the wait is over... (or "go look at my wordpress blog")

Well, no, it's just beginning, isn't it? But I found out on Wednesday night that I got the CBYX scholarship, and I've decided to accept it. My mom has asked me like twenty times if it's really what I want to do, I'm guessing mostly because she was secretly hoping that she'd be able to visit me in Turkey at the end of next year. I'm surprised that she's not jumping for joy at my uncharacteristic decisiveness, but whatever! I'm going to Germany!

Anyway, after months of being up in the air, including a full month of extra waiting after we were supposed hear, it feels wonderful to have a plan. It's quite frustrating when all of your friends have heard back from their colleges and people ask you where you're planning to go and all you can give them is a nebulous "...another country?" I've found over the past two days that they respond much more positively to "Germany!"

Of course, there's still a lot that I don't know, but here's what I do:

• I will need to get myself to Washington, D.C. somehow sometime during the first week of September.
• After about three days there, the other AFSers and myself will board a plane to Germany.
• We will return to Washington, D.C. around mid-July 2011.

Wow! I don't know how long it will be until I find out the specifics about my host family placement or any of that, but the waiting is going to be a lot more cheerful this time around.

Now I just have to hope that this darn volcano thing clears up before September! (yes, that was facetious. I hope. hahaha)

(via Wordpress: We Had Longer Ways to Go, 16 April 2010.)

I've been posting a bit more consistently over there. I know it's super-convenient to follow people on Blogspot, which is why I've been copying things, but I discovered the world of RSS feeds a few months ago (don't laugh at my slowness) and I will never go back. You should try it sometime.

One down, two to go...

So, I had my first interview today, and I think it went pretty well. I was interviewed by the woman who was coordinating the whole thing, and she was lovely, plus she was Australian and I’m a sucker for accents, haha. But yes, she said nice things about me to my dad and overall I feel good about it. Now I just wait. And wait. For at least two more months. I might go crazy.

The rest of this entry is mostly for anyone who hasn’t had their interview yet, and is curious about what it was like. I had to fill out a questionnaire when I got there, about my family dynamics and my favorite classes and extracurricular activities and what have you. I wrote too much, so don’t do that…it was unnecessary, plus it took a while and I didn’t end up mingling with the other interviewees there, which could’ve been interesting.

But yeah, my interviewer was really friendly and she kept the whole thing fairly relaxed, offering anecdotes of her own and whatnot so I wasn’t just talking the whole time. (also, for god’s sake bring a water bottle in with you. it’s uncomfortable when your mouth gets dry because you’re nervous and you just need to keep talking. :p) I was really glad that I’d read up a bit on Turkey she did ask about why I wanted to go there. She also asked what my preconceptions I had about what my placement would be like, which I didn’t really know how to answer. The scenario she gave me was something about being in a family where there were limitations on computer time, and what I would do if I were being punished for going over them. She also asked about the most difficult time in my life and what my two biggest goals for the exchange were, outside of learning the language, which I wish I’d had a better response for.

Then my dad came in and she asked a few more questions, and he asked her a few questions, and it ended up being close to an hour.

tl;dr: It’s not scary! Just relax and be prepared to talk about your country choice, reasons for wanting to do an exchange, and so on. And bring water in with you.

(via Wordpress: We Had Longer Ways to Go, 7 Feb 2010.)

Istanbul...not Constantinople!

Might they be giants? Anyway, I strongly encourage that you follow this link to Youtube, since Blogger won't let me embed the video.

I have my NSLI-Y interview tomorrow at 2 in Manhattan, so my dad and I are taking the bus down in the morning. I’m a bit nervous, of course, but I’m fairly excited about it as well. I’m planning to talk to the interviewer about changing my top choice to Turkey…What do you think s/he would say if I cited this video as a reason?

“Well, They Might Be Giants covered that song about Constantinople, so it can’t be all bad!”

(via Wordpress: We Had Longer Ways To Go, 6 Feb 2010.)

Applications and interviews and decisions - oh my!

Essentially, I am your average American teenager with an incredibly short attention span who is never satisfied with what she has (this is not precisely true), and I’m looking for a new adventure via an exchange for the 2010-2011 school year (this is). I have applications in for the CBYX scholarship to go to Germany and the NSLI-Y scholarship to go to basically wherever they want to send me (hoping for Turkey at the moment), but these are both highly competitive programs. I have an interview for NSLI-Y this Sunday and the selection committee for CBYX at the end of the month, so if anyone happens upon this blog before then, direct positive thoughts toward me, would ya? In a perfect world, I’ll be offered at least one of those scholarships and scamper off happily to my exciting life in country x sometime next summer or fall. Of course, I’m competing against thousands of other students – most of whom are incredibly motivated, intelligent, and well-rounded people – for a relatively small number of spots. (Speaking of motivation, I bet most of them are doing homework right now instead of fantasizing about their exchanges. Oops.) So if those two don’t work out (how I hope and I pray that they will, but today I am still…just a bill?), I’ll probably end up shelling out my life’s savings for a normal AFS exchange program to a Spanish-speaking country — after all, I have been studying Spanish for about five years now, so if I do end up needing to fund my own trip, I might as well put that amazing public school education to good use…
Seriously, though, I do love Spanish, so while Germany is my first choice because I love it there and Turkey/Russia/India/South Korea/China/Jordan/Egypt (mostly Turkey) come second because they also sound incredible, the only reason I’d be disappointed to end up in South America is the lack of a full scholarship.

So, that’s pretty much where I stand right now. I’ll probably forget about this for a while, so farewell sweet blog. We’ll meet again when I have some sort of clue regarding my plans for next year. Or in a few days. You just never know with these things.

(via Wordpress: We Had Longer Ways To Go, 3 Feb 2010.)

Playing with colors

bear with me, oh nonexistent people!