days count: 208
I know the last update was just yesterday, but I figured that I have a lot of time right now, so I'll just make a post about the sports at my high school.
So basically, the school year starts off in fall or more like August, but we call it fall sports. Every high school is different, but in Kern County we have Volleyball for girls, Tennis for girls, Cross Country for girls and boys and obviously American Football during fall, which is until mid of November. There's also cheerleading but that's only during Football and Basketball season and it doesn't really count as a sport.
During winter, my high school offers Basketball and Soccer (=European Football) for boys and girls, and for the boys there's Wrestling.
This week the spring season is starting off, my school offers Base-/Softball, Track and Field and Swimming for boys and girls and it is Tennis season for boys.
To get into a team, you have to go through 'Try-outs', which is especially for team sports, I didn't have try-outs for XC or track. Depending on what grade you're in, you get into a Frosh/Soph (Freshmen & Sophomore), Junior Varsity (=JV, Junior) or a Varsity (Senior) team. If you're a Freshmen or Sophomore (that's 9th and 10th grade), you get into a Frosh/Soph team or above (which means if you're really good in the sport you're trying out for, they'll put you into JV or Varsity). Most people that are Freshmen or Sophomores get to do the sport they're trying out for. If you're in 11th grade (which means you're a junior) you have to make the JV team, you cannot get into a level that's meant for underclassmen, so you have to do good at the try-outs, otherwise you won't be able to practice that sport or compete other high schools. The seniors have to make the Varsity team in the sport they're trying out for, which is really hard. Everyone can make the Varsity team, if a Freshmen is really good at American Football, he gets into the Varsity team, so there's less spots left for upper classmen. In a Frosh/Soph team they're always looking for more people to try out, so basically everyone gets in.
In every sport, the high school offers 'meets' or 'games', so you compete other high schools. For example: You're playing JV Basketball, so you get checked out of school earlier on a wednesday because the school bus that takes the whole team (Frosh/Soph, JV and Varsity) to another high school in a different city (which is mostly Bakersfield for us) and that takes about an hour. So most of the time you either leave 6th period or you don't even go to 6th period and go to the bus during lunch time. If you are late, the team waits for you & people get mad (especially the driver and the coach, yep happened to me.) As soon you get to the school where the game is, the Frosh/Soph team plays the Frosh/Soph team of the school. The JV & Varsity team watches and cheers.
In Cross country and track its different because its not a team sport, so there's a bunch of schools on one spot and you just run against like 30-200 other people. And it is really hard to watch XC because the athletes run between 2 and 3 miles on a course, not on a field. Track is the same, but you run laps around a football field, so you can watch it.
At the meets or games or whatever, they sell shirts and stuff. After the last team or athlete competed at the event, they sometimes hand out medals or trophies. Then everyone gets back into the bus (that's often late at night) and the whole team goes to a fast food restaurant (for example In n' out burgers, Panda Express, Jack in the box,..) or some people go to Walmart and get fruits and stuff to eat in the bus. You're actually not supposed to eat or drink in the bus though. The bus seats are not comfortable, Freshmen and Sophomore have to share their seats if there's not enough free spots (which sucks because then you can't even sleep).
To be honest, I think sports in general are way harder here than in Switzerland (or I just practiced the wrong sport there, who knows). You practice every single day during the week except the gamedays and on the weekends you have meets too. So the only day you get off is either saturday or sunday.
You cannot skip practice just because you don't feel like going or you're having a cold. Practices are really hard. You get to your limit every single day. Team spirit is also really important, people push each other, even if they're from another school.
On game days, you wear your jersey's/cheer uniform/whatever or at least your school colors.
The meets in Bakersfield are always hard, because it is about 32 degrees when we're running and you basically die.
At the end of a season, there's a banquet. They'll hand out trophies f.e. biggest progress etc, everyone brings something to eat and they put everything on a table and you just eat together and the coaches say something about every single athlete. You get a diploma and all that stuff.
You do not have to play any sports at the school. There's benefits if you do, but if you don't feel like you don't need to. The benefits are mostly like that you get a bigger locker to put your stuff in, you miss school sometimes and you don't need to make stuff up, you meet a lot of people and make good friends. (The closest friends I have are the ones I met in cross country) and you obviously are fitter and you feel better. Especially if you're an exchange students the last two points are really important, because you're new at the school and its nice to have people to hang out with and you'll also gain some weight.
If you decide to not do any sports after school, you can put a P.E. (=Physical Education) class into your schedule. That's like a sports class in Switzerland, but its a serious work out and you practice every day. My P.E. class is aerobics and sometimes it is really hard, because we work with weights and stuff.
I just realized that I've been typing this little text since about an hour, lol.
Today was the last day of pre-season (which is like conditioning, so they just make the practices really hard so you'll be in shape) of track and it was the first practice I went to, the other ones got cancelled because of the weather. Track and Field is 'Leichtathletik', so you do sprints, jumps, you throw stuff or you run long distances.
Today we did two warm up labs, that's 800 meters. Than we stretched, then we ran another 800 meters. Than we did jumping jacks and all that stuff for like 20 minutes, it was pretty rough and I thought it was the actual work out. Then we started the real practice. We ran 2 times a 100 meter sprint, then we ran 2 times a 400 meter sprint, then two 200 meter sprints, then 2 more 400 meter sprints and then again 2 x 200m and 2 x 100 meters. Between every sprint we had a break of 2 minutes. After the sprints we stretched again. For me, the practice was pretty hard, some of us felt sick and blacked out, one girl threw up. I'm really excited for the season though, because the meets are fun.
Monday, February 13, 2017
Sunday, February 12, 2017
update #18 - spirit week & sadie hawkins
days count: 207
This week we had spirit week at my high school. You basically dress up every day, like animal style on monday, tuesday was tie dye tuesday, wednesday it was crazy hair day, thursday was twin day and friday was color day.
The spirit week was actually because of the battle of the sexes, which was yesterday. Its an assembly, which means we have an assembly day schedule, so every period in very subject is shorter. They are about 47 minutes each, which is pretty short. After 6th period, everyone went to the gym where the actual assembly was. All the girls were on side of the gym and the boys on the other one. The gym was divided into 2 by a wall in the middle of it. It was amazing, every single girl wore pink, all the boys wore blue and the transponders wore white. Everyone had face paint on with their colors.
The battle of the sexes is basically just a huge event in our school where girls compete against the boys in different games. At the beginning its dancing, each gender has a dance group. Then they cheer, the boys started off.
They did a bunch of stunts and I personally think that the boys did way better than the girls.
The girl's show was still really impressive though.
After the cheers, we had a pep rally, that's where it's like about screaming louder than the other group.
Then we did like bottle flip and some games with music.
It was a lot of fun & the girls won.
After the assembly was over, I went home with my host mum, she watched the assembly because my host brother was one of the boy's cheerleaders.
My host cousin & siblings & some friends picked me up & we went to get food.
After that we went to the senior-night varsity basketball game of my high school vs. Bakersfield Ridgeview High.
It was our last game of the year and it was also the first one I ever went to. We lost the game. ¨
On Saturday night we had Sadie Hawkins.
This week we had spirit week at my high school. You basically dress up every day, like animal style on monday, tuesday was tie dye tuesday, wednesday it was crazy hair day, thursday was twin day and friday was color day.
 |
| Tie-dye tuesday w/ my favorite Dane |
The spirit week was actually because of the battle of the sexes, which was yesterday. Its an assembly, which means we have an assembly day schedule, so every period in very subject is shorter. They are about 47 minutes each, which is pretty short. After 6th period, everyone went to the gym where the actual assembly was. All the girls were on side of the gym and the boys on the other one. The gym was divided into 2 by a wall in the middle of it. It was amazing, every single girl wore pink, all the boys wore blue and the transponders wore white. Everyone had face paint on with their colors.
 |
They did a bunch of stunts and I personally think that the boys did way better than the girls.
The girl's show was still really impressive though.
After the cheers, we had a pep rally, that's where it's like about screaming louder than the other group.
Then we did like bottle flip and some games with music.
It was a lot of fun & the girls won.
After the assembly was over, I went home with my host mum, she watched the assembly because my host brother was one of the boy's cheerleaders.
My host cousin & siblings & some friends picked me up & we went to get food.
After that we went to the senior-night varsity basketball game of my high school vs. Bakersfield Ridgeview High.
It was our last game of the year and it was also the first one I ever went to. We lost the game. ¨
On Saturday night we had Sadie Hawkins.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Things that seem strange in America if you grew up in Europe
So I felt like its time to post something like this again. I've been here for almost seven months now and I can relate to all the following things.
24 hour stores:
When I first got here, I was really confused when my host mum took me shopping to a mall on a sunday. Basically every store is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
No cash:
People never use cash to pay anything, except if it's like a little kid. But in America, you actually only use your master card or whatever, no matter what you're buying. Even if it's just a cookie or something.
No metric system:
America doesn't use the metric system like we do, they have ounces, miles, fahrenheit and all that stuff. People told me that they wish they'd use our system. Its really confusing.
Weird food combinations:
People here dip their fries in their milkshakes when we're at in n' out burgers or any fast food restaurant. It's strange to me, I tried it once, but I cannot relate why they do that. That's not the only weird combination though.
Greetings:
Every time I'm in a store, the clerks say "How are you", but its not meant as a question, its the American way to say hi. Your response is basically just "I'm good, how are you?", no matter how you're actually feeling.
Drinks:
First of all, the drinking age here is 21, which seems weird to me because I'm sixteen and able to buy alcohol in my home country. Its normal to drink a lot of soda (like coke, sprite, dr pepper,…) here and to put tons of ice into the cups. You get free refills everywhere and you never have to pay for water.
Tipping/Taxes:
You always need to pay people in restaurants that serve you extra. Like, you pay them for doing their job and it doesn't say how much it has to be on the recipe.
Same thing with taxes, you don't pay the price it says on the sign, at the checkout its always a different price and it freaking confuses me.
Coins:
Every coin has a different name, for example the 10 cent coin is called dime, but it has a smaller size than a five cent coin which is called nickle. And the dollar bills look basically all the same.
Clothing:
People wear workout clothes even if they're not at the gym, flip flops even though they're not at the beach and they go to stores in their pajamas. It seemed strange to me, but now I'm doing it as well.
Patriotism:
The American flag is literally everywhere. In every single classroom, on almost every house and on many bars. They sing the national anthem before every football game and say the pledge of allegiance every morning in school. Big difference to europe, I feel like we need more patriotism.
Pets:
I feel like everyone has at least one pet, many people have dogs and cats. What's strange to me, is that they don't walk their dogs. Most of them live in the backyards of people's houses.
I hope you guys don't get me wrong, those are just some cultural things that I wasn't used to until a few months ago. Europe must also seem really strange to Americans (f.e. paying for going to a public bathroom, no refills,..)
24 hour stores:
When I first got here, I was really confused when my host mum took me shopping to a mall on a sunday. Basically every store is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
No cash:
People never use cash to pay anything, except if it's like a little kid. But in America, you actually only use your master card or whatever, no matter what you're buying. Even if it's just a cookie or something.
No metric system:
America doesn't use the metric system like we do, they have ounces, miles, fahrenheit and all that stuff. People told me that they wish they'd use our system. Its really confusing.
Weird food combinations:
People here dip their fries in their milkshakes when we're at in n' out burgers or any fast food restaurant. It's strange to me, I tried it once, but I cannot relate why they do that. That's not the only weird combination though.
Greetings:
Every time I'm in a store, the clerks say "How are you", but its not meant as a question, its the American way to say hi. Your response is basically just "I'm good, how are you?", no matter how you're actually feeling.
Drinks:
First of all, the drinking age here is 21, which seems weird to me because I'm sixteen and able to buy alcohol in my home country. Its normal to drink a lot of soda (like coke, sprite, dr pepper,…) here and to put tons of ice into the cups. You get free refills everywhere and you never have to pay for water.
Tipping/Taxes:
You always need to pay people in restaurants that serve you extra. Like, you pay them for doing their job and it doesn't say how much it has to be on the recipe.
Same thing with taxes, you don't pay the price it says on the sign, at the checkout its always a different price and it freaking confuses me.
Coins:
Every coin has a different name, for example the 10 cent coin is called dime, but it has a smaller size than a five cent coin which is called nickle. And the dollar bills look basically all the same.
Clothing:
People wear workout clothes even if they're not at the gym, flip flops even though they're not at the beach and they go to stores in their pajamas. It seemed strange to me, but now I'm doing it as well.
Patriotism:
The American flag is literally everywhere. In every single classroom, on almost every house and on many bars. They sing the national anthem before every football game and say the pledge of allegiance every morning in school. Big difference to europe, I feel like we need more patriotism.
Pets:
I feel like everyone has at least one pet, many people have dogs and cats. What's strange to me, is that they don't walk their dogs. Most of them live in the backyards of people's houses.
I hope you guys don't get me wrong, those are just some cultural things that I wasn't used to until a few months ago. Europe must also seem really strange to Americans (f.e. paying for going to a public bathroom, no refills,..)
update #17 - super bowl
days count: 202
Its been a while since the last update I guess, like exactly a month. I just needed a break, I went home to Switzerland (you're actually not supposed to go back during your year abroad with EF, I had some private issues). The flight was kind of long, but it was fine.
The past week was hard because I had to get used to the time difference and to school, have to make up a lot of work and just get into it again. Its also way warmer here than back home, its between 15 and 20 degrees Celcius every single day, two weeks ago there was still snow and now we're going to school in t-shirts and some people even wear shorts. So I left all my winter clothes at home.
The weekend we watched the super bowl. That's like the final game of this year's football season in the United States. It was the New England Patriots against Atlanta's Falcons.
We went to some friend's house and watched it there and ate lots of food.
This week we're having spirit week at my high school, which means we have a new topic every day and we all dress the same. Its almost like homecoming week. On saturday there's a dance called Sadie Hawkins.
I asked my best American guy friend to go to Sadies with me. Its a dance where the girl picks a guy and then you wear matching shirts. I think it will be fun. Prom is coming up too, so we're already looking for dresses.
The following week, Selina is gonna come here again because we're having a four day weekend and a few days after there's the Las Vegas/Grand Canyon trip.
Its been a while since the last update I guess, like exactly a month. I just needed a break, I went home to Switzerland (you're actually not supposed to go back during your year abroad with EF, I had some private issues). The flight was kind of long, but it was fine.
The past week was hard because I had to get used to the time difference and to school, have to make up a lot of work and just get into it again. Its also way warmer here than back home, its between 15 and 20 degrees Celcius every single day, two weeks ago there was still snow and now we're going to school in t-shirts and some people even wear shorts. So I left all my winter clothes at home.
The weekend we watched the super bowl. That's like the final game of this year's football season in the United States. It was the New England Patriots against Atlanta's Falcons.
We went to some friend's house and watched it there and ate lots of food.
This week we're having spirit week at my high school, which means we have a new topic every day and we all dress the same. Its almost like homecoming week. On saturday there's a dance called Sadie Hawkins.
 |
I asked my best American guy friend to go to Sadies with me. Its a dance where the girl picks a guy and then you wear matching shirts. I think it will be fun. Prom is coming up too, so we're already looking for dresses.
The following week, Selina is gonna come here again because we're having a four day weekend and a few days after there's the Las Vegas/Grand Canyon trip.
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