Local PDO Info

After spending more time waiting and a slight misunderstanding I received information about the local AFS Greater Chicago Area Pre-Departure Orientation (PDO). It is tomorrow (8:30AM to 4:00PM) and I'm excited to see the other YESer girls from Chicago! And we get to meet more kids from our area going abroad for the summer or next year so that is also pretty cool. I will probably write more about it sometime this weekend after the event or maybe next week. Only 47 more days for the YES Abroad PDO in D.C! It's not like I'm counting of anything...

While I receive more information about home interviews, and PDOs, and just travel information everything started to become more real. I'm beginning to realize that I'll be gone for the whole of next year and it is just astonishing. So I have decided the top three things to do while still home in Chicago. 

Top 3 Things to do while still home:

1) Spend time with my mom and brothers

2) Spend time with my friends 

3) Begin a photo book for bother my family and my future host family

*4) Get a job (I don't really want to do this one but my mom is making me...)

*I also need to make sure I watch the Great Gatsby....*

I have also found out that I have to most likely apply for the Italian visa while in Malaysia for my freshman year in Florence with NYU. I guess I have to start familiarizing myself with the process so I can make it easier on myself. (With Malaysia all I have to do is photocopy my passport, get some nice passport picture and mail them to AFS people...why can't NYU be like that?) 

Oh, I almost forgot I think I have my home interview for AFS today in the evening. It's just  a formality to find you a matching host family- I'm kind of excited for it. If it's anything similar to the CBYX sending interview then it shouldn't be too bad. 

Timeline

So I have been thinking for the past two weeks of how much of a horrible blogger I am. I’m sorry, I honestly keep forgetting I am going to Malaysia this summer for a whole year. Let’s do a quick timeline of what got me to this point:

April 2012- Rejected from NSLI-Y Russia Summer. On the email I learned about YES Abroad and CBYX

May 2012-  Creep on the finalist for the 2012-2013 because I honestly had nothing better to do…studying for APs didn’t count.

June 2012- I took a break from obsessing over those two programs. I began to study for ACTs and start to finalize my college list. I think this is where I began to write all my college essays.

July 2012- CBYX app was out so I began to fill that out along with all my other college crap.

August 2012- I met some pretty amazing people on a CBYX group and made some fantastic people who I still talk to today. I began to really convince my mom that these applications were worth it. College apps were done and finished and submitted and ooh yeah.

September 2012/October 2012- YES Abroad and NSLI-Y apps were out and about. I finished NSLI-Y within two weeks but dragged to finish my YES app. I was majorly freaking out. I had honestly done about 15 applications by this point. I was burning out.

November/December 2012- Got rejected by NSLI-Y and didn’t give two cares in the world. jk it sucked but I got over it quickly, I still had CBYX and YES to look out for.. I was also deferred by my top university but accepted into my safety. Things were rocky but going good for me. Oh I also had my CBYX interview. Very chill. Very awesome.

January 2013/February2013- Things were going good, everything was calm. Then everyone began getting their semifinalist notifications on the last day of February and I freaked out major time again. Like I always do. But I also got into more of my colleges so life was peachy.

March 2013- I got an email saying I was a semifinalist for YES Abroad and that I would go to the IPSE in Chevy Chase, MD. Life was rockin. I met some amazing people who are really awesome, although all of them are younger than me. I honestly was terrified I wasn't going to stand out or be picked, there were SO many qualified kids.

April 2013- I received my CBYX finalist notification and then four days later I received notification from YES Abroad saying I was going to Malaysia! I hadn’t cried so much in forever. After discussing them with my mom I decided Malaysia was the way to go. Then I paid my deposit to enroll at NYU and submitted by deferral form!

So now it is almost May and I am just waiting on more news a.k.a an email from YES or another conference call. I’m also waiting on confirmation for my deferral.

I know this is long and quite honestly pointless but I promise things will get more interesting once I finish studying and taking all my official AP tests.

A-Malay-Sing

Dear Carmen,Congratulations!  We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected as a Finalist for a 2013-14 Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Abroad scholarship for study in Malaysia!  

After months of waiting I never thought I would get to read those words. I first discovered this amazing program after failing to make it as a finalist for NSLI-Y. Actually, not failing because I didn’t fail, I just learned so much more about myself and that helped me out a lot the second time I tried. When I first applied to the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Abroad I applied hoping for three specific countries out of the thirteen offered: Turkey, Oman, and South Africa. Malaysia was a surprise, but a surprise that has rattled my whole world and what I expected of my upcoming year. So don't knock something out because it is not what you expected.

As a senior I will be deferring from New York University  I have finally made up my mind and after a lot of thought I have decided that from my two options this is more me. No one is 100% sure of what or where they want to be, so while I might still have my doubts at least I am going to college! The most exciting part of this is that when I return from my gap year in Malaysia I will be spending my freshmen year in Florence, Italy! Yes, that is a tough thing to think about. It will be hard and I honestly don't know what I got myself into but if my mom has agreed to let me go, then I must be ready to do this. Maybe not ready, but prepared. After spending so much time thinking about doing this it seems almost surreal to actually have it in my hands now. 

I know things are going to be hard and there will be times I will want to return home, but I will always give it my best to take a lot from those experiences. I hope to become more than a visitor to my future host community and host family, I hope to become part of their community and of their family.

Look Malaysia! 

YES Semifinalist

I've realized that it has been a while since my last post and a few things have happened since then! All of them exciting and one hugely disappointing one. Let's see where to start....
I am a YES Semifinalist! That mean I get to go to the IPSE, which is hosted in Chevy Chase, MD. I leave this Friday, the 22nd, and come back that same weekend, Sunday the 23rd. This is actually a funny story, so when everyone else seemed to get notifications I got nada, and me being well me decided to vent my frustration to my brothers about it not being fair. I congratulated people and then sent an email to one of the YES people asking if it was rolling admissions and if I was going to get my rejection email soon. They replied telling me to hold my horses and to not worry, that I would get an email soon, and guess what? I got an email! I almost passed out of the excitement. So I had to rush to have everything signed and emailed by the 13th, amazingly I had every form I needed emailed on the 11th giving me enough cushion room in case I needed to fix anything.

I cannot express how happy I was and still am. I have met some pretty amazing people and I cannot wait to meet them in person! This is my opportunity to be social and you know...make friends. (I need to finish shopping for small trinkets and gifts but that is why there is a Target. Target solves everything. Who doesn't love Target?) I can't wait until Friday noon, where I will be on that plane headed to D.C for the weekend. Freaking awesome if you ask me.

The excitement doesn't stop there. A few days ago I was rejected by the University of Chicago. Honestly, I am happy I was, I did not want to go there and I set it as a personal goal. I wanted to see if I was good enough to get it, but the rejection made me realize that putting so much pressure into my grades wasn't particularly the best way to have approached my academic life. And let's be honest, I did not want to go there at all...It's an awesome school maybe for my graduate life?

Today I received a call from St. Olaf College, telling me I was accepted and I was invited to fly in. After having been deferred from Georgetown University, St. Olaf College has grown in my heart. It attached itself to a corner and refused to leave. I cannot properly express my emotions here, after everything had fallen apart it seems that there was something better waiting for me, don't get me wrong I still wish to be granted admissions to Georgetown but knowing that there a school where I truly want to go makes this waiting for much easier.

I can say that life is good now, and that there is always a sunrise, it might be late but it will be there.