Here in North Carolina school starts on August 27 and Pat, Yerik and I have talked a lot about schools, clubs etc. Pat and I went to school, Jordan High School in Durham, even before Yerik came to live with us to register him. Yerik and I went to visit with the councelor and see if he could get in the senior, grade 12, year and take the SAT, National tests necessary for US College applications.

Last week we heard that he was accepted for the senior class and we were all very happy, because Yerik, when he goes back the Kazakhstan can then apply for one of the State scholarships to come over to the US again and study at a College/University here, before going back and set out to be one of the leaders of his country. This is what the FLEX program(Future Leader Exchange set up by the US State Department)  is all about.

He and Pat went over the classes Mr. Turner, his counselor, and Yerik had choosen. They made some minor changes and yesterday we attended the "new student orientation" at Jordan. I think it finally sunk in with Yerik that this would be a whole different ballgame of what he was used to! There are nearly 2000 students at Jordan and classes are from 07:30 till 2:30PM (14:30). Yerik was used to boarding school (Monday-Saturday 5PM(17:00)) and was used to go to bed between 11PM(23:00) and midnight. Here he'll have to go to bed/lights out at 10PM(22:00)

There was some discussion as to when he would start his SAT prep-classes and the guys thought "the sooner the better". Mom ofcourse vetoed that! I just could see problems at the horizon if he'd do that. I reasoned with both of them that Yerik had first to adjust to a completely different schedule. Classes here are 90minutes long, he has to get up at 05:30, because he has to be at the bus stop at 06:35. He will have to make an effort in his classes the first weeks to understand everything, although his English is real good. He has to get his "feel" around school, if possible get some friends, join a club, as is common here in the US. So I want to give him at least a month before getting him involved in extra curriculum classes like prep SAT classes, because the first few weeks he'll be exhausetd. Luckily they both realized that my reasoning wasn't that stupid although I'm just a mere woman!!

I know Yerik is apprehensive about school, but also very anxious to get started. He often retreats to his room and studies from the SAT book he has as he was doing last night when I came in to say goodnight. He's a young man with a vision and like the Nike slogan says "he goes for it!"

Monday when I come home from work I start my new life as a Mom of an American high school kid.Make breakfast for Pat and Yerik, prepare bag-lunches for the two of them, see Yerik off and then go to bed and sleep!! Once I was in Yerik's shoes, 40years ago, and now I'm on the other side. I think it helps me to understand the worries and problems that an exchange student may have/erncounter and that's why I'm glad to also be a Liaison for AFS. My liaison student is Sebastian from Argentina and is living with the Staples family not far from where we live here in Durham. He goes with host brother Jay to Riverside High School and I've had my first meeting with him.

I already had a meeting with the family and after seeing Sebastian yesterday and another meeting with the family I feel that he's settling in quite nicely. A liaison has a monthly meeting with the student separate from his host family, one everyone together, a separate one with the sibling(s) and one with the parents. This way everyone can talk freely and if there are any problems they can be straightened out right at the root before it becomes a BIG problem. A liaison is there for all of them 24/7 in case opf emergencies.

Yerik has a liaison as well, but unfortunately we haven't seen or spoken to her yet.

 

About the house, well I already said to Pat that it will be my St. Nicolaas present, being the day (Dec.5) when kids in Holland get their presents opposed to Dec.25, X-mas, when the ones in the UK and US get theirs. It seems like a never ending story. Half of the kitchen ceiling is gone in order to put plumbing work in for the upstairs. Check out the latest pictures under House Renovations.

The windows on the second floor are in now, so little by little things are getting done, although the second floor is still one big open space!

I hope they will start putting the floors in next week, then put up the walls and get going!!!

 

The only extravagance Pat and I allowed us in this whole renovation thing is a steamshower/yacuzzi unit and guess what....? This is bringing us problems, at least the plumber makes problems. Not up to North Carolina standards, and it's differetn from what he's seen in these units etc. The electrician doesn't see any problems form his side, but we need to get the plumber on our side to put the unit in and convince the inspection people that all is OK! Pat will be on the phone with the west coast where the unit is from and get some more info to convince our hesitant plumber. Y'all keep your fingers crossed, you hear!!!

 

This afternoon Pat and Yerik will be playing frisbee in the sideyard where the barn is to get Yerik ready for an Ultimate Frisbee Game here at the park. Pat is doing great, The guys are going to the gym 3x a week (thanks Yerik for making Dad go!!) and as today play frisbee, run Pat run, in the yard.

Today I explicitly told them to do it in the side yard, because Saturday I found them playing right next to the front fence?!?! When I got outside to tell them not to play there I didn't see Pat and ofcourse that what I was afraid of had happened. Well not exactly, but could have.

Pat was out in the street to get the frisbee! I told them that by playing there there was a good possibility that the frisbee would hit a car's windshield and we would have a car drive up onto our front porch and worse into our livingroom. Ofcourse since we're renovating and the carpenters are here anyway that would have a quick fix, but I don't want to be liable for the driver of the car!

So yes the guys also saw my logic in that one as well and promised me to do it in the side yard from now on. I'm just waiting for their next bright idea. Oh yes I nearly forgot, talking about bright ideas! Pat and Yerik were hanging up a towel ring in Yerik's bathroom, well I don't care that Yerik is over 6feet, but when he's gone other people have to be able to put that towel back on the ring so please lower it!!! They looked at me if they saw water burning, but yes they did put the towel ring in a more conventional/convenient place.

 

This is all for now, I still have to write my report on Sebastian and the Staples for the AFS, go grocery shopping, to the bank and get i8n touch of a counselor at the Durham School of Art in my function as AFS volunteer! Hey, I on my day off today!!

 

Margit 

 

 

 

 

It's 10:00PM and I'm dead, but I wanted to update this site for y'all to see how we're doing.

We've just had a crazy week! Pat left for Florida on Sunday due to Marty's passing and I decided to drive down on Monday evening, so I arrived, to both Vinnie and Pat's surprise, Tuesday morning claiming, toilet, shower and coffee in exactly that order.

Yesterday evening we got in the car and drove back to Durham. Pat had decided to forfeit his plane ticket back to Durham and instead drive home with me. He'll go back to Florida on Sunday for the Memorial held on Monday at the school where Marty has tought, well for ever! Tuesday he'll come back home and I hope that he'll be able to start enjoying our new life as parents.

 

When we arrived we immediately went into the house and check up on Yerik's room, where we realized that the walls had been painted exactly the opposite to what we wanted; 3 lighter colered ones and one somewhat darker it was done one light and three darker! Ofcourse Margit was fuming, but later Pat told me that he had made the mistake. It's not bad, but not what I had envisioned. The new bathroom/toilet and walk-in closet look great, but we realized that we still needed toiletseats for this one and the powder-room!

Pat hung the new lamp in Yerik's room and when he thought he could go to Greensboro and enjoy his volunteer work with the newly arrived AFS students I was telling him he still had to affix the rod for the curtains, just picked up from the dry-cleaners, in the livingroom. It was not exactly what he wanted to do, but he saw my point. Thanks Dear!!

 

I nearly lost it when I saw that the floor in Yerik's room was still a mess and Theron was painting the closet! Theron was still working at 09:30PM. Tomorrow it's D-Day. Juan, his wife and daughter will come to help me to make the downstairs presentable, Pat and Yerik will pick up toiletseats, towel-and toiletroll holders for his bathroom on their way home from Greensboro. The kitchen counters have to be tidied up and cleaned. We'll do it, and hey Yerik is 17 so I hope he sees it as an adventure?! Ofcourse there is the off chance that he calls AFS and says "I'm not staying here in this building ssite!" I just hope that Pat, in his calm way,can prepare him and tell him that there will really be an end to all of this. One good thing though the AC is working!!!!

 

Tonight I had my over-due interview whith AFS host parents of Sebastian from Argentina in my role as AFS liaison. A liaison has to make a monthly report on the family and AFS student. The student will have a chance to talk freely with me about concerns, small/big problems as have the parents and sibling(s). Jay is only child to Ben and Brenda; Sebastian is only child living with his mother after loosing his father at a young age. The AFS student will have time alone with his/her liaison, I remember that mine always to me out for lunch which I intend to do with Sebastian. The kids really open up to you then. We had a nice and fruitful conversation in preparation to Sebastian's arrival tomorrow.

 

I'm anxious now that I'm on the other side of the fence. Now I'm the parent (can I still do it? will I automatically go in "Mom mode" as with my own kids?) and not the exchange student. Mind you anyone can be a host as you see even people our age and also people who never had had children before. The experience enriches not only the students life, but certainly also that of the host-parents. I really like what AFS stands for and I firmly belief in it. Yerik and I have a liaison too, but unfortunately we haven't met her yet. I still remember my liaison from way bak when, Mrs. Mikonis, in Sarasota, Florida. My big sis Marian can be of help as well, she was a host sibling to me, but later in life she hosted Eric, from Sweden, when Jeffrey, her son, was a teenager.

You see that's exactly what happens, once you're involved with AFS it doesn't let you go!! I've the feeling that Pat likes the volunteering we do. At the end of this month we will both do an intake for a very bright young lady from Durham who applied with AFS to go to France school year 2008-2009. These intakes are always done by 2 people and since both of us are official AFS volunteers we'll do it together.

 

At the moment he is in Greensboro where he will do some training on "Making Friends" with the new arrivals. I just talked to him and he sounded very up-beat and enjoying it. He met Yerik, ofcourse, who was quiet and probably still very tired from the 2days trip from Kazakhstan to the US. He left KZ at 02:00 Thursday morning for Frankfurt, Germany, where they had a long stop-over, from there the KZ students took a flight to Washington DC where they arrived yesterday afternoon US time. Early this morning he had to take a flight to RDU where he was met by an AFS representative; he had to wait for another flight of AFS students to arrive and then they were taken to Greensboro (aproximately a 90min. drive). I thinhk anyone would be tired after that. Imagine you doing it the other way around! According Pat his English is pretty good. It takes a while to get acclimated and be on US time. It's normal and we'll go easy on him the first week.

 

Well I gues I turn in so I can get ready for tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I think we're getting there! Everyone is doing their utmost to comply with my wishes, i.e. get the downstairs ready for Yerik's arrival!!

I managed to do it with all my PEOPLE MANAGEMENT SKILLS and no one has died or walked away from the job yet!! Trisha can you believe that?!

No, honestly all the people working are doing a great job and as they see how excited we are to have Yerik stay with us, they just work weekends and at all hours of the day to get that downstairs finished so we can have some sort of a normal family life. 

 

Now I did invite them all (everyone who remotely worked on the house) to a real Southern BBQ;is that called a bribe? So sue me!

Ofcourse all of you who are free on that day are happy to join the fun. Just see it as a house-warming party. Date will be communicated.

 

Pat will pick upo Yerik in Greensboro where all the students have their Arrival Orientation. Hey, Pat, will even participate in it and do 3 talks about "Making Friends" at this Orientation. Saturday August 11 he will bring Yerik home and by the time they get here I'll be awake. Bear in mind that yours truely usually gets in bed by 05.30.

We've already decided that Pat will enhance the good things about the buildingsite, which is our home nowadays, that is: to get to know and interact with Juan, our own Mexican immigrant (and his wife who helps with the cleaning), a gem I hope we can always call upon whenever needed, see how a real American house is build, what materials are used and the people using them and love to do their work. We are very fortunate to have the crew that works for Garrett Builders, they are exceptional people and great craftsmen. BJ is doing a wonderful job on the woodwork and I admire his work-ethics as well as his humor (never looses it even with me around and when he wakes me up after just a couple of hours of sleep, he just asks me not to kill him and apologizes profusely!).

Also our painter Theron is to have a special mention here. Graduate from the School of Friends in Durham his personality and work ethics are exceptional and I'm sure his schooling had to do with that as well. He is teaching Juan on the fly and I think Juan is a very grateful student, interested in learning new things and although he's older than Theron he gladly accepts Theron's instructions.

 

Today a crew sanded the new floors and, as Pat said would happen, we fell in love with them and decided that next year we should put them in the rest of the house as well. I told Pat that until then I would just retreat to our bedroom, which will have the new flooring, and just sit there enjoying the beautiful new hardwood pine floors!! For now they will be in the downstairs powder room and the back bedroom closet and toilet area. Upstairs they will be in the master-suite and guest-suite as well. Gosh, this sounds way to ostentatious to me, but it is the truth we will have all that. Makes me sick as a diehard socialist!! Luis, I haven't turned into a "latifundista"! Matame si te miento.

 

Yesterday we went to Jordan High School, for both of us it was strange to be back in a school, it has been so long ago! JHS is used to having Foreign (Exchange) Students in their midst. We have Duke and UNC here and some people come with their families to do just a one-year project. Their children attend JHS because it's in the district and it's a school that is in the TOP 5% of the NATION. Usually graduates from JHS are doing very well in the UNC School System or at DUKE.

 

Tomorrow we'll attend a Liaison/Host Family AFS mneeting in Raleigh where we'll meet the other host families from this area. Btw if any of you is interested in hosting a student, there are still some students who are accepted but don't have families. It's a year of your life you won't ever forget. I'm still in contact with my host-family even after 40years!

I will also meet the family for which I'll be a liaison. Jay the adopted son of Ben and Brenda, will have Sebastian from Argentina as a host-sibling. I'll go to their house next week to have a more personal meeting with them and speak with the family as a whole and with the parents and son separately. I will do that on a monthly basis and also with Sebastian, the Exchange Student. I'll be available 24/7 for any emergency that may occur. AFS never lets a host family or student down. It's important to have personal contact with each and every one of the family separately as well as with the family as a unit.

A couple of days ago we've also been asked to do an intake interview for an American girl who applied and, has initially been approved, for a year in France leaving in 2008. Pat and I both look forward to doing this. What makes a young girl want to go to France, does she think to go on vacation there( Wrong!)? Is she running away from something here, or is she genuinely interested in learning about a different culture and broaden her mind? We will have to read/listen between the lines and body-language and that's why there are always two people who go to an intake. Yes, we're both very much into this; AFS is contagious once you become involved in it.

 

Well, it's 10 to middnight and although I've to stay up a little while longer, I think this is it for our blog today.