Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Goodbye

All the preparation is completed and tomorrow is the day of departure. I have filled my bags to the absolute maximum!













During the last few days, I have tried to see as many of my friends of possible; friends that I will miss a lot! On Sunday, I invited a few friends over for pizza and we had a really great evening! We also managed to play some soccer the 10 of us.









           Here we are playing a game called Risk.







In the last few days, I have also visited my grandparents in Jönköping. I went there directly from work and stayed there one night. They had prepared a really great dinner. 







Later the same day, we went for a swim. It was quite cold, but grandma didn't mind as you can see.




















                Saying goodbye to my lovely sister, Klara <3


Now, the final night in Sweden, I am staying at my cousins' in Uppsala and on the way here, I managed to see my two other grandparents, my little brother and my three other cousins. It was nice to see all of them one more time before I leave.




This is from today, when we went to a brilliant, Italian restaurant.


14 hours left in Sweden... The feelings are kind of mixed; sad because I have to leave so many great people, friends, family here in Sweden, but excited about everything that awaits in the states.  

My posts from now on will mainly consist of pictures, because I think that is the thing most people want to see and because I am probably going to be to busy to write a lot all the time.

I will keep you updated! You can expect some pictures from Boston!


Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Acceptance Letter Contest

Hey,

Today, it is exactly two weeks until I leave home for my year at Fountain Valley School of Colorado!

The school have arranged a little contest for the new students and they just posted my submission to the competition on the school's Facebook page.

Click on this link to check it out! --> MY PHOTO



Saturday, June 14, 2014

It is getting closer

This morning, I woke up early to take the train to the capital to attend ASSIST’s pre-departure meeting. Justin van Dyke, Outreach Officer at New York University Abu Dhabi, started the meeting by presenting the unique opportunity that NYU Abu Dhabi offers. After that, we had a conversation with the ASSIST scholars, who just returned from their year in the US. They talked about their experience and gave us some tips how to make the best out of our next year.

As of today, it is less than 60(!!) days until my departure to the US. The flight is scheduled on the 13th of August, from Gothenburg to Stockholm and thence to Boston with a stopover in Reykjavik.

About three weeks ago, I received an email from Kila McCann, Head of Admission at Fountain Valley School of Colorado ( http://www.fvs.edu/ ) , inviting me to a Skype interview. Days later, I received the information that I was admitted to the 11th grade as a boarding student. However, I really wanted to attend the 12th grade and after a few emails and phone calls, I successfully convinced the school administration to make this change. So if you really want something, you should always try! If you do not, you cannot succeed!



Fountain Valley School of Colorado




Fountain Valley School of Colorado was established in 1930 and is a co-educational independent college preparatory school, with an enrollment of about 260 students. The school is located outside of Colorado Springs at about 1800 meters above sea level and it´s campus includes an area of 4,5 km2 at the base of the Rocky Mountains. The school seems absolutely perfect! ASSIST has made a very impressive work, coordinating all the students with suitable schools.


Since Wednesday, I have summer break. During the break, I am going to work a few weeks in the local ice cream cafe, but I am of course also going to relax and enjoy the summer with my friends and family.


I am very excited to meet all ASSIST scholars in Boston and to my year in Colorado!


See you all soon!


Oskar

Friday, March 28, 2014

My first blog post

Hey everyone!


This is my first post on this blog, even my very first blog post ever, to be honest. I am going to give you some background information why I am writing this blog, but first let me introduce myself.

My name is Oskar Christiansen and I am an eighteen-year-old high school student from Sweden. I live in Alingsås, a small city located in the south-western part of Sweden. Alingsås is close to Gothenburg, Sweden´s second largest city. I attend Lerums Gymnasium, a school located between Alingsås and Gothenburg. My studies are focused on science with mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology as major courses, but civics, Spanish, English and Swedish are important as well.

This is a picture of my school, Lerums Gymnasium.

In addition to my family, friends are very important to me. I want to be trusted by people around me and therefore I always do my utmost to keep my promises. I enjoy being around people and I engage myself and bring my friends along to make things happen. In my spare time I love to spend time with my friends. I also like to exercise and I have practiced several team sports since my early years. I started to play soccer and ice-hockey at the age of five. As I got older, I decided to focus on ice hockey. Two years ago, some friends from my hockey team and I did what many Swedish hockey players do; instead of playing hockey, we joined a floorball club. Basically, floorball is like a version of ice hockey where there is no ice and you have a plastic ball instead of the puck. On the weekends, I work as an ice-hockey referee. I like it a lot! It is an opportunity to be a part of the hockey community even if I do not play myself anymore.

I have got three brothers and sisters; one monozygotic twin brother, one eleven-year-old brother and one six-year-old sister. My sister Klara likes to dance, ride horses and to play the violin. My younger brother Arvid is a very active person and likes sports just as much as I do. He plays table tennis and soccer. My twin brother Filip works at a gym parallel to his high-school studies. At the gym he takes care of the children during the time their parents are exercising.

I have to tell you the reason of me writing this blog. About a year ago, I started thinking about studying a year abroad. Until this fall, it was just thoughts, but in November I put my thoughts into action. I applied for ASSIST scholarship, Rotary´s youth exchange and The Swedish Council for Higher Education´s (Universitets- och högskolerådet) exchange program.  It required a lot of paper work. One application alone was almost thirty pages long. After submitting the applications I was invited to an interview by all three organizations. The interviews for ASSIST and UHR were in Stockholm and for Rotary there were an interview in my living room and a first meeting with the other students who had passed the interview in Gothenburg. Then all of a sudden I was offered a place on all three of them and I had to decide within a week. ASSIST to a boarding school in the US, Rotary to a family in a suburb twenty minutes from the downtown of Sydney or UHR to a family in Spain. It really was a tough decision, but eventually I chose ASSIST.

And this is where I am now. I have chosen to be a part of the organization ASSIST, and it feels great. I am going to spend a year at one of America´s finest boarding schools. I will most likely get my placement decision at a school in the end of April.



These are all the possible schools on which I might be placed. 

ASSIST is a global, non-profit organization founded in 1969 by Paul G. Sanderson Jr. and is based in the US. Its purpose is to promote education and networking between people from different countries, to increase cultural and religious understanding and reduce the risk of conflicts between countries (for more information visit www.assist-inc.org). Every year there are about 1700 applicants worldwide, of whom 85 are getting a full scholarship, and I was one of the lucky ones. A full scholarship means that the boarding school, to which you are accepted, are offering you the tutorial and accommodation costs for free. The selection was based on academic performance, language skills and an interview with Mr. Jack Eidam, one of ASSISTs representatives from the United States.


Finally, I want to thank Lars Körner, the team manager for a youth ice hockey team whose game I referee; Hanna Källberg, my class superintendent, English, Swedish and Music teacher during the last years in elementary school; Nicola Macdonald, my German teacher in the elementary school; Gunnilla Wallin Nyman, my class superintendent and Swedish teacher at my current school; Sandra Stenhede, my English and Spanish teacher and finally, Christiana Söderman, my headmaster. I want to thank you all for your great letters of recommendation! They helped me get the scholarships and they were really nice to read.

This blog post became much more extensive than I had planned. I can promise you my future post won't be this long. 

Thank you for reading!