Tuesday 31 May 2011

How I got to this place

I don't know the exact moment I was actually like 'Wow I want to leave my house and go away for a year to a place where I don't speak the language and live there. For a year'. Yeah I don't remember that. I remember in 7th grade reading the Georgia Nicholson series and she also talked about Sven the foreign exchange student and Germany. Not together though. Sven wasn't from Germany. But anyway I had though about going to Germany because of that. Then the summer 9th grade (yeah 9th grade was last year but don't I sound older when I call it 9th grade) I just started looking up all these exchange programs.

Then I found the scholarships. I don't know, I thought why take my parent's money when I could just get a scholarship. And I applied to YES Abroad and NSLI-Y. The applications were basically the same.
Why do you want to go? Tell us a time where you felt like an outsider and how you dealt with that. Are you good at adapting? yea yea questions like these
After a few months maybe February/March (??) I was selected as a semi finalist for both. My interview for NSLI-Y was here in Los Angeles. For YES Abroad there was a In Person Selection Event in Denver. Denver was awesome I met with 73 other kids who wanted the same opportunity I did which turned out not to be awkward at all. I mean here we are competing for a scholarship but we're having a really good time. It was weird, in a good way. I mean how often do you just like people? (I'm kidding of course I love people otherwise why go on exchange)
But I returned home from that and then come April people start getting emails about acceptances.

It was the worst. Here I am on my nice 2 week long Spring Break freaking out over what country I'm supposed to be in next year. Then like 2 days after I go back to school I get the email. 'You've been accepted to the YES Abroad program to go to Indonesia with AFS. '

And that is how I became a YES student to Indonesia. Ok you probably only half know what that means by now. I'll explain YES next time. Promise.

The Beginning Actually

This is the beginning of my blog and so I guess I'll start with some type of beginning.
The title of this blog - Well I've always had this thing with eating. In 9th grade my phrase was 'I'm going to eat you ... rawr'. Really, it's even engraved on my ipod. Everyone knows I have a thing with eating. (Wow I have a tumblr too and I basically wrote this same idea down) So that need to eat, to want to have something really badly turned into my need to go on exchange.


But before I talk about where I'm going I'll talk about me. Me, Ankhet. Well I'm a girl. Pretty young y' know. Really young if you think about it. I live in Los Angeles, California, United States of America. Got really specific there for those people who might not know what LA, CA is. I'm watching out for you. Ok, I go to school. Read. Hang out. Normal young people stuff. LA stuff.

I have a family. It's not just me by myself. I have my mom, dad, younger brother and sister. I only tell you this because it might be important later if I were ever to tell you a funny story. Wow I don't know what else to say I already know what to say about exchange just not about myself.
Oh I have a tumblr. It's about much the same things but it'll be the place where I put small things that might not constitute a whole post here. More my stream of thought at tumblr. Here it's like a river or waterfall. You choose.
It's weird but I actually have a paper to write. I should probably go now. I think I kind of love this new blog thing.