Our Exchange student adventure has started off well.

I really should have started this when Verena arrived. Alas, as with everything I do, there is just not enough time. Our start was a bit rocky, as AYUSA, the organization that set up her exchange appears to not be terribly on-the-ball. To their credit, they were the only ones to actually get back to us with more than a form letter. I expected to have student arrive in September, but there she was, at our doorstep January 16th. According to AYUSA, she was to start classes on the 26th. That would give her a week to get her jet lag under control. When I called the school, they would not let her start until the following week, when the semester started. HUH??? Since when did the semester NOT end at Christmas? Well, this was a shock, and poor Verena had to sit here twiddling her thumbs fro two weeks being bored out her mind until she could meet people at school. We did an "intervention" and called some friends of friends that had kids in school and we got them together with Verena. Ahhh...social interaction! The second blow for Verena was that she could only choose 2 classes. TWO??? Yes, they only have 4 classes a semester. It seems lots of things have happened since I went to school in this county. We had 7, as I recall, and so does Verena's friend who is studying in Wisconsin (poor thing). After some convincing by me and one achingly silly false Chemistry start (where they introduced the metric system and the concept of a mole!), she finally ended up with the two classes they require of her: American History and American Literature, and (geeze, I wish I had had this) Forensic Science and Psychology--both half credits so she has two other silly fillers to back them up. Boy, Verena looked mighty blue for a day or so after that first scheduling meeting. She felt awful that she was going to not have any math. I did try to warn her that she was WAY too smart for our schools. Even the school and AYUSA did not believe me until our contact, who was a Spanish teacher "tested" her on the spot and finally agreed with me that the girl was fluent and should NOT take Spanish 2.

The two weeks I had spent with her spoke HUGE volumes as to her education and intelligence. For those of you that know anything about the German education system, she is in Gymnasium-the highest level-at home. I offered her the chance to change host families, and told her that she would NOT hurt my feelings if she wanted to go to a larger city with a more diverse school schedule. She flatly refused and regaled me with stories of woe from other exchange students she had known or heard of. Simply awful things involving opening and reading mail, forcing muslim girls to go to church, issues with host family sons, and so on. She feels we are a real find, and I think I must agree. We seem to be the only ones that are not just "lumps" providing a bed and some meals and asking that she do chores. We want to show her the US.

We just got back form Chinese New Year in NYC! We took her to her first Broadway show (Hairspray, what else?). We showed her Chinatown, The Empire State, Ellis Island and The Statue of Liberty (We hadn't been to either Ellis or Liberty) and (Gulp) Ground Zero. THAT was hard. I had come so close to losing 4 people in there, and one in the Pentagon. It was an odd mixture of feelings as I stood there, with my guts on the floor for how horrific it all was, and triumphant that my twins, who were two months inside me at the time it all happened, were happy, healthy, and a grand raspberry to those sick and misguided warmongers who were tricked into doing a madman's work. The tears in Verena's eyes were a strange shadow of what every American feels about it all. It was comforting to see such solidarity with us in a young European's face. Ahhh... the wonderful heart of youth. It seems to be the same, no matter WHAT the nationality.

So, as I said, this girl is so smart, and so poised that I keep forgetting that she is not a native speaker. She speaks 4 languages (Her German, with the usual bundle of English, French, Spanish), fluently, and no one would know that she is not a native English speaker if you were to read her class essays. It's still tough for her to get any social activity outside school hours, and I feel for her on that matter. It peeves me to no end (and I'm sure pushes my buttons because of my own experience in high school) that a couple of the girls (the ones we hooked Verena up with) will offer to do something with her, and then back out at the last minute, saying that their parents "won't let them". Huh? Not sure I believe it, but hey, I haven't gotten my own act together enough to get their parent's over here for dinner so we can meet---but then neither have they. The one time we dropped off Verena at a Super Bowl party at another exchange student's house, the host family could not even be bothered to come out to say hi to us, and meet us. I was NOT invited inside, so I did insist on getting out of the car to at least meet the exchange student who was waiting outside for us, shivering in the cold.

Is this not weird, or am I?

So, Verena is settled in, finally receiving real snail mail form all over the world. She says that she does not know what she wants to do with her life. Does any 17-year-old? Oh, man, to have her brains, talent, and skills at just 17.....the world truly is her oyster.