Johnson County Daily Journal, IN
May 23 2005
Testing awaits exchange student
By ANNIE GOELLER
Daily Journal staff writer
When a person is accustomed to waking up to mountains, getting used
to rolling plains of green grass can be difficult.
Indiana is not the first state she’s been to in the United States,
but it is definitely the flattest, said Hasmik Sukiasyan, an exchange
student with the Future Leaders Exchange program.
Sukiasyan, a junior, was one of three foreign students who came to
Whiteland Community High School this school year, she said. After an
unsuccessful attempt to join the program in 2003, she was accepted
with her second application in 2004.
Sukiasyan is from Armenia and has been staying with the Angle family
in Whiteland since August.
She has had a lot of fun in central Indiana, but she missed her
family and her home, where she could see mountains everyday, she
said.
Sukiasyan is set to return to Armenia May 30, she said.
During her stay in Indiana, Sukiasyan has volunteered with the
Whiteland Christian Church, helped with Whiteland’s tree giveaway,
taken a trip to Disney World with her school’s choir and learned what
it was like to have a little sister, she said.
Her school back home would probably be happy to know she has improved
her English, studied biology, learned more about the American culture
and taught the people of Whiteland about Armenia.
People in Whiteland probably learned more about Armenia than
Sukiasyan learned about America, according to Hugh Ross, a Whiteland
native and community activist who worked with Sukiasyan on the tree
giveaway.
Ross said he immediately liked Sukiasyan because she is an
`exceedingly charming, intelligent, cognizant girl.’
The Angle family has hosted nine foreign exchange students before but
never a high school student and never for this long, Robin Angle
said.
Other students they hosted had cars and had been on their own before,
but Sukiasyan was different. She was with them every day and
everywhere they went, including when they visited family in Kansas
for Christmas, Andrew Angle, Sukiasyan’s host dad, said.
With Sukiasyan, the Angles were able to learn about a different
country and culture. Most of their students before were from Japan,
Robin Angle said.
Andrew Angle, who plays the saxophone, said he was excited to be able
to share music with Sukiasyan, who plays piano. They even played a
duet at his family’s church in Kansas, he said.
And their 4-year-old daughter Emily got to see what it was like to
have a big sister, Andrew Angle said.
Emily will be heartbroken when Sukiasyan leaves, her mother said. The
two even have a special hug.
Tickling and playing will be the 4-year-old’s favorite memories of
Sukiasyan, Emily said.
Sukiasyan will have to jump right back into her life back home. The
17-year-old is graduating this year, but first she must pass 16 exams
to get her high school diploma in the next month. Then take her
college entrance exams later this summer, she said.
Normally, she would have to take six tests at the end of the school
year. But because she was in Whiteland, she’ll have to take exams
that she missed.
Her first exam is on the day she returns to Armenia, after four
planes and a 15-hour trip that will take her across nine time zones.
None of the classes she took in Whiteland will count in Armenia, she
said. But she is using the information she learned in her classes
here to help pass her looming high school exams.
But she still feels like she learned a lot here that will help her
prepare for college. She plans to study medicine in Armenia, she
said.
Her host family is glad to have learned an important lesson from
Sukiasyan.
`People are all the same in that they are all different,’ Andrew
Angle said.
Before she leaves, Sukiasyan still has one more thing to add to the
list of things she has done while in Indiana, he said.
Since she has never driven a car and her family does not own one,
Andrew Angle wants her to drive his riding lawnmower, he said.
