Skype

So I just downloaded Skype. It's a free online phone/chat service so if you want to be able to call me or be called by me while I am away this is the way to do it!

My username is: cdenoyo

 

Kind of waiting...

Ok, so a lot has happened since my last post and now. 

I heard from AFS and have now been formally accepted into Belgium! yay! I still don't know which city i'll be in or who my host family will be but that is all supposed to come within a week...or, at least, that's what they tell me. We'll see.

So right now I'm trying to work out my visa app. Which is proving to be quite difficult. It's very complicated and not easy to understand. But that's ok, I'm the master of tedious paperwork and weird forms! 

Now that my departure is quickly approaching (Aug 18-21), I am getting a little scared. I'm still super excited but now I'm worrying about learning the language and fitting in. Oh well! It's just something I'm going to have to overcome! I think now is a good time to start making some goals for my year abroad, so here are some that I can think of off the top of my head.

Pre-Departure Goals:

1) Become fluent (or at least very comfortable) in French.

2) Do well in all of my classes...and at least try to do all the homework!

3) Make the long distance relationship work.

4) Keep a good balance between talking to my friends/family at home and my new friends/family in Belgium.

5) Be a good representative of my country. (Sounds cheesy, but I don't want to break some of the US stereotypes that they might have over there.)

6) Learn more about the European culture and hopefully gain some more worldly perspective.

That's all I can think of for now...but as I see them written out like that and the more I think about it, the more confident I am that I will be able to at least partially fulfill all of my goals!

I'm excited.

Still waiting/Intro

Hello everyone, ha everyone.
So ever since early September (2008), I have been doing paperwork, gettting shots, doing paperwork, renewing my passport, getting letters of recommendation, doing paperwork, being interviewed, doing paperwork, trying to get a hold of my adviser, doing paperwork and finding out there is still more to do after I had been told I was done....oh, and more paperwork!

Well, at this point it's been going on for 11 weeks and still nothing. Though rather than being annoyed I've just decided to deal with it. I really am lucky to be able to do something like this and patience in the least I can give in return...

I have been accepted as a Global Leadership Scholar. I would just like to say "Thank you so much!" I am very honored to have been awarded this scholarship; it makes me even more excited to go (and I thought that wasn't possible!)

Well, one of the requirements for the scholarship is that I keep a blog, so viola, here it is! I'm also supposed to say a little about myself and why I chose to do an exchange, what I expect to learn from it blah blah blah etc etc... So here I go...

My interest in cultures started when I was a freshman in french 1. Before too long, though I didn't know much french, I fell in love with the language and I knew it wouldn't just a passing fancy, but rather a lifelong affair. Each new thing I learned just made me yearn for more. And it didn't stop with french, I soon became interested in several different cultures. How could I have gone so long without opening my eyes to the rest of the world? How could I be so blind? 

Soon, I became completely enamoured with Europe. I had never been there. I didn't care. I just  knew. When I first went to Italy with my family a few summers back,  it completely exceeded my expectations. From that point on I became obsessed with traveling and hungry for adventure.

I loved the feeling of being submersed into another culture and learned so much from it. Which brings me to why I am doing an exchange. What would it be like to live in another culture? Not only would I learn so much from it, but I would also be able to represent my country and hopefully better its reputation. But truly, I don't really know what it will be like.

That's why I'm doing it.