Hallo, ich weiß gar nicht, ob ich hier überhaupt richtig bin als angehendes Au-Pair… ich bin nur verzweifelt am Suchen nach einer Plattform, wo sich jemand, der 'n bisschen englisches Sprachgefühl hat, meinen Brief an die Gasteltern durchlesen kann…
Wenn ich mich hier so umgucke, scheine ich irgendwie einen längeren Brief schreiben zu müssen als Austauschschüler…
Wäre superlieb, wenn sich jemand von euch den mal durchlesen würde und ein wenig Korrigierungsvorschläge bringen könnte!
Vielen lieben Dank!
Dear prospective Host Family,
I’m very excited yet about getting to know you, but firstly I want to introduce myself to you a bit, to make your decision easier…
My name is Lisa XY, I’m at the age of 18 and I’m from Germany. I’m living in a little village called XY with my parents (Silke, ??, nursery teacher and Klaus, ??, programmer) my little brother XY, 13 years old, and our dog Ruby, who is a 4-year-old Welsh-Terrier.
XY is close to Hamburg.
I’ve also got to older brothers, who both don’t live at home anymore.
XY (24) is a student of pharmacy in Hamburg, where he lives with his girlfriend XV.
The other one is XY, 21 years old. He lives in the town, where he just started to work as a nurse in a hospital.
I have a very loving relationship to all of them, what becomes pretty noticeable by the way we’re dealing with each others, such as
we love to play games together or to make music together.
At the moment I’m preparing for my final exams at school, and I will have passed my A-Levels in June.
To go abroad as an Au-Pair has been a wish of mine for several years now. Moreover, the year as an Au-Pair abroad also is some kind of a journey to find myself.
Finally responsible for myself, in fact independent from the people, who mean a lot to me but who are in a way also restricting me, I want to discover the needs I have and who I really am.
The United States of America, here in Germany better known as „Country of boundless possibilities“, are highly appealing to me.
The country, the people, everything seems to be similar and on the other hand totally different from the things here.
That’s why I want to check and verify what I associate with the USA or alternatively to displace it by contrary experiences.
Music has always played a big role in our family and therefore also in my life. Nearly everyone of my family members plays an instrument (Mitja and Jakob the piano, the same as I do, Lukas plays the trumpet and my father the guitar).
But my greatest passion is singing. In various choirs time-tested, I also had the opportunity to use my voice soloisticly in concerts. I was singing for example in the school’s choir, various choirs of the regional chuch, and I’m currently singing in a gospel-choir under the direction of Xy XY, who knows me since I’m seven years old (because I sang in his choirs since that time).
Additionally, I’m singing in a band, that plays at special events in my baptist church (e.g. in youth worship services etc.).
This baptist church, respectively my christianity is also something very important for me. Thus, I spend lots of my sparetime there. When we get together with our home group, we love to sing, pray and to read in the bible. But we also do „normal“ things like going out dancing or eating in restaurants.
And of course I also meet other friends, who don’t belong to my church.
When I have time, I’m often into painting on my easel or reading.
I love books by Noah Gordon or Walter Moers, but I also deal with litterae humaniores like works of Shakespeare or Goethe.
My musical preferences are a bit alike those. Therefore I listen to both pop and classical music (e.g. operas).
I enjoy cooking and baking, but I don’t get down to those things very often.
I’m persuaded of being able to be a good Au-Pair, because I’ve always been loving children and I had the chance to gain experiences with children in lots of different scopes.
Firstly because of my little brother, XY, because I’m caring for him since he has seen the light of day. I learned for example how to change a nappy and how to bath little children. Furhtermore I did babysitting at many different families. I just named those ones that were in the recent past (three years ago).
Caring for the little child of my neighbor XYVC was very interesting forasmuch as she’s half-Brazilian and half-German. By now, she’s nearly six years old, but I already started to care for her since he was a half-a-year-old baby which also indicates experiences in the nurture of a baby.
XXY is being broght up bilingually, her mother talks to her in Portuguese, her father in German. Therefore I was often dealing with the Brazilian culture and language.
Her daughter is a very creative, musical and intelligent child, who sometimes likes to correct me when I (without any Portuguese language-skills) try to read a Brazilian children’s book out to her. 
We also spend lots of time singing, for Luisa’s nearly as sold on singing as I am.
Unlike XY, who grows up as an only child, Y> and XY XYalways grew up with a sense of community. When I was responsible for them, I had to take care of their toothbrushing, their changing clothes and also to take them to bed (with a lullaby).
It’s almost the same with YY and XY VV(also twins), but as they were older, my tasks were extending to prepare dinner, read something out to them, to play with and then to bring them to bed.
I was able to test and to show my consistence, patience and authority in different areas.
On the one hand while dealing with the pubescent boys I am tutoring in English. They often tried to drive me crazy, but since I already have a way with pubescent boys (because of my older brothers), they weren’t successful.
On the other hand I could improve my skills by doing voluntary work experiences in a day-care-center. I helped to care for approximately 20 childen from 3 to 6 years. During the last year, I was often there when I had vacations or simply when I didn’t have to go to school.
I really loved this way of working with so many different children, because they all had different needs.
But the most amazing thing in the day-care-center was to get the love I gave to the children back twentyfold.
Otherwise I also like to concentrate on a few children, because caring for 20 children you quickly get the impression to disregard some of them.
While playing with children, I’m often benefitting from the youth counselor course I did. In this course I also had to pass a first-aid-course which concentrated on wounds and diseases that children usually have.
Therefore I didn’t have to attend such a course when I took my driver’s ed in November 2007. I don’t hold the license yet for a long time, but I use every opportunity, to improve my driving skills.
I’m often driving my little brother to play dates or appointments for example, and also I myelf am often allowed to take my parent’s car when I want to meet friends in the evening.
I’m not driving on the freeway very often, but when we as a family want to cover long distances, I’m often the driver, and I will try to use any opportunity that comes.
I’m absolutely looking forward to my year as an Au-Pair in America, because I already had the chance to get a whiff of the life abroad when I got a partial scholarship for the stay at a school for Spanish in Málaga, Spain.
Additionally, this stay included a traineeship at a hotel.
What I loved best in Spain was that I could enjoy lots of independence and also the communication with the other students of the whole world, who studied at the language school.
In my class were for example students from Sweden, Switzerland, Germany and America.
Most of the communication between us was in English.
I’m anxiously anticipating about living a year abroad, but I’m at least as anxious to meet you, my host family, that I don’t know yet.
I hope that this year will be an enrichment for both you and me and I would like to say thanks in advance that you will give me this unique chance.
Yours sincerely,
XYZ
Wie ihr wahrscheinlich bemerkt haben werdet, habe ich den Brief etwas verschlüsselt in Bezug auf Namen /Orte etc. … Möchte das hier nicht alles veröffentlichen…Ich hab keine Ahnung, ob der sich vielleicht teilweise irgendwie überheblich anhört, so soll das nicht rüberkommen!!
Ich will nur erläutern,warum ich denke, dass ich dieser schweren Aufgabe gewachsen bin…
Wie gesagt, ich nehme gerne (gerne!) Verbesserungsvorschläge an!
Allerdings muss er spätestens Montagabend abgeschickt werden, weil ich am Dienstag (ist ganz kurzfristig so früh angesetzt) das Interview habe, in dem sich entscheidet, ob ich bei AIFS angenommen werde…
