Goodbye, Luke! by Benny Majer
Our Exchange student Luke Mattson is leaving the United States to go back to his home country, New Zealand. To find out how he’s feeling about the situation and why he’s already leaving, I interviewed him.
He told me he only came to the US to play a season of high school football. It’s always been his dream to play American football, since there’s no such thing in his home country. He actually already came to Saugatuck one month before school started to take part in the pre-season practice. That’s also the reason why he’s already leaving, he just wanted to play football and leave after, but he could only decide between a whole school year or a semester. Besides football, he was the Varsity Boys Basketball Manager, he says.
To the question if the football season, but also the whole semester met his expectations, he responded, “Everything turned out to be even better than I expected. I'm really happy that I ended up in a school this small, because I actually got a lot of playing time during the football season.” If he could’ve chosen, he would’ve gone to a school in Florida, but he’s still really happy with his placement in Saugatuck.
As already mentioned, I wondered how he was feeling about leaving Saugatuck. He told me that it’s difficult because on one hand he’s sad about leaving the people and the school here behind, but on the other hand he can’t wait to finally see his friends & family again and start working, since he’s now done with school.
As a memory of his exchange to take home to New Zealand, he brought a flag of the United States to school and let all his friends and teammates sign it.
He told me he only came to the US to play a season of high school football. It’s always been his dream to play American football, since there’s no such thing in his home country. He actually already came to Saugatuck one month before school started to take part in the pre-season practice. That’s also the reason why he’s already leaving, he just wanted to play football and leave after, but he could only decide between a whole school year or a semester. Besides football, he was the Varsity Boys Basketball Manager, he says.
To the question if the football season, but also the whole semester met his expectations, he responded, “Everything turned out to be even better than I expected. I'm really happy that I ended up in a school this small, because I actually got a lot of playing time during the football season.” If he could’ve chosen, he would’ve gone to a school in Florida, but he’s still really happy with his placement in Saugatuck.
As already mentioned, I wondered how he was feeling about leaving Saugatuck. He told me that it’s difficult because on one hand he’s sad about leaving the people and the school here behind, but on the other hand he can’t wait to finally see his friends & family again and start working, since he’s now done with school.
As a memory of his exchange to take home to New Zealand, he brought a flag of the United States to school and let all his friends and teammates sign it.