New to This Town

Today we have a foreign exchange student here from London. I was excited to know that we would be having someone from a different country attend our school for a couple of days. As part of the welcoming committee, it was my duty to make sure that he felt comfortable, knew the school, and was introduced to everyone. In this process, I had to interview him as well, for the school newspaper. I had a lot on my plate and so I introduced myself. He told me his name was Jonathan Ordine. His accent was quite fascinating to me. I had always tried to sound English, but I never knew if it was quite right. And I did not want it to seem as if I was mocking him, so I just spoke in my regular voice.

I asked him what is it like living in London. From what I had been told, the school system is quite different there. They do not have grades like us. I asked him if they had to wear uniforms at the schools he went to. He said yes they did and he was quite surprised to know that American schools allow the kids to wear casual clothing everyday. I was not surprised by his response because we are the only country in the world that has free dress clothes. There were so many questions to ask, so little time. My article needed to wait because he needed to know his way around the school.