Our man in Alabama

By Christoph Risius, Alabama 
Looks like swapping pupils is a good idea in this small global village. While Keturah from Perth, Jill from Canada and Adam from Western Australia are here, we sent our local sports reporter Christoph (see last year's Ulricianum Times) to Alabama.

"Do you like it here or would you like to go back?" Although I always said that it was really great over here the true answer would have been different from that one 6 months or even 6 weeks ago. During the first two weeks, I was not too sure if this was such a good idea, just to leave everybody and start a new life for one year. In that period I learned something interesting everyday but I was still far away from understanding everything. I felt that people, especially the teachers, did not treat me right, because I had to make up all the work, the other students had done during their summer holidays; because I spent every afternoon from 3:10 (when we get out of school) to 8 o'clock doing my homework and my schedule was changed almost every day. Fortunately I was introduced to two other German exchange students, who felt the same way. I do not say it was good for my English, but it definitely helped me, since I was not the only one to have problems in the new community. However, over the next months I learned when and how to do my homework, in which classes I could go to sleep and to whom I had to talk to. But even then my life still lacked something. By that time I had accepted being away from home and it was okay with me. Then the basketball try-outs came and, after I made the B-Team, I had to spend every afternoon in the gym until 6 o'clock and also do my homework after that. Again it took me about two weeks of mourning, complaining and falling grades, to get into this rhythm but I finally mastered it and started enjoying my life. Playing in front of 300 paying people opposed to 5 parents, who watched us in Germany, is just great. However, basketball season could not last forever and now that it is over, I am somehow glad about it because I can spend time with my friends again, which used to be very hard. And so I decided not to go in for any other sports although I was offered a position on the soccer and the tennis team. You should think I am happy right now, but there is this slight homesickness that comes up sometimes, when you just want to go back and show off your "Americanity". On the other hand, when I hear about the weather in Germany, I know what I got here. There might be tornadoes from time to time but it does not rain constantly and the temperature is about 15 degrees above what I was used to and I try to make the best out of the remaining three months. So if somebody comes up now and asks me if I were rather in Germany, I can honestly answer: "No, I really like it over here."