Hello,

my name is Tom. I am currently 16 years old and live in a city in the Northern part of Germany with both my parents and my big brother, who is older.

My home town is a very beautiful, family-friendly city and has around 160.000 inhabitants. The city is close to the North-Sea coast.

My mother is a physical-therapist. She is also a Bobath therapist and works with children with neurological diseases. She is currently doing further training to become a teaching therapist. I think it's great that she always wants to develop professionally. My father is the managing director of a trading company. He travels a lot for work and is often abroad in Asia, Africa, America and Poland. When he was 21 years, he lived in Washington State for 1.5 years and went to college there.

My mother's parents live not far from us. That's why we can see each other often. I can't see my father's parents that often because they live a bit further away. Overall, I have a large family circle with an uncle and two aunts, their partners and a total of 6 cousins. We always meet up for family celebrations. It's always nice when we're all together.

My brother can now get his driver's license. He goes to the same school as me, in the 12th grade. 2 years ago he also did a year of high school. He was in New York State. He had a great time! At the end of that time we visited him and went on a tour with him from New York to Boston, than to Buffalo and the Niagara Falls and we ended up at the Finger Lakes. That was a great trip. I was able to get a good insight into American culture. I was very impressed by the size of the country.

I'm currently in the 10th grade of an integrated comprehensive school. Here I attend a profile class, the wind instrument class. Our class has been playing together in a class orchestra since the 5th grade. I play the clarinet. My parents persuaded me to go to the music class. At first I wasn't so enthusiastic. But then I really enjoyed it and I made great friends.

The school is very big. We have around 1.300 students. An integrated comprehensive school is a school where secondary school students, middle school students and high school students go together in the same classes. That's great because we can all learn from each other, we support each other and our teachers teach us to work independently. My favorite subjects are sports and math. I love playing sports. Especially basketball and soccer. I've been playing basketball for about half a year in a club. At the moment I'm practising a lot because I really want to get better. I've been playing soccer in a club since I was 6. I also played for our city in a selection team for 2 years. That was a great experience. But I enjoy playing basketball much more at the moment, which is why I spend as much time as possible on the sports field.

I would generally describe myself as a tidy and structured boy. I like it when my room is tidy and neat. Most of the time. In my free time I like to meet up with my friends and often go out with them. We like to play basketball together, go to the cinema, or watch basketball games. In summer we often cycle to the lake to go swimming. In my home town people generally cycle a lot. That is my main means of transport. In my free time I like to be out in nature. I go on lots of trips with my family, cycling by the sea and hiking in the mountains.

My grandparents have a holiday home at the North Sea. We usually spend our summer holidays there. In spring we always go out with friends near Freiburg and Tittisee Neustadt, in the Black Forest. My father is in a fraternity and they have a great old cabin in the middle of the forest that we rent with friends. It's really fun. Campfires, hikes, cooking together and going on trips.

Like almost every 16-year-old boy, I also love playing computer games, listening to music and enjoy to chill out. Due to the experiences of my father and brother and the many great stories and experiences they had during their time in the USA, I have now decided to apply for a high school year in the USA. I think it's great that there are many families who are willing to take in a guest student for a year. It took me a bit of courage to decide on this program because I have a great group of friends that I will definitely miss a lot. I will also definitely miss my family a lot. Nevertheless, I am really looking forward to spend my time in such a program to make a lot of great experiences. But I am also very curious to see how long it will take until I can communicate well with my guest family. I am a little nervous about that, but I am also very confident that it will quickly become easy for me.

Now you know me a bit better!!

Greeting

Interested in hosting—whether 6-8 weeks or the entire school year?