Meet the Schools 2013

Hamburg, the 20th of April 2013

 

Slowly the Unilever House in Hamburg filled. With directors from New Zealand schools, members from my agency, Hausch & Partner, and of course us Returnees, the ones with the yellow shirts.

We attended the fair to tell interested students and their parents about what a stay in NZ or Australia can be like and present the different areas and schools.

Mr Mitchell from Burnside greeted me with a hug. It was so nice to see him again, to be able to talk English with people and here the lovely Kiwi-accent.

Together with him and Lennart (who was at Burnside the year before) we had nice conversations with interested families about NZ, Christchurch, Burnside High, the Music Programme, host families, Outdoor Education and much more, switching languages all the time.

It was quite fun, but after our lunch break there were decidedly less people coming. But even the TV was there filming us !

After 6 hours the fair closed, my mum picked me up and we had to hurry to catch our train back (it took about 4 hours to get to Duisburg).

Well, actually I went to see Ciara afterwards who was staying with her German grandma in Bielefeld. So it was an exciting day followed by a very exciting weekend.

the Unilever-House at the fair

with Mr Mitchell and Lennart

all Returnees together

NCEA results

In February our NCEA marks were put upon the NZQA website.
Over all I was very pleased with mine (I achieved with Merit which is the second best mark). Other students had always told me that the Mocks from Burnside would be so much harder than the ones from other Schools so the actual End of Year Exam shouldn't have been too difficult to manage.
I achieved all of them, Music, Maths, Drama and English, but still my Mocks had been a bit better.
Anyway, I am happy with my results !
I think the most important thing to look at are not your marks but the development you did in the time you were away. For example in my compositions or in my English essays.
You also can't really say Merit would be like the mark 2 or 3 in Germany, you just have to see it as two completely different things, uncomparable.
It was a good experience writing the exams (although sometimes I had been a bit sad with the other internationals who went on trips in that time) because it gives you the feeling that school there was more... real.
It really made you become a student like everyone else.
And actually, the externals weren't too bad anyway...
Here's the link to the website if you want to have a look.
It doesn't only show students their results, but you can research and find anything that may help you preparing for your own exams along with old exam papers, answer sheets and evaluation tables. So have a look !
http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/

Returnee Meeting

The "Returnee Meeting" of my agency Hausch & Partner was on the 17th of February 2013. For 6 hours about 10 international students from the last year met in Mrs Hausch's office in Hamburg to talk about their stay in New Zealand or Australia and share their experiences. It was so great to finally be with people that feel the same way you do, that understand you. We compared each others experiences, recognized simmilarities and differences. Memories were shared and we laughed a lot.
Once again, I think, we were all getting very "home"-sick for our hostfamilies and friends on the other side of the world.
Again time went by so very fast !
All of us wrote down a bit of advice for future internationals, mostly consisting of: Pack your suitcase and then unpack half of it again because you won't need it.
It was a very good idea to come to Hamburg for this final meeting. Still I will see some of them again, because we were asked to help the agency at fairs and tell interested people how great a longer stay in a foreign country can be. I, for example, will meet the director of my New Zealand school very soon and support him at a fair. That will be fun !
Home again I felt like I had just returned from NZ once again.

Back at my German school

Although my parents had asked my old German School for my new timetable more than once, they didn't receive one. I was told to join a friend at her classes and then to decide myself which teacher I wanted to have.
So I went along to a French period on Monday morning, it was the 7th of January 2013.
I hadn't done any French for a few years and I dropped it for this year so I just sat there and did nothing really.
But instead of giving me free choice I got my timetable in the next break. So much to the good German organisation! So I went to all my future classes and many people greeted me and asked me about my stay in NZ, but I just didn't know what to answer. I couldn't just say "Great !" or something because that doesn't describe what I experienced in the last year.
What would they like to hear?
What was the best thing that happened to you? Do you miss them? Of course I do !!!!
Some teachers were really interested as well and it was quite nice to see who remembered me.

Recently the German school system has changed. Instead of 13 we'll only have 12 years of School now. In the last two years you have to collect points that lead to your graduation marks.
Being in New Zealand for a year I would have missed the first half of Year 11, but that's not allowed because I Need the points. So now I'm back in Year 10 again with new People and I hardly know anyone. In the breaks I still meet with the friends from my old year, but I don't really talk a lot in my classes.
Why is it so much harder to find new friends in Germany
than in New Zealand?
Luckily there are other girls who were in a foreign country for some time, Ireland, America or Canada for example. We started the tradition of talking in English to each other to not lose our ability to do so. It's great practice ! Although other students probably think we're crazy...

I miss my Burnside very much.
And I'm actually starting to think it a pity that we don't have school uniforms. Ok, they weren't so pretty and very uncomfortable as well, but somehow they changed the whole attitude to school for good. I can't really explain it. Anyway for a while I thought every student I saw that day was in Year 13 (Seniors didn't wear school uniform at Burnside High), but that would be impossible...

School hasn't changed a lot. The portait I painted 2 years ago is still on the wall along with the others, our library seems even smaller and more boring-academic, the computers don't have Sibelius to play or compose something, we're not allowed to play piano when we have free periods...
It's such an early start and a looooooooong day !

my Legolas-portait

Christmas and holidays, opera and university

Christmas followed very soon after my arrival in Germany on the 20th of December 2012. As always my family was there, my sister, parents and grandparents. It was cold outside although it didn't exactly snow unfortunately. The traditional German Christmas food was cooked, no sign of fish 'n chips. The Christmas tree also would have been real if we would have had one this year.
Of course I had to talk a lot and tell them every detail of my stay in NZ. In the last few days my parents had almost seen all of my photographs. Almost ! And also every book, picture or souvenir I had brought home with me. Somehow it felt like nothing had changed this past year. Everything was so normal !
I realised then that I actually hadn't missed anything important here in Germany, that life was as always and only I had so many new experiences. It was like time had stopped here to give me the chance to try out a new life.

 Preparing for the Christmas dinner

Mum, Janine and I are singing carols to the piano

It were the third winter Holidays in a row for me and my parents took me to Austria for 2 weeks. We walked in midst a beautiful world of ice and snow. It was so high that sometimes we sink in up to the chest. For the first time in at least 7 years I went skiing again, but I wasn't used to it anymore. I had grown a bit more scared of the steep and icy slopes than I had been when I was 5 and it also hurt !
At New Year's Eve I was still so tired that I went to sleep at 11pm after we had our very very small private firework.
But at any rate it was the right decision to go on a holiday together. I could spend time with my family and get used to my new-old life again. So maybe going away on holidays is a good idea for other returnees as well, although I have read, that some people rather like to stay home after such a long absence.
It probably is a very personal thing.

beautiful landscape

nighttime sledging

hiking

playing

Zell at the Lake

spending time together

The New Year's Eve fireworks I missed, fortunately my dad did not.

And of course skiing...

If my family has noticed any difference in my character? Not really. My mum only says that I am more cuddly than before, but I'm still the same person.

Immediately after my arrival I also started preparing for my audition for being a Junior Student at the Robert Schumann University in Düsseldorf.  Some weeks I had three singing lessons and I learned a lot in that time. Then on the 31st of January (the week I also did my work experience in the theatre) I sang 2 and a half songs in front of about 8 judges and answered a few questions about how often I would practice etc. It was over very fast (not 30 minutes as I had expected but barely 10) and I could go home. I had a good feeling and when a letter arrived only a week or so later I was very happy to find out that I had been accepted into the Programme. So from April on I will have two singing lessons a week with Professor Dr. Michail Lanskoi and every two weeks the whole saturday with theory like rhythmic and music history.
It's so great ! I have never been sure that they would accept me although I was the only one auditioning with voice, but I'm so glad now ! And very thankful to my singing teacher Mr Schotenröhr who was a very big help the last years and who actually made me come a step closer to my dream of becoming a professional singer later. Thank you !!!

at the uni in Düsseldorf

last practice

Furthermore I joined a choir in another city, Essen. We already sang big works like Carmina Burana, Stabat Mater from Pergolesi or the St Matthew Passion. Also we are part of the choir for the production of Parsifal. That is a 5-hour Wagner opera. Singing on a big stage is very fun and to be around professional singers so often very interesting. Of course there are very many rehearsals and at least one performance every week. We actually get paid for being there !

Here's the flyer of our very modern production "Parsifal" with Jeffrey Dowd in the title role.

All this keeps me very busy, even  more busy than in New Zealand, but I love it. It helps a bit to not be so sad about what I had to leave behind though, of course, I miss NZ and all my friends there a lot. I don't think that'll ever change and I don't want it to either !
I will always remember...