SWEDISH STUDENT SPENDS YEAR IN JACKSON

Tegnemo stands outside of the Lichtenegger home. She will be staying here until February.

When Hedda Tegnemo needed a break from school in her home town of Blomstermala, Sweden, her mother suggested she become an exchange student and come to the United States.

"My mom had read this article in the newspaper," Tegnemo said in impeccable English. "She said I should do this and I said 'Sure, why not?'"

The article said that the Rotary Club was looking for Swedish students to come to the U.S. to attend school here and learn about the culture. Tegnemo knew very little about the U.S., so she applied and was accepted.

She came here in August and will not return home until next July. She's learned a lot about the U.S. already.

"It's not really that different," she said. "The people are pretty much the same."

She says there are some differences, however. The one that she noticed immediately involved a difference in toilets.

"The toilets are different," she said, laughing, her blue eyes sparkling. "Here you flush down, in Sweden we have a stick that we pull up to flush."

There are more serious differences, though. She says school here is very strict in comparison to Sweden. There, they call their teachers by their first names, even the principal.

"The teachers are more like buddies there," she said. "And there aren't many discipline problems. We do have respect for them, but not as much as they do here."

It is also easier here, she says, to get good grades.

"But my time in school here doesn't count. In Sweden there is a program that has to be followed. There are so many years of Swedish classes that I have to take that I can't here."

There are sports in school here, like football and basketball. In Sweden, sports are only played when the children find spare time to do it.

She says the people she goes to school with are a lot like those in Sweden: "Some act like adults and some do not."

The same things interest Swedish and American high school students -- dating. Tegnemo is no exception, and she wouldn't be opposed to dating an American boy.

"There are some pretty cute boys at Jackson High."

Unlike American high schools, Tegnemo says that drugs are not a problem in Sweden, and she has never seen drugs in the schools, or anywhere in Sweden for that matter.

"I've never even heard about people using drugs," she said.

Some American students wouldn't mind if we took on Sweden's policy of giving each student $100 a month simply for going to school.

"It's called study money. We're supposed to buy stuff for school with it," she said. "But we don't need anything because the school provides everything."

Another difference between Sweden and the U.S. is the weather. She says when she first got off the plane in August, she couldn't believe how hot it was.

"It doesn't get that hot in Sweden."

Another thing Tegnemo likes about Sweden is that everyone recycles there.

"Here, people go to McDonalds and throw everything away."

Tegnemo thinks the people in America are very nice and they seem very interested in Sweden when they learn she is from there. She describes her home as "just a country, like any other."

She says that Swedish people see Americans like many people of other countries do -- egotistical and always having to be number one. And, she adds reluctantly, a bit lazy.

"I had never seen drive-through banking," she said. "That is lazy."

There is a lot of American pop culture in Sweden, she says. MTV is there, which brings much of American popular music with it. Her favorite show is "Beverly Hills 90210" and a lot of the men there like "Baywatch."

Tegnemo likes American culture but she also has a bit of culture. She likes classical music and opera. Her favorite opera is "Phantom of the Opera."

She has made many friends while here in America. The ones she has been closest to so far have been her host families. These are the American families she has been living with while living in Jackson.

The first family she stayed with was Leon and Emily Tuschoff. Now she is staying with John and Donna Lichtenegger. Next she will stay with Brad and Susan Teets. She spends a little over three months with each family.

But she misses her real family who are very much like any other Swedish family.

Her father is the foreman of a foundry that makes car parts. (Her family, like many Swedish families, has a Volvo, a car manufactured in Sweden.) Her mother is an assistant principal at an elementary school. She has a 21-year-old brother who works with her father at the foundry.

"The first week I was here I was so homesick. I realized that I was going to be away from my family for a whole year. It's OK now, I talk to them on the phone a lot."

Tegnemo is obviously bright -- she makes good grades and speaks three languages. Her favorite subject is math, and she hopes to be a math teacher when she gets older.

She spends her time with her new American friends, working out, going to the mall or catching a movie -- things most American children enjoy doing, too.

"I like it here, but I like Sweden better -- it's home."