Hallie Warnock is the daughter of Rotary Club of Park Cities member Kirby Warnock and our Club's Youth Exchange student in France this year.  She was the inaugural president of our Interact club at Hillcrest High School last year.  Here's her latest news -

Hello Rotary,

As of January the 26th I will have lived in France for five months. I know everyone says this but I can't believe how fast it has gone by. In the close to five months that I've been here I have joined French Scouts and the rock climbing club. I've also managed to make amazing friends that have helped my French tremendously and I have been inseparable from them from the beginning. In July I will be even lucky enough to have two of them come visit me in Texas and stay with me. And despite the Rotary myths, I've managed to lose 16 pounds!

 

In December I got to go ski the Alps with my host family in the resort town of Megève. It was breathtaking. I felt like I was living in a scene from a postcard. I'm also very fortunate to have an amazing host family. I have one little host sister and we've become extremely close which is very surprising for me because I grew up with two older brothers and no younger siblings or sisters. This experience has taught me so much. You learn so much more than a language. You learn to listen and that sometimes it takes you understanding absolutely nothing to finally realize everything.

 

Most people ask me what I like about France. For me it's really simple things that make my day. I like that every dinner and lunch I eat with my family. I like that no one has a car and that you walk everywhere. In Texas I drove EVERYWHERE and I never really got to slow down and just enjoy Dallas. I love that when I go to sleep I can hear the ocean. I love my friends because they know me so well, and they've pushed me to become so good in French. In the first weeks that I was in France, whenever I met them and didn't understand something I would lie and say I did. Slowly, after awhile they picked up on it and started stopping me, telling me they knew that I was lying and then explained it to me in a way I could understand, ha ha.

 

School is very good and finally making sense. While starting early in the morning and ending late in the day isn't ideal for a teenager who has already finished high school, I've really been learning a lot from school.

 

I can't thank the Rotary enough, without you NONE of this would be possible. You have given me the best year of my life. After I finish my exchange year here I will go to Ghana where I will spend three weeks helping orphans learn English and where I will also build houses.

Thank you, Rotary, for changing my life and for giving me this opportunity. I heard this quote and through my exchange year have found it to be more and more true: "Nothing in this world worth having comes easy"
 
As ever,


Hallie Warnock

Saint Nazaire, France