Where should I start.... Ok I will rewind back to like 2 weeks ago. A member of the AFS staff for my local chapter called my mom and was checking with my application that I opened but didn't really ever finish it. My mom talked to her and spoke about how I was still interested in going abroad (because that was like the only thing I ever talked about) and she left her number for me to call her. After a little bit of phone tag we communicated through email about what I needed to do in order to go abroad THIS fall. Fast forward to Thursday the 18th I had an Olive Garden interview, which consisted of me, my mother, Mrs. McManus, Mrs.Harmon and Mr. Koenig. I had Mrs. Harmon as my interviewer and it was very casual, just questions and answers, and how my mom would describe my personality. I also learned that Mr. Koenig was from our local scholarship commitee which at the end of the dinner he decided to give me a $7000 scholarship for me to go abroad this year! (This was great because earlier that day AFS Global Leaders decided to give me $2500 toward my tuition and I also got a $200 credit for hosting with AFS.)
Let's break this down...
$13750 tuition for a year in Italy
-$7000 Friends of AFS scholarship
-$2500 Global Leaders
-$200 AFS Family Award =
$4050 worth of tuition, that my family can afford. THANK YOU JESUS!!!!
I was in awe I wanted to cry tears of joy!!! I mean my dream was becoming reality within the matter of minutes. It still makes me emotional when I reflect on that. Anyways that is when it became real to me that I could really go on exchange! The thing is the deadline was the 25th and I had to finish my application. YIKES!!! So I urgently started to work on it because there was no way I was going to not going to go because I did not finish my application on time....
This week has been hectic to say the least, I have been to the doctor, to my old school for transcripts (even though they weren't the easiest people to work with), obtain my birth certificate, sign several forms. But really if you are focused on getting the application done, you will do EVERYTHING to get it done. Plus, I was under a time restraint (talk about pressure). But on the 25th (yes the deadline to the date) I fully completed my AFS application and it is currently being transferred over to AFS-Italy.
There is so many thanks that I have to give out but these are the people that put forth a lot of support, money and time to help me go abroad.
My mother, has done sooooo much running around for me, even though this is a hard thing for her to decide because I am her youngest and this will be my senior year.
Mrs. McManus, I have been in close contact with her from the beginning of this process and she has given me soooo much support and so much of her time and resources. Really thank you so much!!!!
Mr. Koenig and Mrs. Frances for giving me a scholarship that made this trip possible for me, I literally want to cry now just thinking about it now. And because this is a life changing experience that you guys made possible and I will never ever forget what you guys have done for me! Thank you is truly never going to justify how grateful I actually feel and what this means to me. But THANK YOU!
AFS for giving me a total of $2700 in scholarships that allowed me to go on this trip. (literally if I had to pay another $1000 I probably wouldn't be able to go.) So thank you and I look forward to going on an exchange with you this year!!! :)
This is only the beginning for me and I hope that I will be able to document my experiences well because I know beforehand I would literally check everyones blog to see if this was something for me, so hopefully I can do the same with my blog.... Now I have a lot of waiting to do, buying things that I will bring, learn Italian *SCARY* and dream about what it will be like.
Ciao
Shayla
