Journey of an Exchange Student... in Wooster!

Wooster School

When I first received a letter stating information about my host family, it said that I was gonna go to the same school with my host sister's, Hannah (she was an exchange student in Malaysia last year, check her blog here!). But when I arrived in here, my host family told me that the school can't accept me because of a certain internal reason. So yeah, if you think that every school will just accept exchange students without thinking twice, you're wrong. It's never gonna be that easy, dude.

So my host family struggled to find other schools that is reachable from our neighborhood. I think my host dad heard "Wooster School" advertisement in a local radio, so we tried to find this Wooster School thing on the net. We were finally able to contact the school, arranged a meeting, and then we went there on a Sunday afternoon, and they agreed to accept me as an exchange student.

By the way, the school I was planned to go to is a public school, while Wooster is a private school. I have NEVER, ever went to any private school in Indonesia (except my kindergarten school, since we don't have public kindergartens) because private schools are expensive. And one thing, I originally disliked private school students. Yep, I disliked them so much (it's not that I hated them, I just disliked them so much. I'm not sure what's the difference though, it's just that "hate" sounds more terrifying than dislike). The main reason why I "disliked" them so much is because they are usually snobby, and annoying, and they use their parents' money like it's no big deal (which in most cases, that's kinda true for them, since their parents are rich). So when I got into Wooster School, even though I was happy I can be enrolled in, like, a school that would accept me, I was a bit scared about how the students will treat me and stuff like that. Since I'm poor, I was pretty sure I wouldn't understand a single bit about what they will be talking about in front of me. Like, new car for their *insert age here*-th birthday? New Iphone 6s? 8s? 10s? God, it's not something I'd ever ask my parents for! And of course, not something I'd bother thinking about.

But then, times went by. It went by so quickly it's almost terrifying, but anyway, Wooster students seem to accept me, or at least most of them, I guess. I have began to develop tolerance for rich-people-like activities too (LOL no I know you guys don't mean to be snobby, but sometimes I'm just too poor to understand what you're talking about...), and even some of them are really interested with me and my culture. It feels so heartwarming after all the mess I went through to get into Wooster (like, shocked  kinda feeling when my family said "that first school we registered you into couldn't accept you"). Besides, not all of the students are THAT rich, too. Many of them got in with a financial aid from the school, and many of them also seems to keep their so-called "old, slow laptop" even though they could probably ask their parents to buy a new one. I really appreciate that, you know, because sometimes when you're a teenager and your parents are so rich you totally don't bother thinking about money, but many Wooster students are not like that. Makes me happy to see you guys keeping your old, slow laptops.

Anyway, I really want to go into an art college, so I decided to take Art Intensive as my after school activity. These are some of the photos from my activities in Wooster, including my Art Intensive photos.

Pretty preview of the school.

Me and Emma, my friend, on Halloween. Yes we don't really like too much costumes...

This was from my first time seeing snow. It was only a small hail, so you can't really see the snowflakes falling, but me, my classmates, and my teacher ran from the 3rd floor to outside just for me to see the snow. I was really happy.

From my stop-motion animation class.

Our animation title: The Flower!

The Fall Art Intensive class at the station before going to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Sneak peek of the museum.

Here, the real Starry Night painting!

On the way back to Southeast. Tired, tired...

Yeah, my school friends are really nice and fun. Be careful of stereotyping in ANY form; just because you see a group of snobby private high students, don't think all private school students are like that!