It Begins

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while, I've been busy with school.  This blog post should be a pretty good update on my life.

Well, it's official.  I am officially an AFS Italy student.  A few days ago, I got an email saying that I was accepted to the Spring 2015 program.  YAY!  I started this crazy process in March of 2012, and have been looking forward to this day ever since.  This is a big deal to most people, but this is monumental for me.  With the amount of work and time I have put into this, it feels incredible to finally see it pay off.  As of right now, I am just about 4 months away from departure, but it feels like two weeks.  Everything became so real when I read that email.  I'm ready to just pack my suitcase and go!

So where do I go from here? Well, the only thing AFS Italy has left to do is find me a host family.  I hope that they find me one fast, but I know that this is probably the longest, most unpredictable, process.  I could have a host family next week, or I could have one 2 days before departure; no one knows for sure.  I am very excited to meet the family.  I want as much time as possible to learn about them before I go, it would make the adaption process that much easier.

That is the big next step for me.  There is a lot of small stuff that I have to organize, but I have been trying to get ahead on those for like a year, so I'm not worried about it.  I need to make sure I am up to date on all my vaccinations (done), start learning the language (done), start looking at flights to New York (done), and emotionally prepare myself for leaving, (not so done).

Now that I know that I am going for sure, I am trying to prepare myself to leave everything behind.  I am already trying to separate myself from social networks, and attempting to be as independent as I can.  I don't want to completely cut ties with everything quite yet though, because I know I will miss them when I'm gone.  It's rough.... haha

Well, that's about it.  I will try to update this more often as things happen.  It should start getting interesting now!

Quick Update

Just to keep you guys informed, here is what has happened in the last month.

It was around mid-August when AFS informed me that my application was ready to get sent to Italy. Of course, I told them to send it ASAP, and they said I should hear back 6-8 weeks later. Well, that was about 4 weeks ago, so I should be hearing back from them pretty quick! (hopefully).  It was around that same time that my financial aid went up for review.  They sent it to "the committee" (which sounds super threatening by the way), and about a week later they sent me an email.  They awarded me a generous amount of money, and I'm very appreciative. (Thanks AFS!)

So that's about it. I'll keep you posted when things change.  Things should be picking up here pretty quick.