OVERVIEW OF ALL INFORMATION:
Date of Departure: August 25th. I will arrive in France sometime on the 27th.
Host Family: "In the mail"
Country: France
Language: French
Knowledge of Above Language: Fair. (If you give me enough time I'll get my point across.)
Exchange Company: CIEE (Council on International Educational Exchange)
When: Junior year, all year.
Now you know what I know. ALL of what I know.
I have to say, I heard somewhere that exchange trips are 95% waiting, and that might be true. Waiting for my doctor's appointments, waiting for my recommendation letters, waiting for my application photos, waiting for my passport. And now, most recently, waiting for my host family.
I'm being absolutely pitiful, checking the mail box every single day. We've e-mailed (annoyed) my coordinator so much she said she'll overnight Fed-Ex the packet the moment she sees it. With every passing day I just get more excited!
My parents are getting worried, of course, because we need to make an appointment at the French consulate to get my visa, and we keep hearing horror stories about it being a lengthy process. You need proof of residence plus a whole bunch of other paperwork that we don't have yet. So...I'm not really sure what we're going to do. There's only two months until I go.
Yes, you saw correctly. TWO MONTHS! (And five days.) That's so soon....
(Cross your fingers that my host family information comes soon!)
~Josie Harris
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Ring Ring Ring
Well, the conference call was certainly an odd experience. As it turns out, my mom didn't think it was important enough to open the e-mails I forwarded to her from my CIEE coordinator, even though I told her about them twice, and we had to scramble to find a phone that could do long distance calls to Maine. Then, when we called in, the line told us cheerfully that our conference call would be starting in roundabout fifteen minutes, and hung up on us. Only after three tries at calling did we finally get in, and we had to wait another five minutes before the coordinator even called in.
Then, after about half an hour of talking, the coordinator suddenly hung up.
So me, my parents, and six other France participants sat there anxiously waiting for her to get back online. (It was the opinion of several of the girls and their parents that the coordinator, who is admittedly a tad long-winded, was talking to herself for so long that even after five minutes she hadn't even realized that she had hung up on us.) It took one of the parents calling her office to get her to come back. So, that was fun.
But all in all, it was a good source of information. She mostly went over the handbook with all of us girls (no boys this year...) and our parents, and we were allowed to ask questions. Of course, my parents immediately jumped in wherever the poor coordinator took a breath and asked dozens and dozens of questions, but they were all good ones that would have been asked anyway.
Long story short, she explained to us what would happen when we arrived at our last orientation at Boston, how we should go about getting our visas, how we should handle money while abroad, the ways we should treat our host family and the ways they would treat us differently than we expected, French customs and culture, and tons of other useful information. She also explained a lot about the typical French school system.
Which brings me to my most exciting piece of information...
My coordinator said we should be getting our host families sometime in the next two weeks!!
I can't even believe how excited I am. This is one of the most important parts of the exchange program. I can't wait to see who I'll be living with, if they have any kids, in what area of France I'll be staying, knowing their names. It's an indescribable feeling. I mean, how do you describe the feeling of gaining a whole new family? I can't wait to talk to them and e-mail them...I have no idea how I'm going to make it through the next week.
I'm studying like crazy for my finals, especially my French one. Well...and my Chemistry and Geometry. The rest I can pretty much handle without doing anything. It's the last week of school, I can't wait for summer, even if it does mean summer school. The ability to sleep in is worth even the most nasty of online courses. Five more days and I'll be free~
More when I get my host family information.
~Josie
Then, after about half an hour of talking, the coordinator suddenly hung up.
So me, my parents, and six other France participants sat there anxiously waiting for her to get back online. (It was the opinion of several of the girls and their parents that the coordinator, who is admittedly a tad long-winded, was talking to herself for so long that even after five minutes she hadn't even realized that she had hung up on us.) It took one of the parents calling her office to get her to come back. So, that was fun.
But all in all, it was a good source of information. She mostly went over the handbook with all of us girls (no boys this year...) and our parents, and we were allowed to ask questions. Of course, my parents immediately jumped in wherever the poor coordinator took a breath and asked dozens and dozens of questions, but they were all good ones that would have been asked anyway.
Long story short, she explained to us what would happen when we arrived at our last orientation at Boston, how we should go about getting our visas, how we should handle money while abroad, the ways we should treat our host family and the ways they would treat us differently than we expected, French customs and culture, and tons of other useful information. She also explained a lot about the typical French school system.
Which brings me to my most exciting piece of information...
My coordinator said we should be getting our host families sometime in the next two weeks!!
I can't even believe how excited I am. This is one of the most important parts of the exchange program. I can't wait to see who I'll be living with, if they have any kids, in what area of France I'll be staying, knowing their names. It's an indescribable feeling. I mean, how do you describe the feeling of gaining a whole new family? I can't wait to talk to them and e-mail them...I have no idea how I'm going to make it through the next week.
I'm studying like crazy for my finals, especially my French one. Well...and my Chemistry and Geometry. The rest I can pretty much handle without doing anything. It's the last week of school, I can't wait for summer, even if it does mean summer school. The ability to sleep in is worth even the most nasty of online courses. Five more days and I'll be free~
More when I get my host family information.
~Josie
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Baggage: Emotional or Otherwise
Well, it's all coming together, piece by tiny piece.
I have my luggage already, Dad and I went into a luggage store just to look and got pressured into buying a suitcase at a really good deal by this sweet old couple. :-) And I got some locks for it that are something-something approved, and all that means is that they won't be broken at the airport. (They're bright pink. Highlighter pink. If I can't recognize my baggage at the airport, I don't know what's wrong with me.)
And, also, I have a phone orientation scheduled for four o'clock tomorrow! (Sunday, June 6th.) All the people at CIEE have been doing country-specific phone orientations, and they sent us an online handbook on France that I immediately printed out. It's not really all that interesting, mostly stuff I already knew or boring stuff about plugs and weights and insurance, but there was a short paragraph on whether or not tap water is safe in France, which I thought was hilarious. (It is, by the way.)
Mom and Dad and I are already making plans to get my student visa, and, let me tell you, I have WAY more sympathy for all the Mexican people in the United States. It's so hard to get a visa. You have to submit so much paper work I think I might have to kill an entire tree. I can't go and get it yet, actually, but CIEE will send me some paperwork soon and then it's off to sunny California to the French Consulate in San Francisco!
School is almost over and I'm so ready for summer to start. But, of course, I only have two days of vacation, and then I'm off to summer school. Never let it be said that exchange is not a whole lot of fun, but it is a lot of sacrifice and hard work also. I'm taking two classes over the summer, the second semester of my junior English class, and a music history class to earn a fine art credit. Both are online. I still have to finish my first semester of English online, but I can get that done soon, I hope. I'd really hate to be working on three classes...
Yay for summer! 81 days until I leave. That's...eleven weeks and four days. Wow. It's so soon...I can't wait! No news on a host family yet, but I should get one soon, because you need proof of residence to get a visa.
~Josie
I have my luggage already, Dad and I went into a luggage store just to look and got pressured into buying a suitcase at a really good deal by this sweet old couple. :-) And I got some locks for it that are something-something approved, and all that means is that they won't be broken at the airport. (They're bright pink. Highlighter pink. If I can't recognize my baggage at the airport, I don't know what's wrong with me.)
And, also, I have a phone orientation scheduled for four o'clock tomorrow! (Sunday, June 6th.) All the people at CIEE have been doing country-specific phone orientations, and they sent us an online handbook on France that I immediately printed out. It's not really all that interesting, mostly stuff I already knew or boring stuff about plugs and weights and insurance, but there was a short paragraph on whether or not tap water is safe in France, which I thought was hilarious. (It is, by the way.)
Mom and Dad and I are already making plans to get my student visa, and, let me tell you, I have WAY more sympathy for all the Mexican people in the United States. It's so hard to get a visa. You have to submit so much paper work I think I might have to kill an entire tree. I can't go and get it yet, actually, but CIEE will send me some paperwork soon and then it's off to sunny California to the French Consulate in San Francisco!
School is almost over and I'm so ready for summer to start. But, of course, I only have two days of vacation, and then I'm off to summer school. Never let it be said that exchange is not a whole lot of fun, but it is a lot of sacrifice and hard work also. I'm taking two classes over the summer, the second semester of my junior English class, and a music history class to earn a fine art credit. Both are online. I still have to finish my first semester of English online, but I can get that done soon, I hope. I'd really hate to be working on three classes...
Yay for summer! 81 days until I leave. That's...eleven weeks and four days. Wow. It's so soon...I can't wait! No news on a host family yet, but I should get one soon, because you need proof of residence to get a visa.
~Josie
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