Day One, Week Two

So Patrice has been here for a week and all has gone very well. He's a very nice guy, who's also quite funny. On Monday, his first day of school, he shadowed me as I went to my classes. He knew all the trigonometry we were doing, familiar with the science concepts were were covering, and found some of the US History familiar. Now, he's on his own schedule. Unfortunately for him, my high school places a big emphasis on a lot of homework and a lot of free time during the day. This leaves him with a bunch of dead time to sit around in the Student Center.

What has really struck me is how this exchange program doesn't make a lot of intuitive sense. That is, none of the San Francsico students speak German. So we are going to go over there and only the English speaking students and teachers will know good English; whereas the Swiss kids have been immersed in English for the past few years. It would make more sense to do a Madrid/San Francisco exchange or something in which we could apply the langauge skills we are learning here.

It is interesting to note the differing or similar cultural customs. Much of their life is the same. But, for example, they came to a school sponsored dance/party which took place on a boat out on the San Francisco Bay and they later said they had never been to that type of party. With the drinking age 16 in Switzerland, I think the bar scene is the predominant place. There are other small things like taking off your shoes when you go in a house, etc.

On his first night here I asked him if he was religious and what he thought of American politics. He said he's not really religious and that he doesn't like Bush but does not like when everyone there just says "hate Bush" without actually thinking. Perfect. That's what I wanted to hear - I don't mind if Europeans don't like Bush or American polices, but at least think about it...and get away from the knee-jerk.

All in all, I'm happy being host to Patrice though it is another big time committment. I'm setting the expectation bar low in terms of how much time outside of school I spend with him, so he feels like he can do the same to me when I'm in Zurich.

I will be updating the picture Gallery which can be accessed on the left hand column of this blog.

Comments

[patrice]

hi ben

i heard today that you've made this page!! chris said it this morning. we've 7.30p.m now and i'm going out with tobias chris and some other friends in about half an hour. i was quite busy for the past few weeks and that's why i didn't write but that'll change.

say hello to everyone

patrice