Youth Exchange News

Rotary Club of Illinois Beach Sunrise and Zion Benton Township High School hosted - weekend at Zion Benton November 16, 17 & 18th. It was a fun event for all who attended. Students arrived Thursday evening and went home with their ZB host families. Friday morning they attended classes at ZB letting the ZB students ask questions about their home and life in their countries. Friday evening the Shades Club hosted the students for a get together from 3-4. Then all students went to Gurnee Mills for a few hours of shopping and fun. We returned to ZB at 8 for a gym jam, pool and pizza party. Saturday morning we gathered for a potluck breakfast and to say goodbye to our new friends.

Direct Exchange Inbound - Mzolisi Kene

Mzolisi has returned to South Africa and is attending a Math & Science Academy to complete his 12th grade studies - best of luck to him!!

Outbound - Karen Figueroa

Open this attachment to read more about Karen's adventures!!!

Karen has another blog on her site just copy this into your browser - http://karevlis.livejournal.com/ - read more from Karen

Be sure to write Karen and let her know you enjoy her posts - her email address is: revlisy@hotmail.com.

Outbound - Sam Zelek

To learn about Sam's experiences in Germany visit his blog: http://planetofsam.blogspot.com/

Former Inbound - Thomas Busch

Hello everybody,

its been a while since you guys heard from me, well, i have to apologize,
but school kept me really busy. I'm in 12th grade now, and they are more or
less testing me, on whether I can just keep on going with my exchange year,
or if I have to repeat 11th grade. So I really have to be on top of things
here, and its kind of tough.
I already wrote my exams in English, Physics, Art and Geology. Religion and
Math is about to come up this week. But other than that, everything’s really
well, I didn’t have a lot of problems coming back or adjusting. Well my
friends were the same ones they were before, so there were no big problems
with that part. One of the bigger parts I had trouble with was adjusting
back to German; you wouldn’t believe that somebody would have problems
speaking his native tongue, but I was proofed wrong. But I think I got back
into everything, its amazing how fast you can move on, and suddenly your
experience is already so far away, and just a memory amongst the others,
even though an amazing experience.
Well my family is good too, my dad’s condition isn’t the best, but it could
be worse, so we are all happy about him being more or less ok. My oldest
sister moved to Berlin recently, and is now studying North-Americanism and
Latin-Americanism or something like that. I'm not really sure what that’s
about but I know it contains another year abroad for her. I mean for me its
just really cool to have a place to stay in Berlin, because its an amazing
city. My middle sister is working in an advertising agency, initially she
was just doing an internship there and apparently she was doing so good that
they offered here a place to get (I guess you could say – trained - ), well
she gets paid and has to go to school one day of the week.
My mums still the head nurse she was before, and well I'm going to school.
One big change was my drivers’ license I just made. It’s very convenient to
be mobile, especially considering that I would waste 1 whole hour taking the
bus to school…
Other than that all I'm really doing is school, I mean of course, I'm going
out with friends on the weekend sometimes, and it feels good to have a glass
of wine sometimes, but I know that school is going to play the biggest role
in my next year and a half, this is just the most important part of it, so I
have to pay attention to it.
I hope you are well, and everything’s good for you, you all deserve the
best. Let me know what’s up with you!

I thank you all so much,

I miss that year and I wish I could just do it over again, a sentence you
probably have heard many times...

Thomas

Messages from our Outbound Student - Jessica Cohn

Jessica is attending College and wishes everyone well. Her family moved to Alabama earlier this year but will be returning to the area in December.

Former Outbound - Brian Bode

Hi everybody,

Brian will be leaving in the next two weeks to spend a year in Australia as an exchange student - keep in touch Brian!



--Brian
USA to Germany ‘03-‘04