Lee Yena 10817

Dear Lee Yena,

Hello! My name is Madeline and I am a Freshman at Duchesne Academy! In America, teenagers ages 14- 18 attend four years of high school ! First, you are a Freshman (or in 9th grade), than a Sophomore (10th grade), next a Junior (11th grade), and finally a Senior (12th grade). At school and home I often go by the nickname “Maddie.” At Duchesne, we go to school from 8:45 am to 3:30 pm, so we often don’t eat breakfast at school. For breakfast this morning, I had a granola bar and a Propel. Granola bars are pretty common here, and they make a quick and easy breakfast. Propel is a flavored water beverage. I eat my breakfast in the car on the way to school. I have to commute for roughly 45 minutes every day to school.

Sharing a room has to be hard! Do you ever get homesick? My friends and I like to do after school activities together! I do bell choir and archery. In bell choir, we ring various bells to play music. It sounds very pretty. And in archery, we use a bow and arrow to shoot at a target. I also have some extra classes (called electives) that I do during the school day. I do speech and debate, and programming. I really enjoy both classes. I also have a job outside of school. I work at a nursing home. Do you have nursing homes or retirement communities in Korea? If not, it’s basically just a place senior citizens go after they retire if they cannot care for themselves or if they need extra assistance. I help to serve dinner. Do you have a job or a way that you make money?

I might as well share a little bit about my school! My school has 5 floors including ground floor (or the basement). On ground floor we have lounges where we can hang out, do homework, etc. We also have our cafeteria and mini cafe on ground floor where we eat lunch and can purchase snacks. We have a few vending machines on ground floor too. The upper 3 floors are our various classrooms. There are also a lot of mysterious staircases. Because our school was built and established in 1881, some of the hallways and stairs are confusing and squeak when you walk on them. The 4th floor is abandoned, and students aren’t allowed to go up there. Back in the day, students and nuns lived on the 4th floor. Now, it is just storage. All of our classes are in the same building, except gym/ dance class. There is a separate building with a walkway that leads to the gym. Like Sangsan High School, we have animals at Duchesne! We have a dog, whose name is Frannie. We also have bees and a beehive on our balcony. We harvest honey from our beehives.
I look forward to hearing from you!

Best wishes,
Maddie Caldwell