Visit to London

This weekend I visited London together with my father, who needed to be in London for business on Monday. We had a great time and visited several museums and even visited on Saturday night a play called ‘’Warhorse’’. This play is characterized by a great plot, excellent actors but also very much because of the truly unique setting up of backgrounds and even the use of artificial animals with the help of people. At the end of the play you no longer realized that these animals were not alive. On the contrary, you started to feel like they had a heart and a character. This was really a play where all the public (not one seat free and all tickets sold out) was participating with the play and everybody felt the suspense and tension in the play. My brother Lennard can be happy, that he will also visit this play with the coming Rijnlands visit of his class to Reed’s. After the play we went to a great Italian restaurant with a good atmosphere and good food. We went to 2 museums, the National Gallery and the British Museum, both at walking distance from our hotel (same as for the theatre). In the National Gallery we went straight to my father’s favourite section on impressionists and we saw spectacular paintings of Van Gogh, Gaugain (same as in the past with the Van Gogh museum in the same room) , Cesanne, Monet and Renoir. Later on we also spent some time on Rubens paintings. Then I took my father to my favourite, the Ambassadors. This is a painting where from a distance you see a piece of wood at the bottom of the painting, but from within a few meters from the side you clearly see a human skull. This is the painting which we visited with the Rijnlands visit 2 years ago.  We also visited the British museum, where we first spent time on the Egyptian section with many mummies. Then we went to the Japanese and Korean section with lots of pottery and then we visited sections on China, India and Korea. We saw many sculptures and especially many types of Buddha. I was also very much impressed by the great building. You immediately know
when you enter the building, that you visit a very important museum.

 
At school I am having a great time. I am very impressed with some of the athletes at school. The tennis players, the rugby players and the cricketers belong to the best of the country and even some tennis players belong to the best of Europe in their age group. The classes get more and more interesting and I find the system of class participation very good. The classes become more alive and everybody seems more interested. Also the atmosphere of the people at school is very positive. I hope I will be able to stay friends with some of the people here in the school in the future. It might well be that some of them will participate in the main tournament of Wimbledon in the future.

Reed's is exciting

I really do like the school program here at Reeds, although it is very different from the RLW. Here you have a lot more student involvement during the lessons. Believe it or not, here the students are very well prepared and they ask many questions, because some of them also sleep on the campus they are not seen as evil teachers, but they are like friendly people that you also talk with just because you like to talk with them. The teachers are also very well prepared and give nice presentations and useful summaries. After the teacher has explained a specific topic, it becomes more of a question and answer conversation between the teacher and the students.  I am still observing this with great interest, but I am also trying to participate more actively. Until now I did not really break through, but I still have some weeks left. I am sure that I am following the lessons with some really bright students here at Reeds. And what is also nice, is that the atmosphere in the class is very social, calm and orderly and everyone is very friendly and polite. When school ends most of the people have activities to 5:15. At 5:30 most students have to leave with the bus, but for the boarder’s diner starts at 6:00 so I sometimes go to the gym after my activities have finished. After diner you have two hours of ’’prep time’’, this is when you have to do your homework. After prep time we sometimes play football with some other boarders or we watch some television and eat some more food. Then I go to bed, because I have to stand up at 7:15 every day to have breakfast.

Greets Rogier

Great fun at Reed’s

My first week is over and I am looking forward to the next four weeks. It has been a very pleasant stay and I am really enjoying myself. On Sunday you always have the Sunday trip for the boarders. You sometimes go to the movies, but Phillip and I were lucky, because this time they were going to play paintball. We arrived there at about half past ten and soon our first game began. In total we played six games. The first game I played really well and I shot somebody in the neck. Because it created a big wound, the victim was awarded with a medal of honor and he thanked me for shooting him. After the first game and I only had 50 paintballs left of the 200 I received and I still needed to play five more games, so at half way I bought 200 paintballs and I was back in the game. The paintball trip was lots of fun and the rest of the day was also great. After being here for a week,  I feel that my English is getting much better. In the beginning of the exchange I had sometimes problems with my pronunciation, but I am now confident about my English and this also helps me with socializing. I have made some friends and I now know all the boarders who are sleeping in the Sixth form house. The school program goes fine and with Design and Technology Phillip and I now finished the catapult and tomorrow we will test it if it works and how far it gets. Out of the subjects that I initially chose (DT, Physics, Chemistry and Business Studies) I changed Chemistry to Psychology. I did this because Chemistry was much different from how it was given at the Rijnlands Lyceum and after a week I still did not understand something of it. Psychology is also quite hard, but I will never have it at the Rijnlands Lyceum and it is an interesting subject, but also very important for doing Business, so there for I chose it. In Physics we are learning about the same subjects as at home so this is really good for us and we can understand everything quite well.  Tomorrow I have a match with hockey and I have a lot of other homework to do so I will stop here.

Greets Rogier

Blog 2: Great Sports Time at Reed’s during My First Week Stay

In my first week at Reeds. I had to do a lot of things. On Tuesday, after school lessons had finished Phillip and I joined the training of the Second Hockey Team. They are about our level and we joined them again on Friday. On Wednesday we had a very exhausting day.  First we had school. This was no problem, but on Wednesday school ends earlier and then you have a whole afternoon for sport games.  During this term everybody had to play hockey with games. After the hockey training, Phillip and I played tennis together for one hour and then we had another hour of tennis training. After the tennis we went directly to the Gym and trained for another hour. On Thursday after school I had to rest a bit, because on Friday I was allowed to once again participate in the training of the Second Hockey Team.  After the hockey training we went directly to the gym and in the evening we played football with some other boarders. On Saturday I was allowed to join the hockey match of the Third Team. The match went well and we won 1-0. Just after the match, when you shake hands, they do something so funny. They shout during the handshaking “Cheers for Reeds, cheers!, cheers!, cheers!’’.  The team that plays home always needs to do that, and after the match you have to go to their School building and just eat and drink something. It has been a very nice week and everybody is very friendly to us. Tomorrow I will play paintball with a group of boarders this is. Every Sunday they do an activity like this.

First Day at Reeds

On Sunday afternoon, 19 February 2012, I arrived at the Reed’s School in Cobham, Surrey, UK, for the 4^th grade  tto-exchange program.  The other Rijnlands students doing this Reed’s exchange program are Philip and Bauke.  Phillip and I are boarders in the 6^th form boarding house, (as boarder you stay full time at the Reed’s campus). Because it was our first night sleep at the campus, we had to decide who would get the largest room. We tossed a coin ……. Phillip won and I got the smallest room in the entire campus, ( they call it “cozy”). Between eight and nine o’ clock  pm, all the boarding students came back from their vacation. Most of the students sleeping on the campus are older than us. At about 11 o’clock I went to bed, but I was not able to sleep well, because my curtains are translucent and let a lot of light true. The next day was my first day of school at Reed’s and I woke up early, (at a quarter to seven), because I still was not very good in doing my suite on with a tie. I had breakfast at 7:30 am and after breakfast we had to make schedules and that sort of things. All the subjects that I chose are very different from the ones at the Rijnlands, except for Physics. For the subject Design & Technology Phillip and I are making a catapult, we will also use this for the ANW project. With Chemistry I have no clue what they are talking about, but the lessons will certainly help me for next year Chemistry at the Rijnlands Lyceum. Business Studies is taught, with more practical examples and is more related to real life than any of our subjects at the Rijnlands. After my lessons I had a look around the campus to find out were everything is, we also got an introduction at the Fitness Center. From now on we can train every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the Fitness Center. Because of the explanation at the gym we almost missed our diner. However there were no problems and everybody was very friendly.