Girls are dressed up in short fancy dresses and the boys try to look like Brad Pitt and George Clooney in “Ocean’s Eleven.” The school is decorated like the final scene in “Mean Girls.” It’s homecoming.
I’m thinking of the words of the GAPP’ers (The students who went to Germany with the GAPP program). “The Germans hated homecoming! Homecoming sucks compared to your clubs!” You really can’t compare our German clubbing with homecoming, but I had a great time. Everybody should experience an American homecoming! It was exactly like in the movies with king and queen, without the drama. I learned something different – and I don’t want to sound precocious – but you can also have fun without alcohol!
We don’t have dances at our schools in Germany, but we can go to a club when we are 16, though we’re supposed to leave by midnight (nobody does). The drinking age in Germany is 16. There seem to be no rules in the country of pretzels and beer.
The only weird thing about homecoming is that the teachers are watching the students while they are dancing – and by dancing, I mean grinding. It is so awkward when you have your teacher in class the next day. I had fun and it was really interesting. And at the end, I brought a little bit of German clubbing to homecoming with the song “Discopogo.” I’m sure most people were completely clueless about this song, but as far as I know, everybody loved it.
Spirit week was also a complete new experience for me. In Germany we have no school spirit; nobody identifies himself with the school. We don’t have school teams. Sport is separated from the school, so we play for our city or borough. It would be awkward if somebody wore a school shirt or sweater. Most students would rather eat rats than be proud of their school. It was fun and interesting to experience. This is something that makes the U.S. unique!
Academic life
Libb-Ü, my friend, is really smart. She got a 103 in the German quiz and I got a 97. Seriously, who is the real German? This shows that the boundaries between the countries are insignificant. I don’t know if I should be angry, happy, desperate or everything together. This is just so embarrassing. I’m forgetting German words and sometimes I just know the English words instead, sometimes I don’t know anything. My English still isn’t perfect and my German is messing me up. I’m right in the middle, and that’s not good at all. Now I can speak a little bit of everything, and my goal was to speak English almost fluently. But this is irony of fate; multitasking is difficult.
My mother sent me a package from Germany with my math and German book. It still hasn’t arrived, and honestly I’m not too keen on it. Who wants to read these books freely? I don’t need Goethe at the moment; I need Shakespeare or at least “Jersey Shore” to improve my English further.
American cable television is so confusing. There are so many channels and I never can decide which to watch. I’m always turning it off at the end. But I really love “Project Runway,” and I have almost watched all the seasons in just three months. It is just weird to hear Heidi Klum speaking English. A lot of people in Germany don’t like her. She is so annoying in “Germany’s Next Top Model,” and the most aren’t watching her show anymore. I think that’s why she came to the U.S. – Americans are so nice to accept her, and we got rid of her. Now everybody is happy.
I finally got my shoes out of my locker. The Spanish exchange student helped me and now I’m sharing my locker with her. I don’t use it anyway. I opened it one time and that was it. A lot of people mix us up. They ask me if she is my sister. I was brought to the wrong guidance counselor and someone thought that I scored the goal in the last soccer match. They are confused and confuse me, too. But at least Spain and Germany are both part of Europe.
This month was full of adventure and great moments. I’m a little bit exhausted, but I’m ready for the next round.
(Bahar Mahzari is an exchange student spending the year at Concord High. She hails from Cologne, Germany.)
