sarah nguyen

This website…

…will be revamped sometime in the undetermined future. Till then boys and girls. :-)

Got my Host Family!

After school on Friday I checked the mail and found an unusually fat envelope from ASSE. The first line said:

Dear Sarah,

Wonderful news! Your ASSE German host family has been found!

A few pages later is my host family placement form, which is filled with pretty basic info (age, occupations, contact info, pets, and activities) about my new family, the Schmidbauers.

Both of my host parents, Thorsten and Heike, are relatively young, and they have a 13 year old daughter named Annika. I’ll get more into all the details later as they’ve already e-mailed me, so for now I’ll entertain you all with some pictures of Haan, the itty bitty town I’ll be living in next year.


stolen from oddtodd‘s travelblog

I love the streets! And the buildings. They look so, well, German! Unlike Frankfurt and some other big cities I’m sure. The following is a side by side comparison of San Jose, CA (where I am now) and Haan, Germany (where I will be next year) from Google maps. If you enlarge them (click), you’ll see that Haan is MUCH greener and had much more open space than San Jose. I don’t know if that means it’s farming country or if there will be many fields to frolic in, but I’m fine with it either way. :-)

Official CBYX Acceptance Letter

On Tuesday the 18th, I received the official acceptance letter from ASSE. I think mine came a little late because they wrote a ’1′ instead of a ’4′ for my address (I got this fixed). The letter’s about three pages long. Summary of the more interesting parts:

• They’ll need to approve your final application before you’re officially accepted. My mom made me clarify this with Sandy Chase, my rep, and Sandy told me that she already received the list of those who had problems with their final application and I wasn’t on it, so I’m golden.
• The final application will be sent to Germany where it’ll be shown to prospective host families (eek!). After we know my host family, I’ll get a placement form/other docs that I’ll need to apply for my residence permit.
• ASSE will be sending a series of information letters at certain intervals to guide everyone through the process leading to departure. International flight details will be sent in May – I’ll know exactly what day I leave then o.o
• I’m responsible for the flight to Wash, D.C., but ASSE can help with the flight arrangements (student discount, perhaps?)
• Scholarship covers:

1. Program cost
2. Pre-Departure Orientation in Washington, D.C.
3. Round-trip international airfare
4. Three week Language & Cultural Enrichment (LCE) Program at the beginning of the exchange (We might have different host families during these three weeks than for the rest of the year)
5. Seminars in Weimar (mid-year) and Berlin (end of year)
6. Basic Health Insurance (what does basic mean?)

• The D.C. orientation starts sometime during the first week of August. Less than five months away!
• There might be extra trips available for a fee – I’m thinking places like Paris or Vienna. It could be compared to a trip to SoCal from San Jose. My mom says she’ll probably pay for me to go on a few of these if they’re reasonably priced, so I’m definitely looking forward to that. :D

CBYX Interviews

Today was the final part of my CBYX application, the interview!

There was free food, along with brochures, German cookbooks & yearbooks, world maps and German versions of Douglas Adams book for us to look at. They also had applications from students looking to study here for next year in case any of us wanted to host. There were two current German exchange students and three past CBYX recipients there, one from Germany and two from the US. The two from the US had just gotten married, which was pretty cool (they met on a bus to Paris – how romantic!). There were five interviewers – Sandy Chase, a host mom, two of the former CBYX recipients, and a man that I don’t remember any details about.

At 9 AM we all introduced ourselves and Sandy Chase went over the program really quickly. We get to spend 4 days in Washington, D.C. at the beginning of the program and we all meet there at the end of the program as well. In Germany, we’ll get to take trips to Berlin as well as Weimar.

After that was the group interview, which was in a separate boardroom. There were four others there, and we were given a hypothetical situation to work out and make a presentation on in 20 minutes, while the interviewers watched. I did fine except I accidentally said I was a sophomore for our intro. Oops?

Then came individual interviews. Another girl, Bianca, went before me, and then I went in! I got the seat at the end of the longg boardroom table which was kind of scary, but cool. I think I did really well because I made the interviewers laugh and have a good time (maybe I was too laid back – oh well). But, I kept repeating myself a lot because many of the questions were really similar. My interview was a little bit shorter than Bianca’s.

That’s it! I got everyone’s contact info (seems like a great group of people) and my dad attempted to speak German to one of the exchange students, which was cool. Sandy Chase said about 25 people applied from Northern California, and we should get contacted in about a week about our status. Wooh.

Photo Collage

Here are my lovely photo pages that I made for the CBYX application. I used Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0, which has a neat option to make a photo collage and formats everything for you. I highly recommend it if anyone has a similar project. =D

Page 1

Page 2

PDF Format Copy

cultures-shocked.org

Cultures-Shocked is the largest exchange student forum on the internet. It has 1,306 threads, 50,988 posts, and over 1,000 members. These members range from obsessed high school students such as myself to their helicopter parents, eager to learn new strategies to torture students from thousands of miles away. In truth, most of the adults there are really amazing people that take time to give advice to distressed high schoolers, take students into their homes, and keep a safe (1,000 mile+) distance from their children.

Anyway.

The point is, CS, as Cultures-Shocked is lovingly abbreviated to (no Counter Strike jokes please), is the #1 place on the web to gather information about exchanges, get different perspectives, meet new people, and generally waste time losing sanity and sleep. Even if you’re not an exchange student or planning to be one yourself, take a look, and if you are one that has never been to CS, definitely check it out and introduce yourself! It’s a beautiful little site with no ads and lots of people ready to help and encourage you.

4+1 German Stereotypes

Short post that is not quite as fascinating as reading about “ourselves,” but should be interesting to refer back to later on.

Germans…

1. ..are obsessed with soccer (Fußball). Considering the World Cup was hosted in Germany, this makes a lot of sense.

2. ..are inflexible, blunt, and rude. I’m guessing this might apply less to the younger generation, but I have heard from many people that Germans are very to the point when speaking.

3. ..Germans are extremely efficient.

4. ..are insecure about their history and have no national pride. But admit it guys, WWI and WWII were the best parts of World History.

+1. ..drink a lot of beer. The drinking age is 16. Hitler first attempted a coup in a beer hall. Definitely could be true, though I’m not sure if I’ll partake in any of this at the moment.

Source:
http://www.tobsy.de/?p=32

4+1 American Stereotypes

Things to note while reading:

• Some of these are mutually exclusive.
• Are they all necessarily negative?
• How do you stand up?

Americans…

1. ..throw money around. They’re wealthy, superficial and wasteful, purchasing large meals, houses, cars, and breast implants.

Guilty as charged. Well, not completely. I definitely want to be a typical American consumer, buying expensive computers and such, but I actually like smaller homes and cars. Easier to clean and maintain!

2. ..are loud, rude, informal, boastful, insensitive, immature, obnoxious, snobby, self-centered, stingy, disrespectful, arrogant, lazy, obese, and on, and on, and on. They eat lots of fast food and their meals are always huge. Oh, and they’re promiscuous.

Loud, yes. Lazy, maybe. Obese, not at all, though I do enjoy the occasional meal at KFC and bag of Gardetto’s though. The rest, hopefully to not any extreme extent.

3. ..are ignorant of other countries and cultures. They’re racist. Despite being uninformed about politics, they think the US is better than any other country. They’re religious nut jobs* obsessed about celebrities.

For the first part, I might be, but probably less than the stereotypical American. And I’m trying to fix this! I am reasonably informed about politics, but not as much as I ‘should’ be. I’m not religious, but I admit that I’m probably too interested in the ongoing Spears drams.

4. ..are fanatical about their personal appearance. Women wear a lot of make-up, and are either unusually fat or unusually thin, never of normal build.

I go shopping about three times a year, so probably not for the first part (somehow I’ve managed to find boyfriends anyway). I would consider myself on the slim side, but that’s more of an Asian stereotype.

+1. ..drink a lot of beer. What? No, those are Germans. Which brings us to..

Tomorrow: 4+1 German Stereotypes, which will be the end of the 4+1 series.

*http://www.tobsy.de/?p=30

4+1 Fun Facts About Germany

1. Education is free. Including college. But, all things must come to an end, and some German universities began charging course fees in 2005, which would not surpass 1,000 euros (1,474.06 dollars) per year. Sounds like chump change to us, but some 10,000 students in five cities protested the new fees anyway.

2. Prostitution is legal. And widespread, and it’s taxed. However, every city has the right to zone off certain areas where prostitution is not allowed, which could include virtually the entire city (Munich). I’m not sure what to think about this.

3. Anti-smoking bans were just implemented on January 1. They bar smoking in bars, restaurants and cafes. This is in a country where a third of the population smokes, compared to the U.S., where 20 percent of people smoke. Not surprisingly, there has been and will be a lot of opposition to this law. Personally, I’m rooting for it; I couldn’t even stand waiting in front of the DMV Friday for my mom to pick me up. It seemed that every time one smoker left, another one appeared. Yuck!

4. Germans are two inches taller than Americans on average. Not good for a 5’4” Vietnamese girl, though it does create the interesting possibility of taking a picture of me with a bunch of tall white guys titled “Sarah’s Harem” (credit to Tiffany Chen).

+1. 1 out of 1,000 citizens are Vietnamese. I wasn’t able to find the percentage of Asian citizens in general, but I think it would be safe to say around 1 out of 900. Thus, a school the size of Lynbrook (about 1,800 students) would have a grand total of two Asians.

Sources:

http://www.radio-d.com/dw/article/0,2144,1604308,00.html

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23002336-663,00.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Germany

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height

http://www.inwat.org/eurfactsheetgerman.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Vietnamese

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/gm.html

http://www.lungusa.org/site/pp.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=39868

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4559

4+1 Myths about a Yearlong Homestay

These are more like common misunderstandings and misconceptions from well-meaning friends and family, but here goes:

1. Classes abroad will be taught in English. In some (rarer) programs, yes, but more often (and in my program), classes are conducted in the host country’s language. It’s not an international school or anything, it’s the exact same school normal kids your age would be attending in that country, like how ESL/ELD students attend school in America. They might not speak English well, but they still attend school with us.

2. Students live in dorms. No, that’s college (or boarding school). A homestay exchange means just that: you stay in someone else’s home for the year. It’s especially hard for some immigrants in America to learn English because it isn’t used at home; a homestay program prevents this by forcing you to speak the language at school and at home. You also get an automatic friend if you have a host brother and/or sister. Fun!

3. You have to be fluent in the language before you go. Obviously not, because I sure don’t speak any German (to my embarrassment when anyone asks). Each program has different requirements, ranging from zero to three years of study in a particular language.

4. Studying abroad is expensive. Not as expensive as you’d think. If you look at the American Field Service (AFS) website, one of the more expensive programs out there, a stay in Japan, one of the more expensive countries to travel to, puts you back:

• Year: $10,100
• Semester: $8,750
• Summer Homestay Language Study: $6,100

Rotary Youth Exchange (RYE) is by far the most affordable program out there (entirely volunteer-based) at the $2,000-$4,000 mark, for a year. Our band department had a week long trip to New York City for almost $2,000. Considering that your host family will be paying for food (at home), a roof over your head, and more, that price tag doesn’t look so bad anymore. There are also lots of scholarships out there for those interested.

+1. It’s a waste of time. This is one I get from my parents when they’re steamed at me (my sister also alluded to this a while ago), and it’s very debatable. I, of course, am on the “It’s a once in a lifetime experience” side: you learn a language, grow a bit, and hopefully make some good friends and memories. On the other side is my parents’ occasional argument that staying home would be a better use of time: more AP and college classes, and more predictability/certainty when it comes to college apps. What do you think?

Tomorrow: 4+1 Fun Facts About Germany