We've been visiting the kids all week, to see how they are doing with their host families and schools. Our first visit was with Jane at the Kupsky house on Friday. We brought Erng, because Brylee was having a sleepover with her friend, and she invited Erng to join Jane at their party. Jane was having some trouble with homesickness last week. She'd been crying and using her computer/phone a bit too much. So while we were at the Kupsky house, we took Jane for a walk and talked to her about what she needed to do to get over homesickness.
Basically, homesickness happens when a student has difficulty accepting their current situation. They focus too much on what they are missing back home, and this makes it much harder for them to adapt to their new surroundings. Parents and friends can unintentionally feed into this problem by saying things that remind the student of food, activities and friends back home. In the old days, exchange students might only be able to exchange letters or infrequent phone calls, and so they were forced to adapt, but these days the internet has shrunk the world so much, that it's difficult to get true separation. A child at home in Thailand chatting on Facebook with friends in Thai is not significantly different than a child sitting alone in his/her room in America, chatting on Facebook with friends in Thai. This can lengthen or worsen cases of homesickness because it is a mental roadblock that prevents assimilation and adaptation.
Fortunately, Jane's mood seemed to improve after Erng's visit, and once school started, she seemed very happy.
Our next visit was on Tuesday. We went to Jean's school, Manitowoc Lutheran High School. We found Jean in his science class. He looked a bit bored, but then science classes are often hard for the Thai kids to understand because the vocabulary is difficult. However, I thought the class was really cool, because they had a lot of really neat projects to work on and they used advanced multimedia equipment to teach the lessons. They were even breeding snakes in the classroom! They had a big glass tank with a python in it and another smaller tank with several corn snakes. The corn snakes had just laid eggs, and so they were learning about genetics and DNA in order to predict what color the baby snakes would be. Pretty cool stuff!
Next we visited Jane at her school, Bethany Lutheran School. Wow. What a difference a few days made! Before Jane was depressed and homesick, but when we saw her, she was bubbly and bright! She was bouncing around the classroom, chatting with all her new friends. Her teacher said that Jane was adapting well, and that she was very happy to have Jane in the classroom.
After visiting Jane, we stopped by the Larson home to see Jean with his host family. They were busy packing for a trip to Las Vegas, but they showed us around their house, including their hot tub! Jean said he really liked his host family and didn't want to come back to Thailand, and the Larsons said that Jean has been a great kid, and they'd love to keep him! I'm very proud that Jean has managed to adapt and do so well over here. Good job!
Joey Larson showed us their pet gecko. Patty and Jean wouldn't go near it (Jean actually touched it before he found out it was a gecko, and then he freaked out when he realized what it was). I don't know why Thai people are so afraid of geckos, I had one as a pet too when I was in college. They are very cute!
Erng made pizzas with my mom. She's learning a lot of great recipes to take back to Thailand. She really enjoys helping my mom in the kitchen, although she doesn't like peeling carrots!
I bought Erng a coin collecting book for a present. It has a map of the United States, and slots for each of the 50 state quarter coins that we have in America. So now Erng can try to find all 50 different coins. So far she has about six or eight coins, so she's got to find a lot of coins out in Boston if she wants to have a complete collection by the time we leave!
Our next visit was with Lin at New Holstein High School. We stopped by her classroom, and she was a little shy to have her picture taken, but we told her friends that Lin was a very famous movie star in Thailand and that we were just paparazzi! Haha! We also met Lin and Abbey before they went to lunch. Lin had a bag of Thai food with her, and Abbey explained that Lin brought enough Thai food to America to feed the whole family!
Patty and I stopped at the Chinese Buffet restaurant in New Holstein for lunch. We both got the same fortune in our fortune cookies, so that must mean we are destined to be together! "Two worlds are richer than one", the fortune said, and I must agree. My life has been much better now that I have found Patty <3.
After lunch, we drove over to Hilbert to see Fern in her school. We found her in the creative writing class. Apparently, she told them that she wanted to learn more, and so they put her in more language classes. She seemed to be really enjoying the class, and I could tell that the girls sitting next to her were very friendly. Fern was talking to them after class and they all looked very happy. Fern's teachers said that she's been doing very well in school.
On Thursday, my Uncle Terry came over to help my Dad put up the kitchen cabinets. My parents have been remodeling their kitchen forever now, and so it was nice to see things finally coming together. Patty, of course, was a great help. She supervised the work and made sure my Dad and my uncle did not work too slowly! They couldn't have done it without her! Haha!
Afterwards, we walked up to Valders Middle School to see Erng in her classes. She was with her buddy, Sanne, in the computer lab, and then they walked up to the science room. It was a little strange for me. I used to have science classes in that room too, and Erng was sitting in almost the exact same spot I used to sit 20 years ago!
Sanne was really nice to Erng, and very helpful. I think they are good friends now. Erng's teachers all praised how well she's been doing. They said that she's quieter than their other students, but that she isn't afraid to ask for help or say she doesn't understand something. That's great. Erng has been very brave over here, and she should be very proud of herself.
Tomorrow is Saturday, and so the students should start coming back to Valders so we can get ready for our trip to Boston. I'm looking forward to seeing them all again and hearing about all their exciting adventures!
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