Farewell Party

Goings on at Classen

Classen, a really good school - Aubane Decobert

Hi,

 

Today will be one of the last visits before we leave, unfortunately... I really enjoyed staying at Classen, that's a really good school. I'd like to come back here. My favorite museum was the Oklahoma City memorial, that was was very touching. The reconstitutions were very well done and some witnesses were very hard. 

 

I also enjoyed the "Poodles and Pastries (and other important matters): the new paintings exhibition by Franco Mondini-Ruiz at the Oklahoma City MOA. We didn't have so much time to visit the Cowboy museum but I enjoyed the reconstitution of the Cowboy Town.

 

This school trip was very rewarding in a cultural way but also because we improved our English a lot.

 

Aubane Decobert

We will miss this place - Agnès Rouhier

Bonjour la France !

 

So how was my trip in Oklahoma City ? I would say rewarding ! Thanks to this trip I've met new people, improved my English and learned a lot about Oklahoma history ! 

 

Each morning I went to class and during the afternoons we were all together, most of the time the Americans were with us, to visit museums. The Memorial, a rich place for the Americans really pleased me. But the Art Museum and the Cowboy one too !

 

Classen, as a high school, is a really good one. I really enjoyed my time there. To experience, I went to dance, photography, TOK (theory of knowledge), arts and ceramics classes. And in order to compare with the French system, I went to French, Physics and other classes. Now I can say that the way they teach in Classen is clearly different from the one of Luzarches. 

 

In two days everything will finish. Yet we know that we will miss this place and the people.

See you soon, Agnès.

Thank you Classen from Céleste

Approaching the closure of our stay, I think it's time to express my feelings about Classen, Oklahoma and the USA in general. 

 

We have all had a really great time, many visits were scheduled, the families were great, American students were always warm and welcoming, we never felt out of place. Everyone was just so very nice with us. I think that meeting so many different people and having so many expericences is going to be memorable for all of us. 

 

Now, there weren't all good things, I missed French food and also just walking around town and hanging out with friends. The problem is that Oklahoma is so large that people have room to expand, so the houses are a lot bigger than in France and everything is wide and open, there are very nice landscapes and all but this makes things so widespread, nothing is in walking distance. You need a car to go everywhere and at first it's quite surprising. Another bad thing is that I lost my money in the very first days and I quickly realized that without money... there isn't much to do in the US. But I had a great experience nonetheless and I am so happy I came!

 

But there are also so many wonderful things, school is shorter and easier with more focus on art and athletics. Academics are important but they are not the only thing that counts like it is believed in France. Classen High School puts emphasis on organizing events, hosting clubs and everything so students feel completely integrated in their school. I think it's really great. Experiences like the mall, Thanksgiving or Black Friday we can never live in France and I find that it is missing. What we haven't seen and I would have liked that Classen organized that for us Frenchies was a dance. There are no dances in France and I really wish we could have them, something like Prom would be extremely fun and also it would bring some realism to the OIB section because it is such an full American experience. 

 

Overall, I really enjoyed my stay, I'm happy I'll be able to go back to France but I wish I could stay longer I was just starting to know Classen and some of the students and I really think two weeks is too short.

 

I hope to stay in contact with the Americans I met and I was also very happy to meet and talk with the 11th graders that I had barely ever seen or talked to. I wish we could have done some get together like that before.

 

This is basically what I have to say about my stay in the US, and I hope the Americans will enjoy France as much as I enjoyed Oklahoma! 

 

Céleste Charbonnier

I will miss Oklahoma - Louise Phung

We are at the end of our trip, everything was very interesting.

I will say the most impressive visit was the Memorial but what I prefered was staying with my family to learn the American culture and going to school. Even if it is so different, and that sometimes shocks, the way of life is sweeter; the teachers make the students confident, there are lots of art classes to express yourself and the people are very nice.

I will miss Oklahoma.

Commentaire de presque fin de sejour - Solenne

Ces deux semaines furent tres enrichissantes autant sur le plan culturel, grace aux nombreuses visites et aux jours passes dans la famille et au lycee que sur le plan linguistique . J ai appris beaucoup sur la culture americaine et sur l american way of life ! J ai aussi beaucoup apprecie l Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Le National Memorial Museum est aussi extremement bien fait et tres touchant.

   Ensuite au niveau de l apprentissage de la langue il est clair qu il n y a rien de meilleur que ce genre d echange permettant une immersion dans un pays parlant cette langue pour progresser. Notre anglais s est beaucoup ameliore !

   Je vais garder un tres bon souvenir de cet echange, et attend deja avec impatience la venue des Americains en mars.

  Je compte profiter des derniers moments de cette magnifique experience a fond !
                                                                                                               

Out West

Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education, University of Oklahoma

Many thanks to Jennifer Robinson and Felicity Cooper for showing Aurélien and Nicky around the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education, University of Oklahoma. May our exchanges continue well into the future!

Oklahoma National Memorial and Museum

Getting Down To Work

Aubane's Thoughts

Hi everybody,
Time flies and I don't realize that we leave on 3 DAYS !!! I discovered here a new culture, a new way of living so different than the French one and now I wish I could stay longer in Oklahoma City because people overhere are so nice ! Americans are much more "approachable" I'll say, while walking on the hallways of Classen so much people will say "Oh I love your shoes" or "You look so pretty" even if they don't know you. That's what I like overhere, in France people aren't so friendly, I mean they won't talk to you if they don't know you, we're much more self-centered and that's too bad..
About my thanksgiving, we had it at Amanda's house with Solenne and Amanda's family. We ate the traditional turkey, pumpkin bread, cranberry sauce.. We had fun during thanksgiving, it was very nice to go on thanksgiving. After it we woke up at 4:30 to go to the black friday, hopefully that was the perfect time because there were no rushes in front of the shops at that time ! So you can imagine that even all my money has been spent on that day, I looked like a shopaholic with all my bags (Actually maybe not just "looked like") ! Nevermind it was good deals and I think that France should really instaure a Black Friday, or a sales day in which all the things will be 50 % off or more !
That's just giving me another reason to come back to the USA !

Aubane Decobert.

Oklahoma City National Memorial

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attentat_d%27Oklahoma_City

Claire's visit to the Oklahoma National Memorial

Everything so far is wonderful. I guess it's sort of given me a taste of life next year. Except for the fact that I got really lucky and ended up in a family similar to mine. Except for the number of people... Did I mention how much I love food? Because I do. And that's why being here is so great. Thanksgiving food was amazing, my host father's making faux-chinese tonight, and I made apple compote. Plus, I get to have pink lemonade again (Oh yeah) and Doritos. Yes, I'm sure Doritos are sold in France, but it's just not as common...

So, last week, my host mother told me what today's visit would be about: the visit of the Memorial for the April 1995 bombing. My host sister mentioned that she nearly cried at the end of the Memorial. She's not a crier. I am. I cried a whole bunch. I do believe it would be reasonable to say that this has scarred me for a very long time to come. The very concept that people in this world would blow buildings up like that because they're not satisified with the way things are is crazy, scary, and confusing. But the fact that they believe they are right is just... unbelievable. I couldn't even talk during the visit. I just cried and had a very hard time breathing. I have 3 siblings, and two happily married parents. Now, my Dad has experiences fires before since the factory he once worked out caught fire. To this day, no one really knows what happened. And my siblings have had an explosion in their school. Thank the lord, no one was there at the time, but our house just shook, and we live about 15min from there. Now, as I was walking the tears did stop, and I just thought that would be it, no more tears, what could be more horrible than what I had just seen? The wall of honor. I can't say it was a bad idea, but I hated it. They displayed pictures of children and adults, but I personally feel even more sympathy for children. Sure, they're humans like others, but they haven't lived yet. They were in a Day Care center, which must mean they were under the age of 6. They didn't even have a license yet. They hadn't experienced their first love. All they knew was that they had parents and a life. The grown ups were trying to save the children and had - for the most part - already experienced a lot of things: college, love, their first car, their first paycheck, everything.

As I walked through the Memorial, I began to think "This man deserves to die and go to hell". But then I realised: no, that was too easy. This would be one of those situations when I don't support the death penalty. The man (well, more like a mere living creature, if you ask me) should have been locked up in a tiny cell, and should have had to live the rest of his life rotting with what he'd done.

I did get my voice back as we reached the gift shop, though, and I felt a little bit more free, because all the emotion was finally leaving me. For the most part, at least. I can't say that wasn't a tough experience, if my reading about it hurt me that much, I don't want to imagine what it must have been like for the families involved in this event.

Coming home to a loving family definitely felt great, and laughing my worries away was the best. I actually feel like I'll be able to sleep tonight. Let's not watch scary movies right now...

 

 Claire

Ready for the 2012 Prom?

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Visit to the State Capitol