Exchange students work both ways!

Last night I was at a casino, Indian Casinos work in weird ways, and I met a Korean college student that was studying in the USA for a year. It was interesting because my daughter is planning on studying in a Korean school, Yonsei, next summer and fall quarters. University of California, all campuses, has an exchange agreement with Yonesi, one of the top schools in Korea, that the students can study at the partnership school, qualifying automatically. Both of my oldest daughters have talked about it, but the second one will actually do it this year. My kids are fluent in Korean, which is not common for Americans, and she will take classes presented in the native language as well as the usual classes given to Americans in English. I was familiar with the program that had kids from the States that went to Korea, and I'm very familiar with Koreans coming her for graduate school. But, this is the first time I found a Korean exchange student that came here for a year to study at the UC. He was a very nice guy and a good representative of Korea, I hope my the same can be said about my daughter when she goes over there. Best of luck Jayne!

Oh, I need to comment about Sarah's grades. Sarah is a great student, and just a nice kid. She is very helpful in her classes and in 5th grade her school started a new award, and she was the first recipient. It was a little funny when she got the award at the awards ceremony. Every student knew the top award and when it was announced we thought Sarah would receive it. The principal had personally called her Mom and I and asked that we attend the ceremony. We waited all through the ceremony and Sarah received the same awards she always did, for all the students that got top scholastic honors, and all the students that got special recognition for other things. I had presumed that Sarah would receive a special award because it was the first time I was called to attend this schools awards ceremony. When the "last" award for the top student in 5th grade was awarded they called up "Sarah", but a different last name. I had my video camera going and panned to my daughter, and her face kind of fell because it wasn't her name that was called. Sarah W. went up and received the award and we were all happy for her, she is a family friend. Then everyone started to shuffle around, getting ready to go home, and the principal came on the microphone and announced one new award for the school. It was an award they had started for the top student in the school, not just the fifth grade. OK, here we go, is what I was thinking. I had the video going and was listening as they were talking about Sarah. I was proud when they said "every teacher wishes they had 30 Sarahs in their class, she is that good". It was a very important moment in my life. The next year I was talking to Sarah's English teacher and was amazed that she used the exact same phrase about my daughter, "Sarah is such a good student that I wish I had 30 of her in the class". All through middle school Sarah got straight As. She almost had a B in her first quarter of her sixth grade in band, then she went to go talk to him and he changed it to an A. Middle school was good, but not as important as high school. The quarter grades came out and Sarah had a B+ in Honors Geometry. She wasn't worried about it because she was sure that she could bring it up. As the quarter progressed she was happy to keep the B+. Semester grades are what is officially posted and when those came out she had an 87%, B+. She was upset during the Winter break because she had gotten a B in only that class, in Honors English she had a 100%, but that didn't help with the B+ in Honor Geometry. Then the second day after school started in January I was looking at her grade and she had an 87%, A-. I was excited about it and called her, I asked her if she had talked to the teacher, like she had her Band teacher in 6th grade. She hadn't seen her new grade, and the looked at in on line and was very excited herself. She had no idea that teacher had changed her grade to an A. Sarah is back on track and I personally think Stanford should reserve a slot for her right now. (in the video notice the lady on the other side of the students from me, in the green sweater, that is my kid's mom (I don't often refer to her as my ex-wife)