a lot of interesting facts about America. However, we were not allowed to chill all the time. We had some projects to do, courses to complete and lessons to attend. But the most important part was meetings. Every student had several meetings with the senator of the state where he or she stayed, congressmen, or their stuff. It was extremely important, scaring and responsible event, as we were ambassadors of our exchange programme and all exchange students at all! I have never even thought that one day I would be shaking the hand of the senator of Indiana state and discussing with him his last trip to Ukrainian's capitol! Sounds like a fairytale, but it came true! To cut the long story short, it was a wonderful experience, full of funny situations, adorable people and fascinating places. I really suggest you visit this amazing city if you have never been there before, or come back and explore more if you have already been! You will fall in love with this city and will definitely want to stay there forever!
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Birthday at the laundry room...2/25/2018 Hi guys, that’s me again! Today I want to share with you a story that happened to me almost a month ago. On the one hand, I have been away from school the whole week, so I definitely have some more recent interesting stories to tell. However, this one is extremely sweet and deserves being published. So, my birthday was on January 25, that was Thursday. Needless to say, Thursday is not a good day for planning any parties, so the whole week I was trying to organize something on weekends. No matter how hard I tried, the fortune just made grumpy face and said “nope”: everybody I asked to come or hang out were either working or had already some plans. To be honest I was a little bit frustrated. Well, 17th birthday was not 18th or 21st, it wasn’t really a big deal, so I could handle being a little bit disappointed. At that day so many people said me so many good words and my host family made an amazing dinner, so I didn’t really care about that failing party anymore. Two days later, on Saturday, I really overslept. When I finally got up, Vittoria was cooking something, but I didn’t really pay attention to that. My host mom asked me to get dressed quickly because she wanted me to go to the library with her. I put on my clothes, came downstairs. Suddenly, my host mom called me to the laundry room to see what I did. I was in trouble, although I was pretty sure that I didn’t touch anything in the laundry room for a week! Nervous and confused I came up to her. She was standing in front of the laundry room door and ordered me to open it. I opened and…Two figures just jumped on me yelling “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DARIA!!!!!” THAT WERE MY FRIENDS WITH PRESENTS! It turned out that Vittoria saw me being sad about my birthday party and made one for me! My friends were “busy” because she called them and planned a surprise for me! Luckily, that day I overslept, so together with our host mom they cooked some snacks and hided my friends at the laundry room! The rest of the day we were decorating cupcakes, watching movies and skating at the skating rink in Oxford! That was AMAZING! That was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for me! Let's get acquainted!2/22/2018 Hi guys, how are you doing? That’s my first post on this blog, so let me introduce myself... My name is Daria Goptsii and I am an ordinary 17-years-old student at Franklin County High School. Well, not so ordinary... I call soccer “football”, still don’t know how to drive, have never ever worn cowboy boots or eaten a corn-dog, say about the weather “gosh, it’s freaking cold, it’s -20 CELSIUS”, and... I don’t like peanut butter and jelly sandwich. What is wrong with me? Actually nothing, I am just Ukrainian:) I am an FLEX exchange student from Eastern Europe. How did it happen that a little legal alien migrated from Europe to the USA for the whole school year? That was the most spontaneous decision ever! In September 2016 I was laying down on my bed and pretending like I was really busy when my mom called me and offered to try out for an international exchange program FLEX. I just LOVE to travel and explore other cultures and traditions, so, needless to say, I was extremely interested in this program. But I didn't really believe that I had any chances to win. However, it can't hurt to try, right? So I submitted a number of applications, forms, passed lots of tests and interviews, had to wait six months for the final decision, and several more while they were looking for a host family for me... And finally, a miracle happened! After a year of hard work, my biggest dream to study abroad in the USA came true! I have been already five months here, and I still can't believe it is not just a dream. I have already done lots of exciting, fascinating things, met a number of wonderful people, and I want to keep exploring America and its inhabitants. I still have four more months for that, and to finish my American bucket list. I have already lots of funny stories to tell, and there's gonna be even more, so I would be happy to share them with you! Daria GoptsiiAn exchange student from Ukraine. Archives
April 2018
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