高雄市復華中學 顏維中
The ten months that I spent in England were fantastic,it has been the best ten months that I’ve experienced so far, I got to see the four seasons change dramatically,the blistering hot sun, the redden, then fall of the leaves during autumn, the graceful dances of snowflakes during winter (occasionally, some nasty hail storms with the size of a soybean, that just chips the tip of your ear, and make you scream “Owwwww!”), then finally, watch song birds sing along with the arrival of spring. The moment I got off the plane, I was in such an awkward state, where I’ve complete lost appetite of every edible object in sight. When I arrived to my host family, they welcomed me with a very warm hug, and the we had late dinner to welcome the new “family member”. At first, my stomach was in a switch off state (to be honest, 17 hours of airplane economy class food isn’t the best thing in life) , but when they started to serve English style roast mint lamb, “whoa mama!” , it was complete bliss! It was fantastically groovy! On that very fist night in England, I had four portions of English lamb and mint, three chunks of mashed potatoes, which is my best personal record! My host family was wonderful. To me, they were like my English relatives (well, they’re mainly half Indian and Kashmir, but they do have a beautiful and well spoken English accent),we had such great times together, and we really did have loads of crazy times, and that includes “every” family member of the house. Shireen, the mother of the house, she’s such a great cook (her parents also cook wonderful food),she works at a sports and health development center, so for some reason, she always knows how to work that fat belly of mine into a “semisix pack”. In her house, no one is ever to be obese and unfit, she just seems to find a way to get your calories burning. She is my host mom, and she’s done a great job! Then there is Omar, my “semibrother” in England, we had weird and wonderful times together, we use to strum the guitar and make noises in the neighborhood until no one can stand us, he is my new big bro, which is quite coo, because I always wanted a bigger brother, not to mention cause I’m the only child of our family… School life in England was great, when you reach year 12 (which the students have an average age of 16) ,you get to pick four of your favorite subjects, according to your career plans in the future, which is quite cool, then all you do during the weekdays is study hard, but not in a mood full of loathe and irritation, which is great, because we often meet each other during free times, and then start up a little study group. For some subjects, they will ask you to travel to somewhere with the school, where school work research is needed, places that aren’t too dull, but somewhere like Barcelona, Paris, Rome…etc., pretty cool, huh ? Then we all go out for our friend’s birthday parties, or just chill out at home during the weekends. My classmates were quite nice, they welcomed me to their school by shaking hands and LOADS of hugs,there I met new friends and had a complete new attitude towards life.There 10 months soon swished by all of us in a blink of an eye, until now I still miss all of my friends in England, although we still contact each other by email. Hopefully, some day, I’ll get the chance to go back and say: “hey folks, miss me?”
