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Kennon Hulett -- Articles from Denmark
Webmaster's Note: The following invitation has been left for historical purposes.
You are Cordially Invited
to a
WELCOME HOME RECEPTION
for
KENNON BEVERLY HULETT
AFS Danish Exchange Student
at the
Hattiesburg Cultural Center
723 Main Street (the old Library)
Downtown Hattiesburg
Saturday, July 7, 2001
4:00-6:00 p.m.
Kennon will present a reading at 5:00 p.m. followed by a question and answer period.
Refreshments Sponsored by theAFS Intercultural Programs and the Hattiesburg Cultural
Center
The Hattiesburg Arts Council and the American Field Service (AFS)
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Kennon Hulett Reception
The people of Hattiesburg really know how to welcome one of their children home!!! The
reception they gave for Kennon at the Hattiesburg Cultural Center on Saturday, July 7, 2001 was
such a wonderful, gracious, warm welcome! Among the festivities, Kennon presented a reading
selected from her essays and then answered interersting questions from the assembly.
Our thanks to the Hattiesburg Arts Council, to Kennon's family and many friends, and to
Patty Hall for handling all the logistics!
Select for pictures from the reception.
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Kennon's Mom writes... [June 27, 2001]
Hi Y'all,
I have enjoyed sharing Kennon's columns with you.
Kennon has very little concept of the variety of people who have followed her columns
throughout the year. Many of you are friends of mine that she has never met. I know it would be
important to her if you would take the time to write a short personal note either by e-mail (just
reply via my address or use hers) or by snail mail (72 Shady Lane Hattiesburg MS 39402).
I greatly appreciate your interest in Kennon and her most remarkable year. Thanks so much
for your support to her and to me. It has been my pleasure sharing this adventure with you.
Hope you can join us for her welcome home reception...read on......... :)
Susan
Kennon Hulett is from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She is an American Abroad for the 2000-
2001 School Year in Denmark. Kennon writes articles for the Hattiesburg American newspaper,
which articles her mother has provided for us to post on the AFS Miss Tennky web
site.
You may select an Installment below to jump directly to that Installment (which is
below) or you may scroll down, down, down. The artilces listed above the gold bar below
are here on Kennon's main page, those below the gold and the red and the blue bars have been moved to Kennon's first and second and third "archive" pages. They are numbered according to the order written. I have listed such dates as I have, but I don't know if they are the dates written, or the dates published by the Hattiesburg American. I will correct or add any dates that anyone knows and shares with me. The Webmaster.
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50 |
To Sleep or Not to Sleep - September 25,
2001
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49 |
THE TRADE CENTER: THE WORLD HAS CHANGED - September 11,
2001
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48 |
Returning from Oz (Denmark) to Kansas (Hattiesburg) - September 7,
2001
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47 |
Goodbye to Denmark, Hello to U.S. - July 6,
2001
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46 |
(coming soon?)
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The following articles appear on Kennon's third archive page.
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45 |
Looking Back, Moving Forward - June 24,
2001
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44 |
Remembering and Anticipating Memories - June 15,
2001
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43 |
Final Outing with AFS Friends - June 12,
2001
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42 |
Tivoli Gardens - June 5,
2001
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41 |
Danish Exams - May 29,
2001
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40 |
Rainy Day and Danish Transportation - May 25,
2001
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39 |
The Danish Summer - May 15,
2001
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38 |
Dreaming in Danish and Daydreaming of Home - May 8,
2001
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37 |
Will Danish Lifestyle and Uniqueness be Lost in a Modern
World - May 1, 2001
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36 |
Danish Spring and New Environment Offers Comfort - April
24, 2001
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35 |
A New Host Family and a New Home - April 16, 2001
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34 |
Packing to Leave My First Host Family - April 9, 2001
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33 |
Meeting My New Host Family - April 3rd, 2001
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32 |
My School Trip to Prague - March 27, 2001
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31 |
Discontent and Changes - March 17, 2001
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The following articles appear on Kennon's second archive page.
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30 |
Spring is Coming, Sweet Memories - March 16, 2001
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29 |
Visiting Fred in Kolding - February 28, 2001
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28 |
Copenhagen Ballet, Art and Music -
February 20th 2001
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27 |
Copenhagen Mini-exchange Visiting with my U.S. Friend -
February 13, 2001
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26 |
A Mini-Exchange to Copenhagen -February 6, 2001
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25 |
Foreign and Far Away Friends - January 26,
2001
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24 |
Traveling to Arhus - January 24,
2001
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23 |
The Weather, The Beatles, and Visiting Home - January 17,
2001
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22 |
Surviving the Danish Winter and Language
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21 |
New Year's Eve - January 2, 2001
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20 |
Reflecting Back
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19 |
Christmas Anticipation
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18 |
Christmas Preparations in Denmark - December
12, 2000
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17 |
Tante Andante House - December 6th, 2000
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16 |
Cultural Insights & Lessons
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The following articles appear on Kennon's first archive page.
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15 |
The Glassblowers
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14 |
The Danish Language Classes
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13 |
Visiting an AFS friend in
Copenhagen
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12 |
My Daily Routine - 30 October 2000
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11 |
My 16th Birthday!
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10 |
I discover the Park
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9 |
Jonas, my AFS Liaison - 9 October
2000
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8 |
So THIS is "Culture Shock"?! - 19
September 2000
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7 |
Settling In (with pictures!)
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6 |
My School in Denmark - 28 August
2000
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5 |
My Host Family! - 14 August 2000
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4 |
Traveling to Denmark - 7 August
2000
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3 |
Visiting Boston for more Goodbyes -
24 July 2000
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2 |
Pre-Departure Conversations &
Planning - 3 July 2000
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1 |
Student Readies for Overseas Trip -
12 June 2000
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Her mom writes in sending us the articles:-- "She is having a wonderful time and the
experience has been wonderful for her."
Her mom also asks:-- "Have I told you about this? There is a local physician who writes a
medical advice column that appears in the Sunday paper. In his column of Nov. 26th he answered
his first two letters as usual but then wrote the following:
"Dear Readers: this comment has nothing to do with medicine or health, but I wanted you
to know there is a column published in the Hattiesburg American which you should never miss (in
addition to this one, of course).
I am referring to Kennon Hulett's Friday column about her experiences as an exchange
student in Denmark. Kennon is a 16 year old girl, but you'd never guess at her youth from her
writing--absolutely fascination and amazingly insightful.
In my opinion, Kennon's column is one of the best in the paper (one of the best) and if you
haven't been reading it, you have missed something very special. Fortunately, she has several
months to go before she comes home and the columns must end."
Webmaster's Note: And those articles the good Doctor is referring to appear
below. Enjoy!
You may email her mom at Whatshakin1017@aol.com
For information about hosting a foreign student, or living abroad, contact any "Miss Tennky"
Area Team volunteer leader. If you like, they can put you in
touch with Host Families or US students who have gone abroad to ask how great it is. Or, you
can call (800) AFS-INFO.
50th Column -- To Sleep or Not to Sleep --
September 25, 2001
You know you're probably not getting enough sleep when the prospect of not getting up until 8:00 A.M. excites you. Sleep is a luxury afforded to few young people these days. Among most of my friends there is a common thread that none of us sleep enough. In fact, I think that it is highly irregular for a teenager to have what might be called "normal" sleeping patterns.
My excuse? I am too busy to schedule time in to sleep. Let's just look at my extracurricular activities. First of all, I do Drama, and since play practice runs a minimum of four hours on weekdays, it takes a very significant chunk out of my time. Then, like many teenagers, I have a job, which consumes hours out of most of my days as well. I am also involved in Debate at my school, which takes up weekends and afternoons and requires quite a bit of memorization. Add into that mix six hours of classes and three AP courses, one can see how rest is de-prioritized in comparison to other, more productive activities.
I love the breakneck pace at which I live. Anything less and I'd be, well, bored. I enjoy being productive, and feeling as though I'm accomplishing something big. I am one of those people who does not enjoy themselves unless they have several things in the air at once, and being so, I probably only get a few minutes a day in which to really and truly rest before I continue on to my next big task. And, quite frankly, it's fun. The people whom I am able to meet and the relationships that form from life on the go are fabulous, and I'm finding myself involved in different circles that, if I didn't absorb myself in the activities that I do, would be completely alien to me. All around it is an amazing experience to live life to the fullest extent possible.
Without coffee's many forms my life would be dismal indeed. When averaging four hours of sleep a night, it is the only thing that keeps me vertical through most of the day, and keeps me from being the cynical zombie that I become without my daily infusion of caffeine. I enjoy burning the midnight oil, and since these days the only time I have for schoolwork is some time after midnight, I find myself doing it more often.
I'm not sure if many teachers realize how little time their students have to do homework. As my AP teachers assign truckloads of assignments I have to ponder if they appreciate the extent to which some of their pupils go to in order to accomplish it all. I remember the early 90s, when Bevis and Butthead ruled as supreme teen icons and the youth were thought of as "Slackers." Does that stereotype still rule today in the minds of adults? I think, though, that it's really a matter of priorities. When your extracurricular activities take up more cerebral space than school, subconsciously your priorities shift from the conventional view of school-comes-first to whatever is most important to you at the time, which, I have learned, is not always a good thing.
Despite it all, the homework keeps on coming, and if one does not stay on top of it, it's very easy to be overwhelmed, and burnout becomes inevitable; which is why it's good to have a little break every once in a while. I had an amazing experience at the beginning of this week; a virtual day off. With no practice for drama or schoolwork to be done on Monday night I looked forward to an evening of restful unproductivity. After getting home from school I spent the night watching the mindless wonder that is basic cable and was able to get to sleep by midnight -- ahh, bliss. The entire night though, I could not shake the feeling that I was wasting time. I had to remind myself that I was supposed to be relaxing, but couldn't keep myself from looking forward to the next time I would be able to use my cognitive processes.
When I, well rested, informed my friends of my "day of rest" the next morning, one exclaimed, "Gee, I wish I could do that!" and smiles were shared as several of my classmates rattled off their busy schedules. Almost all of my friends have at least one time-consuming activity,-- be it sports, arts, or work,-- and they have all set their priorities accordingly. And I am continually amazed at how we American teenagers continue to be involved in everything, yet still maintain those things we have to do. That day of rest, though, helped me get my body back into an unusual "normal" rhythm. Though by this weekend I know my breakneck pace of activities will destroy it again,-- with me loosing sleep and consuming coffee to make up the difference,-- but that's okay. In reality I wouldn't want it any other way.
49th Column -- THE TRADE CENTER: THE WORLD HAS CHANGED --
September 11, 2001
Is there anyone else out there that feels as though they have been stuck in a Stephen Spielberg movie as of late? The recent events are too large for me to grasp completely, and more closely resemble the plot of some summer action film than real life. This act of terrorism is too absolute; too well planned; too fast. I sit here in Southern Mississippi and try to work my mind around the concept that New York has been changed forever, and with it the American lifestyle has been distorted as well. Then there is the unsettling fact that thousands of real people woke up yesterday unaware that they would not sleep again.
In the public school districts there is an institution called Channel One that gives national daily news reports to high school students. On September 11th, it did not come on in my classroom, so I had no idea about the situation until a friend of mine ran up to me as I was walking to my third class of the day.
"You haven't heard," she said breathlessly, "the World Trade Center is gone."
I looked at her wondering if it was to be believed or not. She proceeded to recount a sensational tale that involved airplanes, terrorists, and explosions. "What the--" I thought as I continued to my next class, and sure enough I arrived just as one of my classmates was turning the volume up on a fuzzy image of the World Trade Center buildings collapsing in a burst of flame and debris.
I watched in silence as the reality of it smacked me somewhere near my gut. The talking heads continued to discuss the attack on the television screen, playing the surreal videos of the plane hitting one of the buildings or the towers disintegrating. I felt my blood run cold and I gasped for breath as I was given an awful premonition that things in America would never be the same again; and the future was scary.
For the rest of the day, the talk around school was almost exclusively on the horrendous events that had transpired. Questions and theories zipped around the lunch table: "Who is this bin Laden guy anyway?" "This is so weird." "Did you see that video?" "This is pretty bad, right?" "How could this have happened?" One of the guys seated there speculated that right now was probably not a good time for him to turn eighteen. All throughout the last two periods in school the television or radio was on, and this story was taking shape as speculations became more concrete facts.
I continued to remember that I woke up this morning ready for another dull day in school, and by noon the world was shrouded in eerie unreality. I have never been so aware that I was living in a time that would be remembered. Something is beginning, and I am not exactly sure what it is; though I am afraid that this will all end badly. "May you live in interesting times" is an ancient Chinese curse.
These are turning out to be frighteningly interesting times to live in. When the bodies are counted and the shock wears off we will see just how horrific this tragedy becomes. Interesting times indeed. One of the most important things for us Americans to remember in the weeks and months to come is that just like the thousands of people who were killed in New York were not simply statistics, we should not allow our lust for vengeance to become a witch-hunt. And though there is no excuse for this tragedy,-- it defies any adjectives I attempt to pair it with,-- we still have no reason to turn this into an excuse to burn our bridges of peace with the rest of the world. If so, then the American retaliation will be worse than the attack and the future is scary.
As I traveled down Hardy Street on the way home from school, the entire situation became more and more like a figment of my imagination. Hattiesburg was going on about its daily life; it was a normal, sunny September afternoon and the more I saw the familiar things in my hometown the more this sensational story about terrorists, pandemonium, and hijacked planes felt like a bizarre dream that all Americans had simultaneously. But as I watched Tom Brokaw explain the situation on TV and saw the footage of a passenger plane being flown into the side of a World Trade Center Tower again, and again, and again over the course of that night, the chilling reality of the situation hit home.
Those of us whom are young; we will remember this date of infamy for the rest of our lives. We will tell future generations about both these and the days to come. How interesting will this act make present times? It's impossible to know, but the world has changed drastically in the past forty-eight hours. And as Tom Brokaw put it, this was "a day that will have a dark, dark mark in American history."
48th Column -- Returning from Oz (Denmark) to Kansas (Hattiesburg) --
September 7, 2001
The Wizard of Oz is one of the most defining movies of American pop culture. If I think back though, I have only seen it all the way through about five times, so not long ago when I rented it on a whim, it was an unanticipated joy. But after considering my exchange experience last year, the movie took on an unexpected new meaning.
As I recall it, I keep on thinking back to two scenes in particular,-- the first is when Dorothy was in the farmhouse during the tornado. The image and the situation struck a familiar chord in me, and I think the reason is that I have been stuck in that same place for the last two months. At the end of June I returned,-- from an exchange year in Denmark with AFS,-- to Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
And I feel the way Dorothy must have felt spinning in the eye of that twister,-- confusion, darkness, noise, and a slew of familiar things drifting into focus, then fading away again before they could be understood. Life has whipped by, and just when I felt as though I had a grip on things, something new appeared and changed it all. Then, as suddenly as the gauntlet had started, it stopped and all became unnaturally quiet.
Now is the time for me to dust myself off, collect my things, and approach that door, to find out where it is I've landed and what or whom I've landed on,-- despite the slight fear I have that I'm about to be harassed by oddly dressed dwarves with a tendency to break into song. Nevertheless it's official,-- life has normalized.
The biggest difference between Dorothy and myself though, is that my situation is reversed,-- when I clicked my heels to leave, I went through a tornado-esque wringer of emotion to return home. "Re-entry," as the AFS representatives call it, was not kind, and a twister is probably the best analogy I can make. In that time I found myself getting back into the swing of church, family, school, and American life. All of my memories of my first few weeks here are vague and blurred. Only lately has everything calmed down enough for me to get my bearings, and only lately have I had time to realize that I definitely am not in proverbial Kansas any more.
My entire experience can be compared to the movie,-- in my mind's eye the world back home seems sepia-toned black and white, while my "Oz" is still in blazing Technicolor. I've had an absolutely individual and sometimes surreal-seeming experience, and whenever I try to explain it to someone the closest I can get is "It wasn't a dream, it was a place,-- some of it wasn't very nice, but most of it was beautiful,-- doesn't anyone believe me?" From the looks on people's faces I know that it is impossible for me to ever relate it in its entirety through words. I've also begun to realize that the Scandinavian country of Denmark is about as different from Southern Mississippi as Oz was from Kansas.
Some of the habits and preferences I've picked up are a bit weird,-- it's funny the way some waiters look at me when I ask for straight club soda at a restaurant, or the way my friends eye me when I begin to eat a hamburger and French fries with a knife and fork, or mumble to myself in Danish. My brother,-- while constantly poking fun at my carbonated water and coffee habits,-- articulated my situation as precisely as anyone I've heard: "You left the states at a very impressionable time, and everything you learned about living life as a teenager you learned, in essence, on a different planet, so now all your ideas about those subjects are alien to everyone here." When I think about it I do feel as though I have been taken out of my universe.
The second of the scenes in that movie that affected me came at the end when Dorothy is finally told by Glenda that Dorothy could have gone home all the time, and is forced to say goodbye to her friends. That scene grips me in a very personal part of my mind, as I recall the friends across the oceans to whom I was forced to say goodbye with uncertainty as to whether I would ever see them again.
I have stayed in contact with a few of my Danish friends, and try to keep myself informed about what is happening back in Denmark and all over the world, but the distance is really making the relationships strain. I have started making friends here, and rekindling the friendships that had been left dormant for the year I was gone. I have started school, joined some clubs, and have kept myself so busy with extracurricular activities that I'm finally finding myself intellectually stimulated, nearing a normal state.
The pendulum has swung, and the cycle is almost complete once again.
I am eternally happy that I went. The experience was so unique and important that I have no idea who I would be without it. And when I do try and imagine myself minus the exchange,-- that's a horse of a different color all together. But that era has passed, and it is now time for me to open that door, and see what I've gotten myself into. Who knows what interesting people I'll meet or witches I'll melt,-- it's all unknown,-- but munchkins or no, I can't turn back yet.
47th Column -- Goodbye to Denmark, Hello to U.S. --
June 24, 2001
The plane PA system brought me out of my stupor. "We are now starting our final decent
into New York, please buckle your seat belts and bring you seats up to normal position." The
stewardess continued to a translation of that in Finnish.
As soon as I heard the words "New York" I felt my heart pounding. I was returning to the
land of my birth, to the place that many would call my home. In only a few short hours I would
be back with my family. At the time I could not fully comprehend it.
I had spent my last days in Denmark with AFS, my exchange organization. We had a
two-day camp with all one hundred and eighty exchange students in Denmark. Every few hours a
country group would gather all their suitcases to make that long walk from the school where we
were in Kastrup to the Copenhagen Airport; and that would be the last time we saw them.
The ten Americans leaving with AFS were the last to go, so we had a chance to say goodbye
to everyone else as they went.
I had felt my stomach tightening as I said goodbye to my host family, and the knot grew as I
found myself being ripped away from my friends as they returned to Turkey, Italy, Ecuador,
Japan, and scores of other countries.
Goodbyes are hard. Especially when you have no way of knowing if you will ever see the
person again. I had spent this entire month saying goodbye to people I loved, never being sure if
this was the last time I would see them, and experience hardly made the task easier.
I spent my last night in Denmark exactly the way I wanted to. There were only the
Americans and Ecuadorians left in the school, and a few of us, myself included, decided not to
attempt to sleep that night. We were done with all that AFS had planned for us at about
midnight, and we were going to leave for the airport at about 5:00 a.m., so I decided I would
spend my last hours in Denmark awake.
Despite the fact that it was the end of June, the weather outside was still chilly enough to
require a jacket, and I sat out in the courtyard of the school, humming a David Bowie tune and
staring up at the cloudy sky, hoping to get a glimpse of the Danish stars. This was the end.
I was standing at the edge of all I knew, and only my memories could give me an idea of what
I was getting myself into. I was returning to things I was supposed to know, but all I had in my
mind was confusion as far as Hattiesburg went.
What I really knew was Denmark. That is what felt like my home, and it felt as though I was
being ripped away from my home when I was forced to return to the US. I had felt at ease in
Scandinavia like I had never felt in Mississippi.
It seemed to work for me. And now for the last time, after a hundred sleepless nights spent
thinking deep thoughts and watching the Danish midnight sky, this was my last. I was going
back.
The sunlight never really disappeared that night, it was bright even at 3:00 a.m., and an hour
later when we gathered our stuff and got ready to leave for the airport the sun was beginning to
rise. The following eighteen hours were spent in transit somewhere between Copenhagen,
Helsinki, and finally JFK airport.
As I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and peered out of the window, I looked down and saw
New York suburbia. "It's so huge!" I thought. Houses stretched to the horizon, all with neat
little lawns and many with the chlorine blue of swimming pools in the back yard.
Thousands and thousands of houses, and I found myself wondering "How can so many
people live this close together?" It was my first experience of a huge American city after leaving
Denmark. I was awed, and I wasn't even off of the plane yet.
But my trip was far from over. I was still a few thousand miles, two airports, and a combined
nine hours in delays away from New Orleans International, my final destination.
I spent that night camped out in the Atlanta airport with the rest of the disgruntled travelers
from my plane, which had been delayed enough to miss everyone's connecting flights. I was jet
lagged and tired, but sleep was not an option. I staked out a chair at my gate and tried to get as
comfortable as possible until they finally started boarding.
Tired and stiff, nearly delirious from spending the past thirty hours stuck in the lurch of
airports on two continents, I made myself as presentable as possible as my plane finally landed in
New Orleans. My heart was pounding, and excitement was quickly being replaced by fear.
Last week I said it's very rare that you are aware that something is ending. Well it's even
more rare to be aware that something is beginning. And that was the feeling I had as I walked out
of the passage from the airplane to the terminal, and for the first time in nearly a year saw my
mother and my brother waiting.
46th Column -- (coming soon?)
Kennon Hulett can be e-mailed at
rejsende@excite.com.
For information about hosting a foregin student, or living abroad, contact any "Miss Tennky"
Area Team volunteer leader. If you like, they can put you in
touch with Host Families or US students who have gone abroad to ask how great it is. Or, you
can call (800) AFS-INFO.
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