I always see international student exchange programs advertised in magazines, and our local chapter of the Rotary Club is trying to recruit high school students to participate.

I’d like to step in and help out with my own testimonial.  When I was sixteen, I spent a semester in Barcelona.  For a young, introverted, conservative girl who had never been outside of the country before, it was a life-changing experience.  Allow me to share some entries from the journal I kept while I was attending the American School of Barcelona in 1985:

JANUARY 16
Today was my first day of school in Barcelona.  I was so excited!  I hoped to make lots of friends.  I made sure I had all my school supplies and got there early so I could find my way around.  A bunch of kids were hanging out in front of the building, smoking cigarettes.  One of them turned out to be the Drama teacher.  He curses a lot.

My first class was Philosophy.  One of the students, Ramiz, called Mr. Thompson an ugly word.  Mr. Thompson punched him in the face.  I was horrified, but the other students just laughed and went back to sleep.  My Literature teacher, Mrs. Lavin, roared up on her motorcycle five minutes late for class.  The Drama teacher, who refused to tell us his name, kept drinking something out of a paper bag all during class and told us we were a bunch of untalented losers who would never amount to anything.  At lunch, I went out to sit on the lawn, and the gardener yelled at me and sprayed me with the hose.

OK, so I had a bad first day.  Maybe things will be better tomorrow. 

JANUARY 20
I stayed up all night working on my monologue for Drama class.  I was the only one who had done the assignment.  When I handed it to the nameless teacher, he told me the texture of the paper was giving him a bad vibe and tossed it into the kerosene heater.  There are kerosene heaters everywhere because this building has no central heating system.  The smell is making me sick. 

Ramiz lit up a cigarette during Philosophy class.  Mr. Thompson grabbed it and put it out on Ramiz’s forehead.  I spent the whole class trying to be invisible.  I think Mr. Thompson is the devil. 

FEBRUARY 1
Literature class started late because no one could find Mrs. Lavin.  Finally the gym teacher found her under the stairwell, making out with one of the students.  No one thought that was a problem.  I think the kerosene fumes are affecting my brain because I actually thought that was kind of romantic.  I was the only one who showed up for Drama class.  Mr. Nameless offered me a sip of something from the paper-bag bottle he always drinks from.  “Take a big swallow,” he said.  I did. That was three hours ago, and my esophagus is still on fire. 

FEBRUARY 10
It occurred to me that this school should have a principal.  I asked around.  It doesn’t.

FEBRUARY 15
Showed up for Drama class, and Mr. Nameless gave me some money and told me to take the bus into town and buy him a bottle of rum.  On my way back, Mrs. Lavin almost ran over me on her motorcycle in her haste to get back to the school before anyone noticed she was gone.  The gardener turned the hose on me again when I tried to take a short cut across the lawn.  Mr. Thompson threw a book at Ramiz, who ducked, and the book hit me instead.  I’ve developed a facial tic. I spent gym class hiding in the bushes drawing an obscene tattoo on my arm with permanent markers I stole from the art room.  I wound up showing the tattoo to the art teacher before heading home.  He gave me an “A.” 

FEBRUARY 17
I showed up for school without any homework.  No one asked for it.  During lunch, Ramiz asked me to light his cigarette – it’s kind of hard for him to work a lighter since Mr. Thompson put his arm in a sling.  Ramiz asked me if I wanted to try smoking.  I said, sure, why not?  When I came to, Ramiz told me not to inhale so hard next time.

FEBRUARY 18
Mrs. Lavin didn’t show up to teach Literature today.  I went to the drama classroom and played Quarters with Mr. No-Name. 

MARCH 10
Spent the morning lying on the basketball court with Ramiz, staring up at the sky and debating over whether God wears a hat.  Had to leave when the gym teacher showed up with his class and needed the court.  Decided to attend Philosophy Class.  Decided against it when I walked into the classroom just in time to see Mr. Thompson throw Ramiz’s desk across the room.  Unfortunately, Ramiz was still in it.  Sat in the library for a couple of hours drinking hot chocolate spiked with rum and watching a couple of the guys take books off the shelves and feed them to the kerosene heater.  Got bored and headed home around 2pm. 

SEPTEMBER 8
Today was my first day back at school in North Carolina, and boy, am I mad.  I have to repeat most of the classes I took at the Barcelona school because no one can find any record of any grades I received at that school.  (Except for an “A” in Art class, and I can’t even remember what that grade was for.)  I have to take Algebra again, even though I could have sworn I took Algebra in Barcelona.  Or was that the science class?  It had something to do with numbers.  I can’t even get credit in Spanish, even though I rattled off all the great curse words I learned when I was over there.

Oh well.  It was a great experience.  I’d love to do a presentation to the Rotary Club and show them the real tattoos I wound up getting and my newly acquired skill of rolling my own cigarettes.  But for some reason, they’re not returning my calls.

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