Yes, it's finally happened: I'm in the program!
I just got my acceptance letter yesterday, and it was the most amazing thing. I read all the material they gave me, even the parent handbook (which is exactly the same as the student handbook, but with different pronouns) and devoured the website they gave me full of information for confirmed participants. I'm a reading machine, point me in the direction of anything to do with foreign exchange students and I will immediately check it out. I have to know more...
It just sort of hit me recently, you know? I'm going on exchange. I'm going to leave my family and friends for an entire year and live in a country that I've never seen before. I'll speak a different language, eat different foods, learn different slang, go to a different school...it never really sank in before. A little while ago, it was "Yes, I'm going to France, if I get into the program." It was kind of...far away. Like it would happen, but much much later.
Now, it feels immediate. I'm leaving. I know WHEN I'm leaving. (It's August 25th, by the way.) There's not too much time before school is over, and I'll be preparing. It's a more definite "Why, yes, I'm GOING. It's certain, now, I've been accepted."
And yes, it's terribly exciting. It's also really really scary. But what it is above all else is just plain awesome.
So now, another long wait begins. I still don't know who my host family is going to be, and I don't think I'll find out until Maybe late July or early August. (The program ominously says "Shortly before you leave" and the cynical part of me is wondering if they mean "at the airport".) This may actually be harder to wait for than the program acceptance was. The acceptance I knew was only going to take about a month to process, but this could take all summer...
So, yes, patience is a virtue. One that it seems I'm going to have to master very soon.
~Josie
