sarah nguyen

On Friday night my parents and I went downtown to see The Magic Flute, performed by Opera San Jose. I’ve watched it a long time ago on DVD or maybe even VHS. The singing was in German, and spoken conversations in English. This was a bit jarring, but the performance was very good nonetheless. Subtitles in English (as well ad advertisements) appeared in a screen above the stage, which is pretty standard nowadays. This is probably the best opera for kids, and those who don’t usually go out to see concerts/operas.

Afterwards we tried following the words along with a CD of The Magic Flute performed by another group, and found that even with words in hand, it’s extremely difficult to follow the female singers. No problem at all following the men, but this probably proves my parents’ assertion that I will not understand everything sung in German by this time next year. I’ll still try to find another opportunity to watch it live next year, though.

On a related note, my sister and I attended a piano concert at the San Francisco Davies Symphony Hall starring András Schiff on April 13. He is currently going through the entire collection of Beethoven piano sonatas in a series of concerts. Our night included Sonata No. 12, No. 13, No. 14 (Moonlight), No. 15 (Pastoral), and a Bach piece for the encore.

I’m extremely lucky to have such opportunities, but I definitely don’t appreciate them enough. My usual pattern is to be extremely reluctant about going (it’s expensive, takes time, and so on), and enjoying it in the end anyway. Both of these performances were great experiences and if possible I’ll be attending more operas and concerts in Germany. These are a few of the things I want to see live in the future, in no particular order:

• Piano Concerto No. 2 (Rachmaninoff)
• Symphony No. 9 (Dvořák)
• Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)
• Andante spianato et Grande Polonaise brillante (Chopin)
• Liebesträume (Liszt)

If you’re so inclined, you can click the links, scroll down, and listen to the pieces. The file qualities aren’t very good, but I’d say the performances are.

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Yesterday I received another package from ASSE, which was super exciting because it’s been more than a month since I got the acceptance letter. It’s filled with basic guides to being an exchange student (culture, school, your host family, and “It’s all up to you!”), a handy Celsius<->Fahrenheit guide, and some fun info about Germany and a rather dry overview of their history.

Also, to confuse my parents, they start the packet with the words, “Congratulations on your final acceptance as an ASSE exchange student…” Aha! You weren’t finally accepted before! You were only a finalist then! No one actually said that in my house, but I swear I could hear it from CBYX-er’s homes nationwide. I’m sure they’ll congratulate us again in the future, but no will will complain. We also get an official ASSE folder to hold all these information letters in one place, and I suppose it’s as nice as folders come.

Today marks the beginning of the end. There are only eight more weeks of school; one is full of STAR testing (to measure my school’s performance), and one is just graduation practice and having fun, so there are really only two more weeks of school. It’s frightening.

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After one week and three days, Anna, our student for next year finally emailed us. It turns out she was on a class trip to England and she didn’t have internet access there. Those Europeans have it good over there - we only get class trips to Southern California or Yosemite. The Washington D.C. and New York trips cost almost $2,000 each for us NorCal kids (not that I went to either).

So in her e-mail, Anna mentioned the lovely SJ weather she will be enjoying, asked if I have any questions about Germany, and requested photos of her new home and so on which we will of course oblige her with. For now though, I sent off a gigantic e-mail about introducing myself and Lynbrook. First on the agenda is making sure she gets good classes for next year. I’m not quite sure how much privacy I should give Anna on this blog, so if any of you readers know blog etiquette or have an opinion on that, insight would be greatly appreciated!

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Yesterday morning I went to the dentist for a regular checkup. Despite regular brushing & flossing, I apparently I have gingivitis Thanks to my dad, I have super weak gums, and the oral hygienist even looked at me suspiciously when I told her I floss everyday. Then she told me to be more aggressive when I floss. Or, to put it another way, to draw blood. And unfortunately, she’s right. >.<

Anyway, when Dr. Smith came in, I mentioned that I’d be gone for a year, which meant scheduling for pulling out my wisdom teeth (which haven’t shown up yet) would be kind of awkward. He decided to give me another x-ray of my teeth, and after showing that to the oral surgeon, said that since my roots haven’t grown yet, it might actually be easier to pull out my wisdom teeth this summer before I leave instead of waiting another year. My dad thinks our dentists are just trying to make more money, but that’s the way it goes. Yayy.

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After being accepted on March 6 (time is flying!), I did the logical thing in this digital age and made a Facebook group for CBYX 2008-2009 participants. The group is only three weeks old, but as of right now we’ve grown to 19 members, and two of the exchange organizations have yet to finish notifying their finalists. It’s pretty exciting, and everyone there seems to be really friendly. You can check out the group here, and if any of you reading are CBYX participants this year and not in the group, join up! =)

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On March 11 we got an e-mail from Rotary saying that our chosen student has been confirmed, and on the 20th we received a call from another guy saying the same thing. He came over on Sunday to get some signatures from my parents on the Guarantee form, and on the Thursday before that to drop off a hard copy of our girl’s application. It also included her transcript and a copy of her passport, which were both pretty interesting. The coordinator sent Anna this e-mail on Friday:

Greetings from Cupertino California. I am Harvey B——- and I am the Cupertino Rotary Youth Exchange Officer who is organizing your stay. Irmgard L——- will be your Rotary Counselor while you are here. She will be meeting with you on a regular basis.

Cupertino is a small city in Silicon Valley. Cupertino is the home of Apple Computer and Hewlett Packard. We are a very mixed community mainly of white, Chinese and Indian. At the end of this email I will add some links to some web sites that will help you to know more about the area.

You will be attending Lynbrook High School in the Fremont Union High School District. Lynbrook is a high achieving high school with many varied programs and activities. Mr. Rich Amlin will be the vice principal you will be assigned to. He can help you to select the courses this spring that you can take next school year. I encourage you to email him soon to start the process so that you get the courses you want. Mr. Amlin’s email is: r—_amlin@fuhsd.org. Please take some time to explore the school’s web site. It is: http://www.lhs.fuhsd.org/home/.

I have also asked Mr & Mrs. Nguyen your first host family to be in touch with you to introduce themselves.

I am looking forward to meeting you.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns before your arrival.

Harvey

Prettyy exciting. Apparently a few of the Rotary people know Amlin pretty/semi well. Anna hasn’t replied back to Harvey yet, and my parents won’t be e-mailing her till she does that. I guessing her family was celebrating Easter. I’ve already written my e-mail, but I don’t want to send it till my parents send theirs.

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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.

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On Monday I received applications of inbound students to check out. There were eight students for us to choose from. I printed out the applications and whisked them to my parents. There was/were:

• 1 girl from Thailand
• 2 girls and 1 boy from France
• 2 girls and 1 boy from Brazil; and
• 1 girl from Germany

My dad skimmed through a few of the apps and thoroughly read the one German girl’s application. After that, he didn’t feel like reading any more and just said “Let’s host her.” Funny, because he was the one most interested in hosting in the first place.

Mom on the other hand looked at all of them, taking notes (example: “saxophone, hard to wake up”). Weird because my mom wasn’t as interested in hosting as my dad before. She particularly enjoyed laughing at the letters (one girl, describing a typical day, wrote “Then I take a shower” three times). We ended up picking the girl from Germany, because she liked her letter and because she wanted to get some German practice in.

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Kelly Hill, a CBYX finalist from the Northeast. Get in touch with her at dewuski(at)yahoo(dot)com.

I’m soooo excited to be going to Germany with CBYX! It is great to be able to share experiences with other exchange students across the country (and the World).

So far my experience consists of…

1. Apply
2. Wait
3. Home Interview
4. Wait and fill out more applications
5. Semi-Final Interview
6. Wait and worry
7. Check mail box every day for weeks
8. Wait and worry some more
9. Phone Rings - “oh no, I bet I didn’t get it : (”
10. AHHHHHH I won! I’m so excited
11. excited
12. excited
13. excited
14. excited

Sound familiar to any of you other CBYX’ers and/or exchange students???

I’ve been going shopping to get stuff I think I will need. There is a great book out there called Michelin Germany: Plan Discover Explore. I had the old copy, but I just got the new one for around twenty bucks at Borders. It has history, attractions and cities rated with stars, maps, places to eat, etc. It is great for someone to figure out what they should see and how to get there (it even gives prices and how much time you should allow). It is available for many other countries as well and I really recommend it. My parents used it a lot when they were in Germany.

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On Wednesday afternoon Sandy Chase left a message on the phone telling me to call her back. So Thursday morning, I did, and she said congratulations, because I am a finalist (that is, I am goinggg come late summer)! I told a few of my friends right away and am in the process of telling others when it comes up in conversation (trying to avoid being obnoxious/annoying about Germany). Oh, and I told Mr.Marra, who wrote one of the recs for me, and some of the people who revised my application essays (thanks).

Other than that, Sandy said I should receive an official letter in the mail regarding my acceptance, and we would have at least one orientation before we leave. I asked her who else from my session was accepted, and she said Kira, Joe, and Bianca were - Kira’s the only one I know for sure though because she confirmed it via facebook. The others haven’t gotten in touch with me yet.

Wheeeee, I don’t know what else to say. ^_^

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