By Ishika Dube (YES 19-20, India, hosted with AFS in Houston, TX)

I wake up at 5:30am. I blink blearily at my alarm in accusation and groan, wake up and contemplate the world for 5 minutes and then make my way to get washed and dressed. It is a usual routine with Cheerios at breakfast and me packing my lunch or just settling for a salad in the canteen. I talk with my host family about the things that are happening with each other’s lives. Sometimes, as a change of routine, my host parents take me and my host sister out for a quick breakfast at one of the cafés near school.

I rush into my first period class to greet the sophomores and freshmen that I share it with. My first period is Geometry with Ms. Coffey who is a lovely teacher. The class ends after 40 minutes and I go to my artistic classes. I am enrolled in a magnet arts school and in my normal school day, I am required to attend 3 hours of classes in my artistic area of focus. My art classes take place in 2^nd and 3^rd period on red days or on the 6^th and 7^th period on gray days. I’m a junior in the Creative Writing department. My art classes differ every day, but I love them. Then we have 40 minutes for lunch when I sometimes go to a club meeting or have lunch with other exchange students.

Then, after the bell rings, I go to my other academic classes, which, depending on the day, could be US History and English 3 or French 1 and Physics. After my classes end, it’s the end of school. I get on the bus with my sister and Gaspar, another exchange student from Portugal, and spend time talking to other friends from my department or listen to music and unwind. My host mom usually picks me and my sister up and we reach home. I lay back and relax, make myself some hot chocolate. And then, I begin working on my homework while keeping a running conversation with my host mom about the things I am facing or stuff that happened in school. Soon, we all sit down for dinner and have conservation about media, debates and pop culture. Sometimes we watch a movie after dinner or just work on our stuff or just have fun together. One by one, soon all of us retire for the night and sleep to wake up to a lovely morning the next day!