A Visitor´s Aspect Hello, my name is Cara Dielmann. I am 17 years old and from Frankfurt in Germany. I am visiting St. Joseph of Cluny for the Transition Year 2008/09. I have been here now for three months and I really like it. Of course the first while was really tough. I was very homesick and everything was so different from home. The first weeks I thought I want to go home immediately, just because it was not like my home and I missed my family and my friends so much, but now it is like a kind of second home for me and I´ve got a lot of friends over here. In Germany I am in a big school with 1.400 boys and girls. We don´t have uniforms and everything is much bigger. The rules aren´t very strict and because it is such a huge school you don´t know everybody, And we have millions of sports teams and other clubs in our school. I really like my school in Germany but I enjoy this whole experience in this school too. Cluny is a really lovely school, I must admit I would like it more if there were some boys, but I think Cluny has its own charm. Everybody cares for each other, the teachers know everyone and everybody is so polite. I really like all the facilities like the ABC; Student council and Charity engagement of the school. I really feel like the school cares for everybody personally and all the girls helped me to settle in well. I feel like there is no bullying in this school, which is a big problem in the big schools in Germany and it´s like everybody respects each other. That´s really nice and I admire the school for that. We also don´t have a Transition Year in Germany and I am really enjoying being part of this great year, and especially for an exchange student it is really interesting to use this opportunity because I learn a lot about Ireland. We do a lot of free speaking, which helps me to improve my English and we don’t have to study much, which gives me time to spend time with my new friends over here and to discover the country. I learn a lot of new skills and do subjects I´ve never heard of before in Germany. I think that Transition Year will help my personal development a lot and I will remember this year as the best year in my whole school time. Of course it is still different from home, but that is a new experience and I go home every holidays and I know that the time will run so fast that I will be very sad at the end of the year, so I really am enjoying my time here and Cluny is a big part of it. Cara Dielmann St. Joseph of Cluny Secondary School, Dublin, Ireland (from: St. Joseph of Cluny Winter Newsletter)