Hallo Communitiy!
Ich werde noch diese Jahr für ein Jahr in die USA gehen. Wie viele andere auch, muss ich dazu einen „Dear Hostfamily“-Letter verfassen. Hier ist das, was ich geschrieben habe!
Dear Hostfamily!
I thought a lot about what I was going to write to someone I don’t know and I finally decided to begin with thanking you for giving me the opportunity to spend a year abroad. I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my letter and for getting to know me better. I’m really excited about staying a year in a foreign country. I hope this is going to be one of the best experiences in my life. It will be a huge challenge but I think I can live independent of my family and integrate myself into an american family. Having the opporunity to live in a family to get to know the new country and the “American Way of Living” is an irreplaceable experience.
But now I would like to introduce myself to you.
I’m a 15-years-old girl from Germany. I live in a town called Dortmund. Dortmund has almost 600.000 inhabitants and used to be famous for its steal, coal and beer. But none of this is produced anymore. Together with my mom Maria, my stepfather Achim, my sister Hannah and my brother Paul I live in a row house with a terrace, a garage and a small garden with a lovely cherry tree.
My mom Maria is 40 years old and at the moment she is on her way to become a teacher. Right now she is “teacher on probation” – she has to go to school and watch teachers to learn how to teach properly. My stepfather Achim is 42 years old and he is a computer scientist. My sister Hannah is 16 years old and my brother is 10 years old. We have a very good relationship but sometimes we argue (but only the way brothers and sisters do).
My parents are divorced but I visit my father every weekend. His name is Ian and he is 43 years old. He just moved into a large house with a great garden. We have a lot of garden space there and in summers we arrange barbecue parties with our friends. My father’s place is also where my cat lives. His name is Jack and he is still a young cat but nevertheless incredibly cute!
I get supported in everything I do and my parents are helping a lot to make my dream of spending a year abroad become reality. We have a very good relationship because I can talk to them about anything and we don’t lie to each other. Being honest is very important to me. They respect my opinion just as I repect theirs. For us it is important to be honest and respectful to each other.
I am an organized person. I’m someone who likes living in neat surroundings but I’m sometimes a bit messy myself. People who know me recognize that I’m an open-minded but nevertheless determined person. I can say what I think without hurting anyone’s feelings which is a good skill to me. It is important to me that people are accurate – I can’t stand it when people are late. Although I’m self-confident I’m sometimes very shy, but this normally stops when I get to know a person better. My friends say I am very polite and amiable girl.
One of my hobbies is doing Karate. It’s a sport where you mostly learn how to defend yourself. I go to training twice a week. It is a lot of fun and in addition to that I can see my friends regulary. I went to training since the age of 8 and I’m still enjoying it. Two years ago I became a trainer myself and now I coach my own Karate-group each Friday. In my group there are about 20 children at the ages from 8 to 12. It’s a lot of fun to see how they develop and how they improve their style. I participated at many Karate-competitions and I also won a few times. In my opinion this is what every Karateka should do: Take part in competitions and show the viewer what you learned since the last competition. It’s also important to see if you’re better than the last time to stay motivated. All in all Karate is an experience I don’t want to miss.
Furthermore I play Cello. I started to play when I was 7 years old. Of course I had some periods of time where I didn’t want to play at all. But I’m so glad I didn’t give up making music because it is so much fun today and I’m happy I can play an instrument. Making music is very important to me. My teacher arranges several open concerts for her cello class. Since I’m one of her students I take part regulary. I enjoy sitting in front of 25 people and show them what I learned and what I am able to play on my cello. This is an important element in my life.
In my spare time I love to design clothes. I don’t make clothes but draw them. I have already drawn a lot of outlines yet and I’m still working on new ideas. I also read a lot. My friends sometimes can’t believe how many books I already read and they sometimes call me “bookworm”. I’m a fast reader so I know a lot of books because I need to begin with a new book immediately after finishing the one before. It’s almost like a mechanism!
I listen to mostly every kind of music. My favourite band is “Evanescence” but I also like a lot of other artists, e.g. Amy Winehouse, Adele or Frank Sinatra. People who know me always wonder how I can like so many different kinds of music. I like classic music, neo-soul & r’n’b, rock, pop and metal (but only “Evanescence”). And I have to say that I don’t always understand the artist’s behaviour; I only like their music (for example Amy Winehouse… I don’t understand her behaviour, but I love her music)!
I have to say I don’t have any specific favourite movie. I am a fan of the movie “Chicago” (the one with Reneé Zellweger) and I love the movie “Lola rennt”. But there are so many brilliant movies in the world that it’s hard for me to decide which is the best.
A typical day starts at 6:30 am. I get up and have some breakfast before I get dressed and ready for school. I leave the house at 7:20 if I go by bus and train. But since I usually ride my bike to school I leave the house 10 minutes later. School usually starts at 7:55 and ends at 1:15 pm.
After school I have lunch with my brother and sister. Afterwards I take care of my homework. When I have done my schoolwork I have to help in the household. That could be cleaning the bathroom, hanging the laundry on the line or take the dishes out of the dishwasher. After I have done this I can do what I want. In the evenings we come together to have dinner. Dinner is important to me because this is the time where the whole family sits together at one table and shares their experiences and opinions. This is normally the only time of the day where I have enough time to talk to my family. On certain days we eat dinner late because we went to training or I was at the music school having my weekly cello lesson.
After dinner we sit at the table and play games. We like to play the card game “Wizard”. Sometimes we watch a film or read a story together.
Usually I go to bed at 10:00 pm but I’m trying to go a bit earler because after an exhausting day it’s harder for me to get up on the next morning.
Unlike most of my classmates I like going to school. Learning is important for my life and I can use my knowledge everywhere. It is a privilege to go to school and I’m happy to have the opportunity to enlarge my knowledge on things that I would like to learn. Of course there are always things where you ask yourself why you need to learn it. I’m not good at some subjects, e.g. Chemistry, but I wish I was because it seems very interesting. Nevertheless there are subjects where I’m good at e.g. English or Physics. Basically I’d like to gain as much knowledge at school as possible because I can only capitalize on it. I have to say that I don’t like P.E. at school but that is because of my teacher. My favourite subject is English and Latin. I love to learn foreign languages and that is also why I would like to come to the USA – I would like to improve my english, especially the spoken part. I wish could speak more fluently and use a better vocabulary.
I’m not that kind of girl that goes out and parties a lot. Actually I don’t party at all only when I’m invited to private parties. On weekends I stay at home or meet my friends over the day. I go to the city centre or sit in a café with my very best friend who is my cousin at the same time. I often do sleepovers at my cousins but basically I don’t enjoy the nightlife of Dortmund.
I’m not sure what I would like to do in the future yet. My dream is to become an actress although I’m not sure if I have the needed skills. If not, I would certainly love to do somerthing that has to do with art. I love to design clothes and I even designed my bed myself. I love to paint pictures of both landscapes and persons or animals. For me this is a way to express what I feel and I wish we would paint more pictures at school because at the moment we create sculptures a lot.
I’ve been to the USA a few times before. I stayed in Salt Lake City and Provo, Utah. Since my mom married Achim in Las Vegas I was able to see what this colorful and bright town is like. My mom spent her honeymoon in Miami and we came along. It was a very nice trip: we had a lot of fun, sun und beach! And I can tell you about the one night I stayed in Toronto (But I know this is in Canada). It was the night of the huge electricity failure so all the electricity was gone at the airport and we had to spent the night there. I didn’t sleep very well but now I think this was a funny experience.
There are many opinions about the USA and now I would like to make my own opinion, independent of what others or the media says. In addition to that the USA is a land where many cultures come together and create another culture. I would love to see what it is like to live in the USA especially what it is like to go to school. Since the school system seems to be completely different this is the perfect chance for me as a student to experience something new.
Danach wollte ich noch etas zu den Hopes&Expectations sagen und einen runden Schluss verfassen, allerdings werde ich den Brief etwas kürzen müssen, weil ich schon über 2 DIN A4 Seiten bin.
Nichtsdestotrotz:
Was haltet ihr davon? Was würdet ihr mir raten, zu löschen /dazuzuschreiben?
Ich bin für jede Art von Verbesserungsvorschlägen offen!
Vielen Dank,
Josi