Well, today we continued our Civic Education Module and had a class with Dr. Leming again. We talked about students' rights in American public schools. Later, we also simulated a court case where a student was suspected of smoking at school and her bag was searched (and the cigarettes + marijuana were found). So we had to decide at the end of the trial if the student's 4th amendment rights (plus the exclusionary rule) were violated. Basically, we had to decide if the fact that a teacher saw the student coming out of a bathroom which smelled like smoke was "reasonable suspicion" to search her things (to violate her privacy, the 4th amendment protects privacy) and finally if the student was guilty or not. We actually acted the whole trial and I was the principal (my name was I. M. Strict :D) who had conducted the search, so I was a witness for the prosecution. That was one of the most fun things we have done in classes so far.
Anyway, after lunch we had a Community Service Discussion Panel, where we had 3 guests from different charity organisations, 2 of them were actually students at Purdue. We had a long discussion about charity in our countries and it was a loooong talk, because here everybody always wants to express their opinions, which is really interesting.
Today we could eat dinner in our residence hall because EARHART DINING COURT WAS OPENED!! Just for a few days though. I think it was opened because some Lutheran camp came to Earhart today and there are 4000 more people living here now, Yes, you heard right, it's not a spelling mistake. 4000. That's unbelievably much. But the Earhart Dining Court is SOOO big and great!! You can create your own pizza, some kind of Mongolian noodle dishes and of course there's a lot of other food. Talking about the food, I'm going so FAT here, it's terrible. I went to the swimming pool tonight, but I still feel like a huge overweight whale. They have an enormous Recreational Pool and an Olympic Swimming Pool here. One of the World Champions in some kind of swimming (forgive me, I'm not exactly a swimming person) actually goes to Purdue and practices here almost every day.
Well, since I have time I thought I write down all the major and minor differences between Estonia and US:
- The food. Everybody knows that Americans eat a lot of unhealthy food, but it's still weird to see all 10-year olds eat Fench Fries, hamburgers and a lot of other greasy stuff for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
- The rules. They are very conservative. I'm supposed to be staying in the land of Freedom and Liberty, but the rules here are over the top ridiculous. A boy and a girl can't go somewhere (even in public) just by themselves. If there are only 2 people going somewhere, they have to be both girls or both boys. Also, girls can't go to the boys side of the dorms and vice versa, but in the US people our age can get married.
- Politeness. Everybody is so polite. In the stores, there's always someone who comes to ask if you need any help finding something. Then they sometime start a conversation with you and ask where you come from. After hearing the word "Estonia" they nodd with "what-are-you-saying" faces and go on with their talking. Also, everybody's always holding doors open for everybody and you definitely have to remember to say "Thank you".
- Religion. Everything revolves around the church. They have so many different types of religon and churches on campus.
- Sororities and fraternities. You can see the Greek houses everywhere and although it's summer, some of them have quite a lot of people living in them right now. Basically, they were supposed to be all about the parties.
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