The Exchange Trip

Hello guys! First of all, I want to say sorry for this late post, I should've done this one week ago, but unfortunately I arrived home so tired and I also had a lot of things to do, and I didn't have time to post before. Well, this post will be a little bit different from the other ones, because now I'll try to do an evaluation of these couple of weeks I spent in the US.

The arrival

I spent these two weeks at the house of an American family, and my host family was just amazing, I couldn't ask for more. Eric, the young guy, is as old as me, and he studies at the Community School. I followed his schedule during the two weeks and I also tryed to take the classes that interest me. Scott, the father, is a teacher also at the Community School, but in the Middle School, so I didn't have classes with him. Naomi is Eric's mother and Sara is his sister. They all were so kind and welcoming for me and I hope I can come back someday to see them again.

We and the guys of the Community School

The Community School is a little bit different from our school, even though there are a lot of similarities. The classes normally last 50 minutes, and each student choose what classes he wants to take. It happens because in the SAT (the ENEM is the US) the students also can choose in what subjects they want to be evaluated. This kind of educacional system has its bad and good sides, and I do prefer the Brazilian system, because in Brazil we have a deeper concept of all the subjects, while in the US they normally just have a kind of overview of the subjects they won't use in the college.

We and Pilar, the Spanish teacher

About the classes, the ones I most liked were Spanish and American Dream, I'm sure. Pilar is just an awesome teacher, and her classes are so dynamics and funny. I could improve my Spanish and I also learned a lot about Spain. Well, maybe I liked it so much because I love learning languages and I also love our Spanish classes at SESC High School. Maybe some of the other guys have already explained here what Ameican Dream is, but I'll do that again. It's a kind of class that mix literature and the American culture and way of see the world, and it's also about sociology and philosophy. When we arrived in the Community School, the students were reading and analysing a book called Middlesex, that tells the story of a Greek family that decided to go to the US to try a new life, and it's all about prejudicing, exploration and what that family had to face to build a new life in a completely unknow place.

We visiting the Wood River School

I'm pretty sure that one of the best parts of our trip was all of the activities we did during those two weeks. With all these activities, we learned a lot of things and also experienced situations I know we'll never forget. And we did it all thinking about representing all the community of our school in the best way we could. We always tryed to show them the wonders of our country, and everything we learned during these two years we spent in SESC High School. We went to an American public school, we presented our states to all the Community School, we cooked for the Americans kids and teenagers, we went to the Nordic Party, we met the mayor of Sun Valley, we had an interview to the newspaper, we helped the competitors of a Skiing race, we did a presentation about Brazil to the kids of the Middle School and lots of other things.

The Nordic Festival

Brigadeiro to the Elementary School

Super Bowl + Brazilian and American food

The interview to the newspaper

The Nordic Festival, again :)

Para finalizar minha participação aqui no blog, nada mais justo que terminar meu post em português. Como já disse, a viagem do intercâmbio foi simplesmente incrível, conhecemos pessoas e vivenciamos experiências que jamais esqueceremos. E sempre levamos as lições da nossa escola e o amor pelo nosso país no fundo do peito. Nem por um momento esquecemos que a nossa principal missão era representar toda a comunidade da Escola SESC de Ensino Médio e mais que isso, o nosso Brasil, da melhor maneira possível, e foi com orgulho que assumimos essa responsabilidade. E para quem pensa que acabou, essa foi só a primeira parte do programa de intercâmbio, pois em Junho teremos vários alunos e professores americanos na nossa escola, viajando conosco para o Pantanal e então todos terão a oportunidade de vivenciar essa experiência. Todos nós estamos cheios de novas ideias e momentos, e queremos compartilhá-los com todos vocês. Não esqueçam, a viagem foi somente uma parte. O que essa viagem representou e o que traremos para a nossa escola é de igual importância. Então, vejo todos vocês em Março, e vamos com tudo para 2011, que será, sem dúvidas, um ano incrível. Abraços carinhosos, Jordy B. Pasa.