THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 27, 1995 TAG: 9510270053
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Carrie Ansell
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
Ever since that first dialogue in German I in eighth grade, I have wanted to go to Germany. I imagined a country full of people named Inga or Heike or Helmut or Heidi wearing the same ugly clothes that I saw in my German textbooks. I wondered about Germany's unpleasant history - the world wars, the Berlin Wall and the Holocaust - and its seemingly endless supply of beer and fast cars.
Now, I'm putting these expectations of Germany to the test. This summer, I packed a suitcase full of jeans and sweaters to keep me warm in Germany, where I will spend a year living with a German family and attending high school.
Before I left, I sat in my bedroom scanning the odd collection of paperbacks, T-shirts, CDs and pictures that make up my life. It was hard to believe that just a year ago I was a junior at First Colonial High School.
I had attended the Governor's German academy at Randolph-Macon College the previous summer, but little did I know that that experience would eventually lead me to the other side of the world.
It was because of my newfound confidence in speaking German developed at the academy that I applied to the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Program. Only 300 students are accepted nationwide, so I knew my chances were slim.
Although it would be weeks until I received an answer, I asked my guidance counselor if I got the scholarship, would I still be able to graduate while spending my senior year in Germany. I learned that to graduate from a Virginia Beach high school, a student must be enrolled for at least one semester of the senior year, which is a little hard to do when your senior year is going to be spent in a little town in northern Germany.
Never one to let the details defeat me (and thanks to the hard work and ingenuity of my guidance counselor), I accelerated my academic program and graduated with honors June 18, 1995.
That may sound simple, but carrying eight classes (seven in day school and one at night at Open Campus) was no piece of cake. I don't recommend it.
This course of action was a bit of a gamble, because if I wasn't accepted for the exchange program, I would have missed the experience of a senior year for nothing.
But all my hard work was not in vain. I did get in.
It was a long process preparing for a year abroad. The thrill of being chosen shifted somewhat to the reality that I will be spending a year away from my family and friends in a country whose language, customs, food and history are foreign to me.
My first stop is a monthlong orientation in the town of Duderstadt, which, according to my handy guidebook, has ``traditional half-timbered houses.'' From there I will head to my host family and begin my year as an American student in a German high school.
Who knows what lies ahead? by CNB