Mira Naumann

English 12

October, 3

At this moment, I am participating in an exchange year in the United States of America.

My exchange year will take 10 months. I hope to gain much experience here and build my

character. I also want to establish contacts, understand new cultures and religions and start a

new life.

I hope to have experience in many areas of my life here. First, I am a part of a church. In

Germany, I don’t go to church, but I am going here, because it is a new experience and I want

to see other parts of life, for example, religion. I don’t have a problem adapting to new

circumstances, because I am open minded towards religion. I am going twice to church in the

week. I like it and I try to go there every time because I know it is important for my host family

and they have sacrificed a lot to give me a home and let me live with them, so I should be

thankful and grateful and I try to show it that way.

I also want to establish contacts here. First of all, I want to see my host family as a

second family, what I kind of already do now. My host family gave me the amazing opportunity

to be here and even had to make sacrifices for me, e.g. changing their schedule to pick me up

after school. I think this is what a caring family does. It is also interesting listening to their stories

and their different culture, what they believe and what they think about politics. Furthermore, I

like to meet new people and I am interested in getting to know them. That is why I am sociable. I

hope to have many friends here. In addition to that, it is also interesting to hear about other

exchange students who are right now in the USA. I am interested to hear from their different

countries, what they experience and how they live in America.

 Moreover, I hope that my personality kind of grows here, because that would make me

stronger and more self confident in general. Most people say you have to be brave to do an

exchange year, but I was never scared of it. I was excited about having a new life in America.

Because I don’t know any people here I could be a new person. First I thought I could act

differently than in Germany, try something new, but in the end I stayed the same as I was in

Germany and I think that is a good thing. I still hope to get more confident overall. Here you are

first on your own, what was first a little frightening. But that is how you learn to act yourself

together and organize yourself.

All in all, I want to adapt and understand the new culture, religion, and life. There were

sacrifices I needed to make to get here, for example leaving my family and friends behind or

retake school in Germany. But in the end it is totally worth it.

How did the peer review, self assessment and conference with the teacher helped me?

It helped me a lot, because I had two other opinions than my own to my rough draft. First

reflecting on yourself is a good thing, to go through everything. Second I wrote another rough

draft, what showed me the similarities and differences to my rough draft. And third the

conference with the teacher also helped me, because it gave me a professional opinion.