James Coleman
America Inside Out
Queens and penguins3/11/2018
Hi everybody! Today I want to share with you the biggest success I made since I arrived in the USA: I won the school talent show! It was so unexpected, so I can’t even describe my feelings! I am extremely grateful to everybody who supported me, and I really enjoyed playing on the stage of Franklin County High School. However, I not always liked to play on the stage. I spent 9 years in music school learning how to play the piano. Now I can’t believe that I had so much patience: 9 years is more than half of my life! I liked music, but not everything was always perfect. Sometimes when the things were going extremely wrong I would just hit the keyboard with my head and shout “I WANNA DROP THIS (here usually was a bad word)”. I had the best music teacher ever: she not only taught me how to play but also became a good friend of mine. She often kept an apple in her bag for me when I had to stay to practice really late and skip lunch. The only her disadvantage was that she always wanted me to perform at numerous contests and concerts, which meant that I had to play on the stage. And being judged by somebody... Everybody stares at you and every single movement of your hands. I hated that! My teacher used to say, “All stage is yours, so just feel like a queen!” But instead I felt like a clumsy penguin: I always got too nervous, forgot notes and completely messed up. Once I even stumbled over my dress hem and fell from the stage... All 9 years were full of the most epic fails and falls you can imagine. Only after I graduated and started playing what I want (music school requires you to play only classics), I started really enjoying what I was doing! I realized that it doesn’t matter how many mistakes you make or what other people may think about your performance as long as it brings you joy. When I was playing at the talent show, I still was nervous and made mistakes. But it doesn’t matter because I felt good at that moment. Even if I didn’t win, it still wouldn’t matter because I felt good at that moment! So, probably my teacher was right: if you love something and it brings you satisfaction - just do it, feel like a queen! Or a king:)
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Imagine, you are Ukrainian...3/4/2018 Hi guys! Today my post will be a little bit unusual. I want to tell you a little bit about daily routine of Ukrainian students. Imagine that you are a student of Gymnasium #143 in Kiev. Yeap, sounds like you study at the gym, but it is just how we call linguistic schools. If you attended a mathematical school, it would be called Lyceum, school without any speciality would just have a number. You wake up between 6:00 and 7:30 depending on how far away from school you live and put on your school uniform. Usually you just have to wear “office-style”, like a collared shirt and black pants or skirt, on some holidays you may wear traditional Ukrainian clothes. You go out of your apartment, wait for elevator and hope that it is not broken: I am pretty sure you won’t be happy to use stairs as you live in a high-storey building. Don’t wait for the school bus, it won’t come! In Ukraine there is no school buses, you either use public transport, which is almost always free for students, your parents may drive you, or you just go on foot. You don't drive as in Ukraine you can get your license only after being 18 years old. The trip won’t be long: every district of the city has a number of schools, so any child can attend school near his house. The lessons start at 8:30, you are supposed to be at school by 8:25, but you may come earlier to meet with your teachers if you have some questions, or just to chat with your friends. To enter the school you use special electronic pass with your photo and date of birth. Not all students have lockers as we have to buy them, but it is not a big deal. You are welcome to leave your stuff at the school cloak-room, just be sure not to leave phone or money at your pockets. You don’t have to leave your backpack there and can carry it around the school if its more comfortable for you. Usually, schools don’t give you a computer, so you have to carryall the paper books. You have from 5 to 8 lessons per day depending on what grade you are. Ukrainian schools are not divided on elementary, middle, or high school. Well, they are, but all grades study at the same building, just on different floors. 1-4 grades are called elementary school, 5-9 middle and 10-11 high school. The highest score on test you can get is 12, the lowest to pass the test is 5. You can’t choose subjects you want to study, you have to study everything the school wants from you. Geometry, Algebra, Physics, Chemistry, Bio, Literature, English, Ukrainian, German or French, Russian, History... you have A LOOOOOT of homework! However, you have different lessons on different days so you have enough time to do it. You may have 2 lessons of Bio per week, 3 lessons of History, etc. And you may choose whether you want to study more Math or foreign languages. The bell rings, you sand up to say “good morning” to your teacher, but you don’t pledge allegiance to the Flag. Your desk is made for two people, so you will have to share the working space with somebody else. You change the classroom for every lesson, but you stay in the same group with the same people. In Ukraine each grade has 2-3 groups called with letters of the alphabet. They may have some speciality, or may not. So, you can finish 9B linguistic (which means you have more lessons of English per week, than lessons of Math) and next year go to 10B linguistic and keep studying with the same classmates. Or you are fed up with languages and next year you go to 10A mathematical… The breaks last different amount of time: first is 10 minutes, second is 10 again, then 20, then 20, then 10, then 5, and again 5. You may eat your lunch or rest on the bench at the school yard during one of the long breaks. You can buy lunch or snacks at school cafeteria and you don’t have to have special account, just bring cash with you to school. Or make your lunch at home and bring it in the lunchbox! The school is over at 3:05 and you are free to go home, or to stay and talk with your teachers again if you have any questions. Usually sports, extracurricular activities, clubs don’t take place at school. If you have any hobbies, you leave the school and go to another building where you club is. That’s how your day would look like, if you were a Ukrainian student. What do you like about it? What do you find not comfortable? I am looking forward to read your comments about this post:) 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! 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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