Tessa O’Bryan and Karena Tse

At first glance, you would never guess that freshman Jade Maron moved from France just two months ago. “I was born in Paris. I moved to a tiny little town called Amboise three years ago, and now I’m here.” These past couple of months have been full of firsts for Jade.

She travelled from France, where she’s lived all her life, to the US to start her first four years of high school. Moving has been bittersweet for Jade, her mother, and younger sister. “My dad didn’t come with us. Neither did my dog,” Jade said, “But I’m really happy here, so I’m okay.”

Jade is making the most of her short time here in the US. “I wanted to come here and experience life in the US, and learn to read and write.” Though modest as ever, Jade speaks completely fluent English, along with German and Latin, and is taking Spanish here at CHS. A perfect example of a global citizen, Jade has seen, heard, and experienced many new things since the move. Her first frappuccino – “Really sugary, really sweet…but good,” – her first time bowling – “Fun. Super fun,” but her favorite has to be her first time attending school in the US. “I love school,” she gushes, “It’s so cool.”

As Jade joined CHS, former student Emma Mueller packed her bags for Denmark! Emma would’ve been a Junior at CHS this year, but decided to study abroad in a school called Aurehoj. After her mom suggested it, Emma couldn’t see herself doing anything else.

Emma had visited Denmark nearly every summer since she was very little, so there wasn’t a language barrier.  “I can understand Danish very well,” Emma said, “but if you’re talking to me about physics, it’s a different story.” Socializing isn’t a problem, either. “Everyone is really sweet. There’s a lot of parties, there’s huge parties all year. Which is perfect, I feel like such a rebel!” Emma laughed, “And you know the legal drinking age here is 16, so at the school parties, they serve alcohol – which is great.” She described her school’s drinking habits. “It’s like social suicide if you don’t!” Beside the drinking culture, teen smoking is common as well. According to Emma, lots of kids smoke during breaks between classes.

Despite some of these huge cultural differences, Emma’s school, Aurehoj, is a lot like CHS. Aurehoj is a public school with roughly the same amount of students. Emma loves the atmosphere. “It’s in this really cute building and it’s really homey,” she illustrated, “the floors are all wooden and the walls are all painted with student art – all different colors. It’s a very musical school, so there’re pianos going all the time,” her voice softened, “you can faintly hear it. It’s like living in a big house with a lot of people, which is really cute and cozy. The teachers are all really nice. You’re on the same level of respect with them. You’re almost their friend in a sense.

It’s really fun and all the people are very opening and they just have great style. I love all of it.” Jade and Emma both love the new cultures and atmospheres of their “new” countries.

Whether it’s studying in a quaint school with the faint sound of a piano going all day or the loud and busy halls of CHS, both girls can agree: They wouldn’t rather be anywhere else!