Burnett State College Awards Night

Op donderdag 28 oktober 2010 was ik de 'guest speaker' op de 'Awards Night' van mijn school. Omwille van de massa positieve reacties heb ik besloten om mijn speech dus ook maar op mijn blog te posten. Veel leesplezier!


Good evening everyone. As most of you probably know I’m Eva Clerix. I’m a Rotary exchange student from Belgium and I will be in Gayndah for a whole year.

First I want to thank mister Munson for asking me to be the guest speaker tonight. I’m very pleased to be here, especially because this is the first awards night I’ve ever been to. We didn’t have anything like this at my school in Belgium, and I don’t think any other school in Belgium has anything like an awards night.

Some of you are probably wondering why I’m spending a year in such a small town as Gayndah. Well, there is actually a special reason for this. In Belgium, I live in the town called “Zonhoven”. Zonhoven is as you might know Gayndah’s sister city. In 2009 there was 20 years of friendship between Zonhoven and Gayndah, and to celebrate this anniversary Zonhoven decided to try to organise a direct student exchange with Gayndah. It took a long time before they actually succeeded, even with the help of the Rotary Club of Zonhoven.

In December 2009 the Rotary Club sent letters to all the teenagers in Zonhoven who were born in 1992. The letter explained the whole situation and told us that we could participate in a competition to win this exchange. You had to send an e-mail with a text explaining why you wanted to go to Australia for a year. There were three girls who sent an e-mail, and we all had to have an interview together with our parents with some of the Rotarians. After that, the Rotary Club made their difficult decision and they chose me. The Rotary Club of Zonhoven payed for all the documentation costs and my airplane tickets while the council of Zonhoven gave me some spending money.

When I first read the competition letter, I told my dad that I didn’t really want to do it, because I would have to wait an extra year before going to university. Luckily my mum said to me that it was the chance of a life-time. Because she was so enthusiastic about the whole project, I started thinking about it... and I never stopped thinking about it. Even before I actually knew that I was the lucky one who was going to Australia, I was already thinking about things like a farewell party.

Ten months after I got that letter, I’m still very grateful that my mum encouraged me to try it. It’s definitely the best thing she ever did and because of her I’m going through a wonderful experience.

Being an exchange student gives you heaps of opportunities. I’ve already met lots and lots of lovely people, I’m experiencing the Australian culture, which is far different from the Belgian one than I ever expected and I’m learning a lot about myself.

Belgium is only a tiny little country. With half the population of Australia, Belgium fits about 254 times in Australia. Belgium is famous for a few things: French fries, beer, the cartoons “Tintin” and “The Smurfs” and of course the Belgian chocolate, which is way better than the Australian chocolate. In Belgium, we drive on the right side of the road and we do have snow. This winter, we actually had temperatures as low as -20°C at night, which may seem impossible for Australians. You will probably think that I’m crazy if I tell you that I really felt the cold when I first came here at the end of July, but that’s because I’m used to central heating in Belgium.

Experiencing a new culture also means trying new food. Some things that were totally new for me are: meat pies, Tim Tam’s, pikelets, mint slices, Vegemite (which I think is disgusting), Chiko rolls, pumpkin scones, date loaf, chocolate slices, meat fritters, Shepherd’s pie, lamingtons, jam drops, Minties (introduced by Luke), Skittles (introduced by Gillian), beetroot and probably lots of other things I’ve already forgotten.

There are only two things I don’t really like about being in Australia. The first one is the homesickness. I sometimes really miss my family and it’s a bit hard to see pictures of my friends having fun together and going to university. The second thing is the bird called a “magpie”. I seem to be very attractive to them, since they keep attacking me every time I walk to school or come back home.

I want to thank you all for making my stay in Australia such a wonderful time and I’m pretty sure that I will really feel sad when I have to leave.

Finally, I also want to say thank you to my host family, Trevor, Tracy, Sophie and Kirsty Taylor, for letting me be part of their family. They really make me feel home and without them, I would really feel lost.

Thanks for listening to my story.