- Well, we started looking into immunization stuff. It looks like I will need the following:
- Hepatitis A
- Typhoid
- Possibly Yellow Fever
- Possibly Rabies
- Malaria pills of some kind
- I have discovered (according to my counselor and a couple other people I have asked) that I will not need to get any type of visa before I leave. Apparently, I'll be good for like 120 or 180 days or something, then I need to go to Chile or something to get a stamp on my passport... or something. Haha still not completely sure (hence the 'or something's)
- I had my 2nd orientation! It was not really any more informative than the first orientation, but it was good to see everyone. My family drove the inbound student in my city (from Germany) with us to the orientation. We had blazer fittings right away in the morning (luckily I got there a few minutes before the giant mass of students came in, so I missed the 15 minute wait ;) ) It was pretty funny actually. I walked over, and the man doing the fittings immediately grabbed the smallest jacket on the rack (they had a variety of sizes available just to get an idea on sizing). I put it on, and felt super awesome. I already love that thing. Anyways, it was a tad big and so he said they would 'take it in a bit'. I'm looking forward to the 3rd orientation where we will get the blazers and will have the chance to take photos and what not.
One of the main questions I would get asked is "What made you want to do this? Why did you decide to become a foreign exchange student?" For some reason, that was always a really difficult question for me, and it still is. When I got into high school, I was introduced to all the exchange students, and for some reason I became kind of interested in what they were doing. It was such a cool idea-- to live in another country for a year, go to a foreign school, learn a new language. So I started doing some research online about different programs. And here is the main thing I discovered: FOREIGN EXCHANGE IS CRAZY EXPENSIVE. YFU and AFS seemed great, but come on, who has $13,000 laying around? I mean, seriously?? So then I found Rotary, and learned that it was quite a bit cheaper. And then the funniest thing happened. I was sitting at school, and on the announcements, there was an announcement saying that anyone interested in being a Rotary Youth Exchange Student was invited to come to a meeting on (I don't remember the date). So I went. There was one other girl (plus the inbound from South Korea). I got to be fairly good friends with that girl. She was a year older than me, named Taylor. We found out that we both worked at the same restaurant (I had just started there). We both applied, went through local interviews, then went to the more intense district interviews. Unfortunately, I later received a letter saying I had not been accepted. Taylor was accepted, and left for South Africa that summer. Obviously I was really disappointed. But the next year, I applied again, went to interviews again, and then one morning I received a call. The woman asked if I had received my letter. I said no. She said I had been accepted, and that when I got my letter, there would be a mistake on it. She went on to tell me that my letter would say "New Zealand" but I would actually be going to Peru. I got my letter that same day. Yup, New Zealand. I was extremely happy, because I had regretted putting Peru so far down on my list. (It was #4 out of 5 I think..) And here I am today. So I would say if you are interested in doing this, jump on it right away. Search for your local rotary club and ask about youth exchange.
Peace out girl scout.
-Ginga
