False Appearances

Have you gone to a new place that you have not seen pictures of it? Obviously that you have. I have being an exchange student in Minnesota, North Carolina and New Jersey. An exchange student is a student from one country that flies to another country to learn about the culture of the other country, but the student needs to go to school and try to get good grades. You might have the question, how many times I have being an exchange student. This year is my sixth time because each year since 2006 I started traveling with exchange programs.

Every single year since 2006, I have thought how the host family is going to be with me and how the house looks like. I will tell you my first experience. It was in 2006 and I went to Hastings, Minnesota. When the exchange program (FAW) gave me the file of my host family, I got to know some things about my host family. My host family was a mother about thirty eight years old (Annette), the father about forty years old (Terry), the son of twelve years old (Justin), the middle daughter of eight year old (Shelby) and the youngest daughter of six years old (Kelsey). Annette was about 1.70 meters of height, 160 pounds of weight, her hair is brown and curly hair, housekeeper, she did not work; Terry was about 1.80 meters of height, 175 pounds of weight, his hair is brown and straight, hard worker and he is an engineer; Justin was about 1.40 meters of height, 130 pounds of weight, skinny, blonde and curly hair and smart; Shelby was about 1.20 meters of height, 98 pounds of weight, blonde and straight hair and Kelsey was about 1.10 meters of height, 80 pounds of weight and blonde and curly hair. They lived outside the town and they had two horses and one pony.

My first impression by reading the file was that they might live like in the houses of the old west and the experience with them was going to be working in a barn. I thought my host family was not going to like me or we were not going to have a good friendship after three months sharing. I also thought why I should go there if the experience sounded like going to my farm in Santa Rosa but add going to school. I felt bad of saying no to go with this family so I said to myself: Let´s give it a try.

When I finally met my host family in the airport of St. Paul, MN, they look like the picture in the file but they were nice with me. I got to start knowing they better by the time past and I had a great time. Justin had a paint ball gun so he taught me many things of paint ball. Terry was very nice with me and he work in the barn after work. I helped Terry when I could. Terry built a garage for the tractors so Justin and I helped him. Terry made a sip line for Justin, Shelby, Kelsey and me to play.

Some afternoons, he told me to go get the eggs from the coops. My impressions about Terry were wrong because he is a great father, friendly and helped me with many things. Justin did not like too much to play with me because he was used to play alone but after the first month, we learn to play and work together. One day, Terry said to everyone else that we could eat ice cream from the freezer and he brought vanilla and chocolate ice cream. Justin was serving the vanilla ice cream and I was serving the chocolate ice cream. Terry said that Justin and I worked together. My impression of Justin working alone was wrong because he learn to work with someone else.

Do not describe someone by his or her appearance because the appearance might lie. The house was not like the houses of the old west instead it was big, made of wood like the American houses, painted blue, located in the middle of green area and had two floors and a basement. My first exchange experience taught me that everyone might have a different impression about something but we should describe someone or something after knowing about him, her or it.