First day of School

First day of school. A day for many students extremely nervous and full of awkward moments. Especially, if the student is new at his school. Well, this description does correspond to my first day of school just in a few things. Of course, I was nervous when first time crossing the "Commons" hall overcrowded mostly with noisy laughing students and a bunch of decently smiling teachers. I decided to take these classes:

World History
Economics
Uniqueness of Christianity
Discrete Math/Statistics
Honours Spanish
Psychology
English

So far, my favourite one is World History. We learnt about cultural differences. Besides me, there is another international student from China, so it is quite interesting to see how are these countries different.

Amusement Park

V nedeľu ma moja host rodina pozvala do Amusement Parku. Tušil som, že čo to asi bude, ale fakt som nečakal, niečo až tak veľké. Pre tých, ktorí netušia, čo to je, je to areál plný kolotočov. Asi najväčšou atrakciou sú roller coasters. Sú to dráhy s "vozíkmi", ktoré idú veľmi rýchlo. Máte pocit, že z vozíka idete vypadnúť. Často trať vedie "up side down", a keďže som to netušil, tak mi skoro vypadli veci z vreciek. Chcel som natočiť video z roller coaster-a, ale stále som si nekúpil foťák. Dúfam, že tam ešte pôjdeme aj s kamerou kým to zatvoria. Zatiaľ len fotky. Ešte jedna vec, ak pôjdete do anglicky hovoriacej krajiny, nedávajte nikomu tričko BRA-TIS-LAVA. Radšej im dajte klasické I LOVE BRATISLAVA. (ja som si to pri kupovaní neuvedomil: bra znamená podprsenka a všetci sa nás divne pozerali :))

Way up here

Cestujem spolu so Simonou a Alenkou. Najskôr letíme z Budapešti do Amsterdamu, kde prestupujeme a letíme až do Minneapolisu, kde si nás vyzdvihnú naše host rodiny.

Lietadlo, ktoré nás viezlo trasu Budapešť - Amsterdam štartovalo už 6:15 ráno. Ak od tohto času odpočítam čas, ktorý je pasažier povinný stráviť na letisku pred odletom (cca 2 hodiny) plus čas, za ktorý sa autom dopravíme z Bratislavy do Budapešti (cca 1,5 hodiny) a ešte k tomu pripočítam rezervný čas pre prípad dopravnej špičky (ktorá v tomto čase samozrejme nie je :-)) - 1 hodina, tak dostanem jednoduchú rovnicu, ktorá mi povie, kedy musím z domu vyštartovať, aby som lietadlo stihol:

6:15 - (2+1,5+1) = 1:45

Na letisku som sa stretol so Simonou, Alenkou + všetkými rodičmi (poprípade súrodencami, ktorí si chceli byť na 100% istý, že dotyčný (S.M.) naozaj odletí). Po dojímavom lúčení sme sa svorne vybrali pred skenery kovov. Ja som sa celú cestu usmieval a vôbec som nevedel prečo. Ako inak, mal som znovu šťastie a začal som pípať. Neviem ani prečo, ale aj napriek tomu, že kontrola kovov bola "vážna" chvíľa, začal som sa potichu smiať. Policajt si to všimol a začal ma kontrolovať ešte oveľa dôkladnejšie a kovovou "tyčkou" skontroloval naozaj všetko. V Amsterdame nás kontrolovali nejaký americkí agenti a vypytovali sa fakt hovadiny. Samozrejme, na všetko sme veľmi múdro a pravdivo odpovedali:

Agent: "Tašku si si balil sám?"

Ja: "Samozrejme" :-) (...vtipné to je, pretože chalani v mojom veku si tašky nikdy nebalia sami...)

Cestou som sa skamarátil s jednou letuškou. Máme sa stretnúť na State Fair (o tom v ďalších príspevkoch). Na letisku nás čakal Scott s našimi host rodinami. Moja si pripravila cool poster, aby som ich spoznal. To bolo fajn, lebo po toľkých stresoch z vypisovania rôznych dokumentov by som si asi ani Scotta nevšimol.

Alexander the Great

In the next few posts I am going to write about my great trip to Minneapolis (MN, USA). Just to introduce this "trip" a bit:

In late February C.S.Lewis announced to all sophomores and juniors that there is a possibility of getting a scholarship at Minnehaha Academy (shortcut: MA), a private Christian school in Minneapolis (MN, USA). I was kind of obsessed with getting there. Finally, I was offered to study there. MA has a partnership with C.S.Lewis and every year gives opportunity to a few students from Slovakia to study there and experience different culture.

With a huge help from my friends Jano Horvath, Hanka Butorova and my father I managed to get this scholarship. I had to write a letter of motivation in which I was supposed to express my interests in studying at MA. If you are interested, you can read it here:

Letter of motivation

Studying abroad at a prestigious school was always my crucial target during high school and I consider Minnehaha Academy an appropriate candidate to fulfill this aim.

First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Andrej Hano. I have lived in Bratislava all my life. I maintain Christian values similar to those which MA asserts. I believe education broadens my horizons and for that reason I take advantage of every opportunity I get, to educate and train myself in different fields of curricular and extracurricular studies. I currently participate in educative, sport and volunteering activities.

My key educative activity is the debate club. It elaborates my argumentation and presentation skills, lowers stage fright, teaches me how to work under pressure and supports creative thinking. My team has even advanced to the National round of debating competition. Apart from educative activities I also participate in a lot of sports. I am an enthusiastic runner, cyclist and ping-pong player and I want to continue with sports on MA. My extracurricular activities also consist of active volunteering. I participate on a great Roma-adaptation project whose aim is to support talented Roma children via activities which develop their characters and skills. At the same time I tutor a child from socially disadvantaged and broken family. I also lead an airplane craft club where I teach pupils the art of modeling wooden airplanes.

 I believe Minnehaha Academy will offer me a high quality education therefore I am determined to study there.  I will also acquaint myself with the ability of being on my own abroad. Sooner or later I will have to become self-sufficient and this is a great challenge since I have never been abroad for a longer period. Beside from that, I want to improve my skills in colloquial English.

In addition, I am looking forward to getting to know American Culture that will certainly enrich my knowledge. Living in the U.S. for a period of 6 months will reveal another point of view on lifestyle and culture; therefore I can distinguish cultural differences between Slovakia and the U.S.

So how will I be able to use gained skills end experiences from MA in Bilgym and in my life? I expect this scholarship will help me to improve in activities I participate in. For example I will see how national and ethnical problems are solved in U.S. and I will try to get inspiration for the Roma-adaptation project I take part in.

Furthermore, I plan to attend the debate club in MA in order to learn new debating techniques, be inspired by debaters and get to know the British debating system that is practiced there. With my new gained skills I will be able to move my Bilgym team forward. I also intend to focus on other afterschool activities at MA as I know afterschool activities are more developed in U.S. In MA I would like to attend the diversity club and the Amnesty International club to gain inspiration so I can potentially establish any of them in Bilgym.

            After graduating high school I want to study abroad at some prestigious university, preferably in the U.S. or the U.K. I take this scholarship at MA as training for staying at a foreign university. My preference for future employment is working in diplomatic services or in international institution dealing with bilateral affairs. Living in a country with a different culture for a specific period will make me be more capable of understanding and solving problems in diplomatic matters.

Sincerely,

Andrej Hano

So this is how I got to America. Chapter 1 finished :-) I will tell you more details about my way here in next few posts.

Romulus and Remus

Hi you all,

welcome to my blog. While reading this blog you are definitely going to experience interesting stuff, learn things you might have never learnt before or just get informed in a more detailed way about my life and what am I doing and where am I staying at that particular moment. I will always try not to let my blog deserted. Everyone is free (and welcome) to comment. I am really looking forward to discussing topics with you! I am going to post photos and other materials that might help you understand and feel at least a bit of situations a will be in.

Andrej