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
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Saturday, April 24, 2010
To Begin With...
In about...four or five months now, I'm leaving. I'll be leaving America for the first time in my life to live in Europe, away from my parents, my family, and my friends, for an entire year.
It's both exciting and really, really terrifying.
Last year, about this time, I realized that I would really love to go on a student exchange. (This didn't just hit me from nowhere, this epic revelation or something. We had been hosting a girl from Japan.) After doing some research and working out an elaborate speech to present to my parents, it was finally decided that I could apply to become an exchange student and go to France.
If that wasn't exciting, I don't know what is.
By the end of the summer, I had chosen a program (CIEE), had printed out all the paperwork, and was ready to start applying. Eight months, three letters of recommendation, several translations, a lot of worrying, and a couple arts-and-crafts projects later, I was finally ready to actually send my completed application in. The finished monster was somewhere around forty pages, nearly a fourth of them completely in French. Goodness, that was a lot of paperwork.
And now, a month after all of that, I'm still waiting for a response.
Okay, yes, I understand that it takes a long time to review forty pages of application, especially when you've got a whole bunch of them from a whole bunch of kids, and then it will take a lot of time for the French branch of the program to look through it. I know this.
But it really doesn't stop me from being anxious and absolutely terrified.
There's this little voice in the back of my head (everyone has one) whispering "You've messed up. They won't take you, you're not good enough. You won't get in." It's driving me crazy!
But anyway, enough of my whining.
So far I've been doing a lot to ensure that I won't have problems with this exchange:
-Completing my Junior English courses online and during the summer.
-Babysitting at my church for some money.
-Taking my Consumer Economics course a year early. (And getting a lot of confusion for it. I don't recommend anyone else doing this.)
-Supplementing my French 3 class at school with a lot of learning on my own time. (Berlitz Advanced French course book, you are my best friend.)
-Filling out all sorts of paperwork and getting my passport. (Which was a pain.)
Well...it doesn't really look like much, when I list it. But, it sure feels like a whole bunch...
I really can't think of much else to say on the subject until I'm accepted... (or not...)
Wish me luck!
~Josie
It's both exciting and really, really terrifying.
Last year, about this time, I realized that I would really love to go on a student exchange. (This didn't just hit me from nowhere, this epic revelation or something. We had been hosting a girl from Japan.) After doing some research and working out an elaborate speech to present to my parents, it was finally decided that I could apply to become an exchange student and go to France.
If that wasn't exciting, I don't know what is.
By the end of the summer, I had chosen a program (CIEE), had printed out all the paperwork, and was ready to start applying. Eight months, three letters of recommendation, several translations, a lot of worrying, and a couple arts-and-crafts projects later, I was finally ready to actually send my completed application in. The finished monster was somewhere around forty pages, nearly a fourth of them completely in French. Goodness, that was a lot of paperwork.
And now, a month after all of that, I'm still waiting for a response.
Okay, yes, I understand that it takes a long time to review forty pages of application, especially when you've got a whole bunch of them from a whole bunch of kids, and then it will take a lot of time for the French branch of the program to look through it. I know this.
But it really doesn't stop me from being anxious and absolutely terrified.
There's this little voice in the back of my head (everyone has one) whispering "You've messed up. They won't take you, you're not good enough. You won't get in." It's driving me crazy!
But anyway, enough of my whining.
So far I've been doing a lot to ensure that I won't have problems with this exchange:
-Completing my Junior English courses online and during the summer.
-Babysitting at my church for some money.
-Taking my Consumer Economics course a year early. (And getting a lot of confusion for it. I don't recommend anyone else doing this.)
-Supplementing my French 3 class at school with a lot of learning on my own time. (Berlitz Advanced French course book, you are my best friend.)
-Filling out all sorts of paperwork and getting my passport. (Which was a pain.)
Well...it doesn't really look like much, when I list it. But, it sure feels like a whole bunch...
I really can't think of much else to say on the subject until I'm accepted... (or not...)
Wish me luck!
~Josie
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