Oshkosh West High School - Notebook Yearbook (Oshkosh, WI)

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38 Places To Go-Foreign Exchange Malin, Martin, Joanna Trade ¢ Joanna Jones EE a The British invasion hit West in the form of seventeen-year old senior Jo- anna Jones from Mary Tavy, England. Joanna was West's AFS student, and she stayed with the Barroso family. Her American sister Maria was also a senior at West. In addition to Maria, Joanna has a twenty-year old Ameri- can sister named Mona, and two younger brothers in England, Timothy who is fifteen and Matthew who is twelve. Joanna says that she really likes Oshkosh. It is bigger than Mary Tavy by quite a lot, considering that her hometown is a village with a popula- tion of about six hundred. She does, however, attend school in a neighbor- ing town which is larger. Her school is drastically different from West. For ex- ample, while students there start ele- mentary school — Primary School to them — at about the same age we do here, they graduate from high school — Comprehensive — at age sixteen. Their schedules run on a two-week timetable, so they never have the same class at the same time two days in a row. They are not given a choice in their classes until their third year of Comprehensive, when they are al- ae aT . lowed to choose five classes in addi- tion to the required two English classes and one math class which they must take every year. These classes last one hour and ten minutes each, and she has four classes a day plus lunch. Joanna liked M-TV a lot, mainly be- cause they don’t have such a station in England and rarely get to see videos. She also loves American food, espe- cially hamburgers, pizzas and hot dogs. Although they have these things in England, she feels they are not as good or as plentiful. The climate, how- ever, is one thing she could do with- out. “It’s so cold here!l’’ she exclaimed. While Joanna certainly likes Osh- kosh, it is only natural that she would want to see other parts of the U.S. before returning to the country that gave us Def Leppard, New Wave and the Beatles. Where would she like to go? New York, Washington, and, of course, Disney World. Eventually she would also like to visit Germany. A final difference between here and Mary Tavy is something that any self-respecting seventeen-year old girl would notice. She observed that the boys are better looking here and not as competitive with each other. Sweden is a land of lakes and moun- tains, snow and skiing, and the home of Malin Brenklert, one of West's three for- eign exchange students. Malin was a seventeen-year old senior who enjoys downhill skiing, wind surfing, and water skiing. She lived in Kalmar, which is a town with about the same population as Oshkosh and which is on Baltic Sea coast. Malin also admitted to liking her fifth hour Honors English class here at West the best of all her classes, al- though at home she preferred history. Also she really enjoyed gymnastics, a new experience for her in America, as her school doesn’t have extracurricular sports and she’d never had the opportu- nity to become involved in it before. Malin lived with the Schumachers here in Oshkosh, and had two American brothers, Jim and Scott, who were twen- ty-two and twenty-nine respectively. She said of them, ‘They are very spe- cial. | think | will miss them most of all.”’ West seemed to be “going Swedish” this year. You’ve already read about Malin Brenklert, and now meet another Swedish foreign student, Martin Hell- mark. Like Malin, Martin was a senior and he also liked to downhill ski, a sport that is obviously very big in their home- land. Martin said that he usually goes skiing in Austria, But that this year he went to the Rocky Mountains, which he found comparable to the Alps. Howev- er, he also liked to go sailing and partici- pate in races. Martin stayed with the McFarlane family and had three American siblings, Chris, who was thirteen, Erin who was eight, and Mike, who was four. At home he had one sister, fourteen-year old Maria. He was sponsored by Rotary Youth Exchange, and was very glad that they gave him the opportunity to come here. Of the United States and Oshkosh, Martin said, “| like it very much here. Everybody is so nice, and who knows, in a couple of years | may be back to go to the University.” He, like Malin, admitted that there are many differences between here and Sweden. There are more apart- ments there with fenced-in yards, and where there are houses, they don’t

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Students Decide Future Plans

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Sweden, England For Oshkosh | However, one thing she will definitely not miss is her curfew. Many things were different and new | to Malin. For instance, there was her school. In Kalmar, she attended ‘‘col- lege” which they call “gymnasium”, and she had all of her classes with ex- actly the same people, although they did switch classrooms as we do. In addi- | tion, the driving and drinking ages are higher. In Sweden, the former is twenty | and the latter is eighteen. As far as music is concerned, Swedish kids listen to pretty much the same groups as we do here. Malin liked Duran Duran and The Human League. Coming to West was an entirely new experience for her, but it was a good one. Because she liked people, she managed to meet a lot of them who contributed to her enjoyment of the United States. We welcomed her to our school and will miss her when she re- turns to Sweden. stand nearly as close together as they | do in Oshkosh. Martin came from a town called Vaxjo, which has the same number of people in it as there are in Oshkosh, but he thinks it is smaller area- wise. He, too, went to “gymnasium”, and has completed his first year already; he will begin the second upon his return. He agreed with Malin about the way his school is run, but added that they don’t have as many school dances as we do. Kids in his town go to special places to dance on the weekends. They also don’t have the same holi- days that we do. For example, they don’t celebrate a Thanksgiving, natural- ly, but they do have a Swedish holiday called ‘‘ex Lucia’’ and they celebrate Midsummer. | ‘ Martin Hellmark 39 Ne] atl .